Paul,

".... shock was a black kid in the Dallas protest with an automatic weapon slung over his shoulder, nothing to do with the shootings, but he was just exercising his right to "bear arms" in Dallas not Baghdad"

He didn't have an automatic weapon, automatic firearms are very strictly regulated in the US; he was however extremely stupid.

Is Mise,

"He didn't have an automatic weapon, automatic firearms are very strictly regulated in the US; he was however extremely stupid."

He had a dirty great AR-15 slung over his shoulder - and he was garbed in a camouflage print shirt.

Interesting how you deem him "stupid".

He was doing exactly what the law in his state allows - and the kind of thing the NRA approves of. The fact that he was strutting about trying to make himself look intimidating, strolling down the road with other folk heading to a peaceful rally is par for the course in the US. I've lost count of the number of pics I've seen of similarly clad American youths doing things like buying ice cream with long firearms slung over themselves.

They do it because they can..the fact that many of them are immature, uneducated...stupid....trying to look intimidating - apparently isn't something that's taken into account when some of these jurisdiction pass their ridiculous open-carry laws.

Lets all not forget the US government gave thousands of high-powered weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/08/barack-obama-backs-operation-fast-furious-drops-executive-privilege-claim-documents/

Let's not forget the roots of America's malaise:

"I became interested in figuring out the language: how do Americans talk about the poor? And then I realized that this is connected to the larger problem Americans have about class, that they believe a myth. We are told over and over again by writers, sometimes journalists, but mainly politicians, that we are an exceptional country, that we embrace the American dream. And that’s rooted to this idea that we believe in social mobility. And we think that that idea, that promise, goes all the way back to the American revolution, that at that moment we broke free from the British system and that somehow we unburdened ourselves from the English class system. Now this is a problem that Americans have – they often prefer the myth over reality."

".... I became very aware of the importance of how Jefferson talked about the poor. He has this amazing line where, at the same moment that he’s calling for the education of the poor, something the Virginia legislature would reject, he refers to the poor as “rubbish.”"

"Right. And this is one other thing I talk about: the problem of our American democracy. And we can take it back to Andrew Jackson. An Australian writer wrote in 1949 that we don’t have a real democracy, we have what’s called a democracy of manners. Which means that people will accept huge disparities of wealth, but they will vote for someone who pretends to be just like us. And how do politicians do that? In Trump’s case, he steps down from his penthouse, puts on his bubba cap..."

Shades of Hanson there.

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/09/the_deep_roots_of_white_trash_in_america_not_only_are_we_not_a_post_racial_society_we_are_certainly_not_a_post_class_society/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Might interest you, o sung wu, quite a lengthy article examining the class system of America which, together with that country's love affair with modern weaponry, will probably feed its continuing societal dysfunction.

Poirot,

Well, he didn't have an automatic weapon, let's be accurate.

I deem him stupid because that was not the time to strut one's Constitutional Rights; Americans also have the Constitutional Right to free speech but anyone who walks into a theatre and shouts "FIRE!" would also be stupid.

Is Mise,

The point we have been making is that if it's legislated to open-carry weapons or whatever with firearms...who takes into account the stupidity or maliciousness of the certain members of the general population?

It's like a game of roulet...just hoping you dont get in the sights of a nutter with a perfectly "legal" right to carry a weapon that shoots deadly missiles from a distance.