Pro-life demonstrators in the United States have been threatened in two separate gun incidents.

In the first incident, police in Tennessee, moved to detain Derrick Doss outside the Bristol Women’s Clinic following reports he had waved a gun at demonstrators.

According to witnesses cited in Lifesite News, Doss had earlier walked with a female companion into the clinic past the demonstrators. When he left alone, he walked to his car and retrieved a gun there and approached the same demonstrators and brandished the weapon at them, reportedly cocking the gun, before once more entering the clinic. Police attending the scene made a peaceful arrest of Doss and subsequently charged him with aggravated assault despite his insistence that he had taken the gun from the car for his own protection having felt threatened by the demonstrators.

The result in the Bristol case stands in contrast to events in the state of North Carolina, where police also detained a man after pro-life protestors reported being threatened with a handgun.

Demonstrators at the Women’s Choice clinic in Raleigh called police when, in the course of speaking to a man in the car-park of the facility, he produced a pistol from his vehicle and pointed it towards them. The incident was captured by a video camera worn by one of the demonstrators.

However, investigating police declined to arrest the man in question, and instead escorted him to and from the building.

According to the demonstrators, Raleigh’s Police Department is currently taking a case against them for blocking the right of way to the clinic by laying foetal models on the pavement outside.