Gun-Toting Obama Protester Is a Birther

William Kostric, the man who showed up to protest at Obama’s town hall meeting yesterday with a loaded gun strapped to his leg, told Chris Matthews that he wasn’t affiliated with birther groups. But a web user by the same name has left a digital trail that proves otherwise: "William Kostric" is listed as a “team member” of We the People, a right-wing group that joined a lawsuit challenging Obama’s citizenship, reports Joan Walsh for Salon.

The chances that the two are not the same person "seem slim to none," she notes. Kostric’s other digital footprints mark him as an ardent libertarian. His MySpace page lists among his heroes We the People’s founder, Ayn Rand’s John Galt character, and white supremacist Randy Weaver. He signed a pledge to move to New Hampshire and, with like-minded Libertarians, work to secede. There’s no sign he’s violent, though "William Kostric" once wrote on a libertarian site that drug dealers were justified in shooting police who came into their homes to arrest them. (More guns stories.)