Openly carried assault rifles have become an all too common feature of political events around the country and are having a chilling effect on the exercise of political speech… [We must address] the armed intimidation that has become commonplace in public places and the gun culture that makes it possible… [An] obsession with “tactical culture” and rifles like the AR-15 [is] a fringe movement among the 81 million American gun owners, but it is one of several alarming trends that have coincided with the increase in political violence in this country, along with the spread of far-right extremist groups, an explosion of anti-government sentiment and the embrace of deranged conspiracy theories by many Republican politicians.