Since I found it fit to make com­ment on the polit­i­cal state­ments made by one of the travel industry’s lead­ing lights, I think it only fair to be bipar­ti­san about things. This from the 80-year-old Arthur From­mer on the group blog at his company’s travel web site (blog­ging knows age limits!):

I am not yet cer­tain whether I would advo­cate a travel boy­cott by others of the state of Ari­zona; I want to learn more about Arizona’s gun laws and how they com­pare with those of other states. But I am shocked beyond mea­sure by reports that ear­lier this week, nearly a dozen per­sons, includ­ing one with an assault rifle strapped about his shoul­ders and others with pis­tols in their hands or hol­sters, were openly con­gre­gat­ing out­side a hall at which Pres­i­dent Obama was speak­ing to the Vet­er­ans of For­eign Wars.

For myself, with­out yet sug­gest­ing that others follow me in an open boy­cott, I will not per­son­ally travel in a state where civil­ians carry loaded weapons onto the side­walks and as a means of polit­i­cal protest. I not only believe such prac­tices are a threat to the future of our democ­racy, but I am firmly con­vinced that they would also endan­ger my own per­sonal safety there. And there­fore I will cancel any plans to vaca­tion or oth­er­wise visit in Ari­zona until I learn more. And I will begin think­ing about whether tourists should safe­guard them­selves by avoid­ing stays in Arizona.

And:

I would feel as I do regard­less of the polit­i­cal iden­tity of the speaker whom these thugs attempted to intim­i­date. The con­tin­ued tol­er­ance of extrem­ists car­ry­ing guns is a fright­en­ing devel­op­ment which strikes at the heart of the polit­i­cal process and endan­gers the abil­ity to carry out a rea­soned debate. Is there any respon­si­ble cit­i­zen of the United States who believes that people should carry guns to a public debate or speech? If Ronald Reagan were deliv­er­ing a polit­i­cal talk in Phoenix, Ari­zona, would they have felt it was proper for pro­tes­tors with guns to mill about out­side the hall from which he would leave?