Protesters should not be allowed to carry long guns to state Capitol buildings, retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré told MSNBC's "The Sunday Show" with Jonathan Capehart.
Honoré was chosen Friday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to head a review of the Capitol riot Jan. 6, looking into "security infrastructure, interagency processes and procedures, and command and control," The Hill reported.
"We can't have demonstrators showing up at a state Capitol with damn long guns," Honoré told MSNBC. "Your First Amendment right doesn't give you the right to carry long guns to a demonstration. And that is confusing the hell out of police and intimidating people. Remember one of the objectives of a terrorist is to intimidate, if not to cause violent harm."
He stressed, "the definition of terrorism is people who use violence and intimidation to achieve a political or religious objective. We've always worked those tests in the Army I was in, in foreign countries. Now we have to look into it, and that's going to cause some hard work by the Congress and the DOJ to make sure that we're actively working those people with terrorist intent, before they show up at the Capitol."
He insisted all the tools in the box already exist to deal with such situations, "but we got to get the tools in the box working. They did not work that day."
Honoré is best known for serving as commander of the Joint Task Force Katrina, which coordinated relief efforts for those affected by the 2005 hurricane.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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