About Those Armed Protestors at the Capitol - The Georgia Capitol

Georgia State Representative Park Cannon returned to the State Capitol on Monday following an arrest on May 25, 2021, for making a scene banging on the door to the office where Governor Brian Kemp was signing the election security bill. How that works out is of little interest to me personally. She is not my state representative and legislators who pull stunts to make themselves the story rather than their accomplishments annoy me.

She claimed that she should be able to watch Kemp sign the bill along with the activists who accompanied her. Cannon could have done that by pulling out her phone and watching on YouTube. She claimed she was arrested for fighting voter suppression when she was actually arrested for refusing to follow the police’s instructions and stomping on one officer’s foot repeatedly. That’s conduct unbecoming her position, in my humble opinion.

Her return was quite a spectacle with a presser and an entourage that garnered additional media attention, including from national outlets like Fox News. There were many pictures on social media and in the press showing the activists supporting her. Here is an example from the ACLU of Georgia:

Images from the escorting of Representative Park Cannon into the state Capitol today. #StandWithPark #protectthevoteGA #gapol pic.twitter.com/bCrKjrguLk

— ACLU of Georgia (@ACLUofGA) March 29, 2021

Here is the video from Channel 11:

VIP: What’s the Real Story Behind the Dem Arrested for Knocking on Kemp’s Door?

The circus and attention-seeking have not stopped. Cannon is raising funds and still getting in front of microphones. She is also wearing a sling for what may or may not be an injury related to her arrest. You may make your own assessment. And the entourage seems permanent. On Wednesday, members of the Georgia Republican Party were on-site to witness the spectacle, and they noticed something interesting: an armed guard escorting the entourage. Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer tweeted the images after eyewitnesses sent them to him:

Masked, helmeted private militia carrying AK47s and AR15s showed up today at the State Capitol. You have not heard about it because the gunmen are radical leftists. Imagine the news coverage if one of them was wearing a MAGA cap. pic.twitter.com/4dEatissEk

— David Shafer (@DavidShafer) March 31, 2021

It is unclear if this group was present earlier in the week, as I have not found any images of them on social media from Monday or Tuesday. However, ignoring this element of the entourage would be typical of the media and the Left. At the end of March 2021, armed radical left protestors swarmed the Oregon State Capitol to disrupt a Freedom Rally — to crickets in the establishment press. Only new media covered the story. Many Americans probably do not even know it happened or that antifa destroyed personal vehicles, along with other things.

Yet when armed protestors showed up at the Michigan State Capitol to protest draconian lockdowns or rallied in Virginia to support their Second Amendment rights, the corporate media gave pearl-clutching coverage in advance. The establishment media still reference the U.S. Capitol riot in January after weeks of showing the same reels repeatedly. No arrest to date of someone who entered the Capitol that day includes charges for possession of a firearm.

Armed Antifa Attack ‘Freedom Rally’ at Oregon’s Capitol and Police Only Help When Old Man Pulls Gun on Attackers

Here is the full video of Cannon entering the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday:

I will give these individuals the benefit of the doubt regarding the legality of their guns. This article is not a commentary on open carry by legal gun owners. Instead, I intend to point out which type of protestors with firearms the media chooses to comment on and which ones they don’t. The premise for covering the protests in Michigan and Virginia involving members of the political Right was that emotions were high on significant policy issues. Georgia is in the same circumstance now, with the erroneous national and local coverage of the election security law. Even President Biden received four Pinocchios from the Washington Post for his incorrect comments.

The eyewitness who took the video gave PJ Media his impression of what he witnessed:

A half dozen heavily armed militia surrounded the state legislator who was arrested last week for assaulting a state trooper, presumably to protect her from another arrest. It was surreal. There was no clash between the leftists and the state troopers although we saw one trooper with a rifle. There were a half dozen more who were similarly dressed but not openly bearing firearms.

If Cannon has received threats requiring this type of security, providing it requires licensure in the state. If not, the rank hypocrisy of her allowing this on her behalf is pretty astonishing. Here she is at the March for Our lives in 2018, which advocates for gun control, including outlawing the very guns these individuals are carrying:

There is absolutely nothing other than the lack of political will holding us back on passing common sense #gun control measures. The general public is with us not the #NRA. #MarchforourlivesATL @Cannonfor58 @SenNanOrrock @MomsDemand #gapol pic.twitter.com/LZAApczl5o

— Rep. Renitta Shannon (@RenittaShannon) March 24, 2018

She also called Representative Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) her mentor, and McBath ran on a gun control agenda:

Have you seen my mentor @LucyWins2018 in @ELLEmagazine!? Early voting for her runoff is taking place right now in Northern Atlanta where our other strong leader #Ossoff awakened voters last year! https://t.co/QV5P59uRGJ #VoteEarly #MomsDemand #Vote #FlipThe6th #GApol

— Representative Park Cannon (@Cannonfor58) July 9, 2018

You can bet if armed citizens showed up to escort a Republican legislator amidst the election security bill controversy, it would have made national coverage. When left-wing groups do it, it is completely ignored. Perhaps Cannon has just adopted the Democrat ruling class perspective “guns for me but not for thee.” You don’t see anyone in Hollywood or Washington D.C. giving up their armed guards while advocating for commonsense gun control. It makes complete sense to them that you shouldn’t have one.