I'll be clean and groomed, wearing decent clothes, although certainly not a suit and tie
^This^
I'll be clean, in clean clothes that are professional and not worn out, and I'll have a recent shave & haircut. I might clean up my boots, even. I won't have my pockets bulging with miscellaneous stuff, if I need a bag it will be something simple and clean.
If it's an OC event, I'll have an interesting gun in a quality holster. If it's not OC friendly, I'll have a discreetly concealed handgun and nobody will know. I'm unlikely to OC a rifle, but if I did it would be an M1 carbine, a lever gun, or anything with a nice wood stock and blued steel.
But all that will be for nothing, just like wearing a suit or a uniform would be ...
BECAUSE THE MEDIA WILL POINT THE CAMERAS AT THE SCARY PEOPLE.
Remember this?
They cropped down the picture to disguise race, and called the crowd a bunch of racist crackers.
The media is not our friend. If you think rallies are full of old white dudes with beards, camo, and bad tattoos, you probably also believe that Trayvon Martin was a cute 12yo kid in a football jersey.
The media is clueless and hostile.
I present the following for anyone that thinks the media is accurately portraying rally attendance:
Michael Crichton said:
Michael Crichton > Quotes > Quotable Quote
Michael Crichton
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
I'll also submit this image, notice the gun control rally twits clustering up to look like a larger group:
Do you think that was their idea? Do you think the camera dude and reporter noticed?