Angry protesters in Chattanooga: When’s the government going to do something?

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Paula Proxmire was surrounded by screaming street preachers, angry protesters and unsettled mourners who had just arrived from Sunday church.

Her son, Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith, 26, had died Saturday from wounds suffered in a shooting rampage here. The attacker was an aimless, depressed 24-year-old Muslim man whose online postings suggest he may have been motivated by radical Islamist movements.

Proxmire stood across from the bullet-riddled Armed Forces Recruiting Center, one of two military sites attacked by the gunman last week. She brushed back a strand of sweat-soaked hair and sobbed. Her son had been dead for barely one day. Around her people were screaming.

“I can’t believe these people even come here to this country!” one woman yelled. “Why do they come here?”

“Because they want to kill us,” a man answered.

The television cameras edged closer to get a tight shot of Proxmire’s tears. The agitated crowd, many of them carrying holstered pistols, wanted to know why the Obama administration and the military weren’t doing more to kill Islamist extremists in Iraq, Syria or wherever they might be. They were furious at a U.S. military policy, enacted during the Clinton administration, that prevents recruiters from carrying firearms while on duty.

“How many more mothers have to go through this before we finally do something about it?” yelled Darrell Gibbs, 55, pastor at Highways and Hedges Ministries. “How many mothers have to suffer like this, having cameras shoved down their throats?”

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