Can't they screen Demonstrators for weapons?

[speaktruthtopower]

...with metal detectors like many other public gatherings? The weaponry those people were marching around with while people nearby were brawling in the streets was mind boggling.

The Charlottesville PD, with all sympathy for the officers lost in the copter, could have looked a lot worse.

[Corgigal]

1. I believe it depends on the state

These open carry state, well what can you do.

I live in Kentucky, open carry but husband has a conceal permit. This all just happened this year, cause of these idiot cos player nazi boys.

[speaktruthtopower]

3. I live in an open carry state...

and if I go downtown to see a sports event, I have to go through a metal detector. They can screen sport fans and not Klansmen, Nazis and people wearing masks?

[fantase56]

4. my thoughts exactly

in going to concerts, sporting events, outdoor venues I've been required to go through metal detectors and have any bag or backpack searched. no folding chairs, no umbrellas, and even walking canes are suspect. yet these Nazi thugs had firearms, baseball bats, sticks and shields and who knows what else. police hypocrisy?!

[speaktruthtopower]

5. You would think..

the police would want these people disarmed in case they had to get actively involved, which of course should have been seen as inevitable early in the day.

Inadequate preparation.

[DBoon]

2. open carry laws

Say you have a legal right to carry a firearm

The NRA thinks of everything

[speaktruthtopower]

6. I'd like to know if armed individuals were in the fist fights...

either way I hope PDs around the country adjust their approaches. Could have been much worse. One news report said that 60% of the protestors were armed. In a college town, no less.

[krispos42]

7. More backlash from previous gun-control attempts.

An awful lot of states are open-carry now, which means you can carry unconcealed firearms.

Which includes rifles, shotguns, AND handguns.

Except for a couple of states, gun laws are significantly looser than they were a dozen years ago and it's a direct result of the culture war aspect of the Democrat's gun-control push since Clinton.

Open carry in public spaces should not be allowed within city limits.