“New Hampshire’s Republican governor said Wednesday that he is canceling his outdoor inauguration ceremony next month because of public safety concerns — namely, armed protesters who have been gathering outside his home in the weeks since he issued a mask order,” wrote Roanoke Virginia’s WSLS NBC Affiliate today
Related: More Fearmongering as NH Gov. Chris Sununu Cancels His Upcoming Outdoor Inauguration.
This story and many like it followed Governor Sununu’s announcement where he stated,
“My first responsibility is ensuring the safety of my family and our citizens” Gov. Chris Sununu said in a news release. “For weeks, armed protesters have increasingly become more aggressive, targeting my family, protesting outside my private residence, and trespassing on my property — an outdoor public ceremony simply brings too much risk. We do not make this decision lightly but it is the right thing to do.”
However, a cursory search through the many news accounts regarding the protests, be they the Seacoast Online, Fosters, Patch, and other newsers covering said protests failed to mention in those accounts, guns or armed protestors. Particularly, the story of late where one individual was arrested and others were ticketed. Not even WMUR.
If there were visible guns, surely the public would have seen a photo, or a news article about, “armed protestors.” History is our witness. We’ve seen these, “armed protests,” at the State House Common…lots of guns and lots of press showing guns, mentioning guns, talking about guns. Guns, guns, guns.
Inversely, we see none of the above in any of the protest stories leading up to the Governor’s decision to cancel his inaugural. Did the press overlook the said guns? Has the leftist anti-gun media suddenly decided the mere specter of guns is no longer important? Doubtful.
The real problem here is that the Governor is not listening to some of the folks. He consciously chooses not to give them any degree of an audience. They are no less his constituency than anybody else in the Granite State. Yet, he has become tin-eared to them. They simply do not exist. Nobody has asked the Governor to agree with them. He and they may well continue to disagree on the issues of the virus and how the state is managed.
Instead, the Governor has chosen to engage in Straw Man Politics. Governor Sununu, with one single press release, has thrown the Second Amendment Supporters, whose votes he received not so long ago, and thrown them under the bus. Governor Sununu has publicly taken a group of protestors and thrown them in with the larger Second Amendment community. That is a big community.
The Governor would do well to expand his circle of counsel on these matters.
