Noted travel guide writer and publisher Arthur Frommer today on a news program I happened to see indicated that he would boycott Arizona because of their policies of allowing open gun display during public discussions of Obama's policies. Interesting because his rationale is the same that I posted some time ago on a discussion of guns, 2nd amendment rights, danger from gun violence and what gun display is really about.
According to what I heard from Frommer in the interview, he couldn't believe that police would let openly armed people attend public functions. First, because of the inherent danger in their use of the guns of course if the debate became inflamed or irrational. Second, and most of all, because the public display of guns is in no way whatsoever intended to be"defensive". It is of course "offensive", and intended to intimidate and bully people out of having a rational discussion.
I'm not particularly worried about gun violence - more people die each year from a variety of simple causes than from gun deaths (pools are very dangerous for children, ladders for adults), and guns aren't ostensibly used for defense. They're used for intimidation and fear - in fact to incite literal terror in any who possibly could be at the wrong end of the barrel: instruments of terrorism.
Frommer noted that there simply is no rational justification for having an loaded and visible assault rifle in the hands of someone roaming around a debate on healthcare.
So, from his perspective, Arizona is to dangerous to visit and look at opinions on for people who want to travel.
The response from Arizona of course is the usual blather about his causing problems. But they can't get away from the fact that by ignoring Arizona in his travel guides, much like boycotting states for travel convention business, the impact is significant enough that people are forced to consider the consequences of ludicrous public policy.
Unfortunately I can't find any YouTube clips of it but it's mentioned quite a few places googling frommer and arizona together.