Washblog

On gun-toting straight-shooting constitutionalists

Last week I watched Chris Matthews challenge the gun-toter in New England.

Got me to thinking. It seems that the slogan driving these folks with the big iron(s) on their hips is ...


 

"If you block me from using my First Amendment Right I will exercise my Second Amendment Right and use my weapon on you!"


... or something like that.

As to who the traitorous un-American "YOU" bent on destroying our liberties is ...  and the reasoning behind the extreme step of using a weapon against another citizen, well that's up for interpretation.

Apparently whoever it is seems to be the evil spawn of the 1930's and 1940's Germanic and Italian terrorists who have somehow re-incarnated into the 21st century.

But that's confusing because aren't them guys the historic heroic idols of extreme right wing American pseudo-patriotism?

The "H" guy? Or better even, the Mussolini guy who was not ashamed of government corporatism while lying to and bleeding the common citizens in order to keep the rich in power?

I believe it is called "carrying" and is part of making what is considered a patriotic statement having to do with defending our liberties whenever and wherever those freedoms appear to be under attack.

So then, what does "under attack" mean?

What is in the mind of someone who feels the need to publicly flaunt  personal ownership of a weapon because something frightens him that is not frightening most people who are otherwise civically engaged and active.

Is there a difference?

Well, although we all have that right, some of us use common sense that dictates that one need not  "carry" unless a defense of rights is necessary right now - we are under literal and immediate physical attack, war or invasion of our country.

Otherwise, "carrying" is just another word for "packing" (as in heat) which declares


 

`I'm a macho guy who could accidently shoot a kid, a little old lady or her pet if I was of a mind to. `


A veteran myself, I know lots of other veterans in my coastal community who HAVE used a weapon in defense of our country.  We are genuine - the real thing - and wouldn't hesitate to leave our homes, leave the churches before the sermon ends, leave the tavern with the last beer unfinished, drop what we're doing, jump in our trucks, get our weapons and make haste to the scene of threat or action.

We'd do it in a moment's notice cause we know where our weapons are - kept safe under lock and key until needed.

And for most of those I know it wouldn't be any different if those attacking were government agents or military troops sent to forcibly take our weapons away,  put us in some kind of internment camp, force us to pay our taxes or execute us for fornication.

But  that is not what is happening.

Nothing even close to that is happening although in recent years I wouldn't have put such a possibility beyond the reach of the Dick Cheney imperial presidency plan. Now there was a loose cannon threatening the entire bill of rights (remember the loss of habeas corpus?

That was real.

That was political.

That was an extreme Republican Conservative move.

That was endorsed by pretend patriot blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and Hannity.

Glen Beck would have endorsed it on whatever network dumb enough to hire him back then so long as  he could see through his country-lovin snake oil tears.

So who is packing ... er, I mean "carrying?"

All I can venture is a perceptual speculation based on behavior, verbiage and posturing.

Most carriers appear to be dying to be seen  publicly wearing.

Most carriers appear to be hoping someone will challenge them so they can then draw.

Most carriers act like they will be disappointed if they don't get to publicly use the weapon so as to be seen as heroic.

It seems to me that would-be Second Amendment heroes won't hesitate to manufacture (imagine) enemies to the homeland in order to sustain a macho sense that hearkens back to every Wayne or Eastwood movie where the good guy gets to shoot somebody.

Or they are willing to suspend judgment and critical thinking by falling for any broadcast lie hook, line and sinker.

So when you see a carrier packing in public with a cold hard stare hidden by movie-hero sunglasses you can read in that stone cold facial expression and posturing this message:


 

"Please!

 

Before it's too late and I can no longer be and feel heroic!

 

Please .... somebody make my day!"


Flash your weapons guys, get out those comic books and to hell with anyone else in the crowd, their children or their grandchildren.

And just like the Hannity acolyte in Tennessee who gunned down several human beings in a church because they were Hannity-defined  "liberals" ...

Just like that ... someone's child will be accidently gunned down and it won't matter which Wayne or Eastwood character did the shooting.

It won't matter whether he believes that Beck, Limbaugh or Fox News said it would be acceptable

... there will not be anything heroic about the perpetrator.

... only  a stick horse, plastic chaps and cheap sunglasses trying to cover cowardice, a junior high maturity and a lack of the greatest civic attribute a citizen can offer the country:

Common Sense.

Thomas Paine said give me liberty or give me death.

He didn't say everybody needs to carry so town hall meetings will include intimidated participants too afraid to speak up or disagree with the heat packers.

< Baird Gets Death Threats, GOP Slams Baird | Sequim just put the Mad As Hell Doctors on the map >
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Received this today in my morning email.
I surfed to the column because it was about the MadasHell docs tour. But I read what you had to say about the guntoters.

I am way Left of most people liberal with an older conservative Vietnam Vet brother, who does just what you say - he keeps his guns under lock and key until ...

but I'm tired of the heatpackers as well and their conflation of liberalism with the National Socialist Party.

Regardless of Fox News/Hannity/Limbaugh/Republican National Committee historical revisionism, which is more offensive and widespread than historical revisionism denying the Holocaust (because of Reagan striking down the Fairness Doctrine among other things), you're absolutely spot on - Fascism in the form of National Socialism or Generalissimo Franco or Mussolini was a corporatist government, in Germany financed by huge defense sector fortunes (Krupp Industries, IG Farbierenindustrie, et al) - it DID start on the Right, not the Left, and it was the weakness of the left government in Germany and their economic collapse that made it possible for the Fascist rise to power.

Sinclair Lewis once wrote "if fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."  I also like Heywood Broun's quote - he actually lived during the time of threat of REAL Fascism - from George Seldes' book Victory over Fascism:

Fascism is a dictatorship from the extreme Right, or to put it a little more closely into our local idiom, a government which is run by a small group of large industrialists and financial lords. Of course, if you want to go back into recent history, the influence of big business has always been present in our federal government. But there have been some checks on its control. I am going to ask latitude to insist that we might have Fascism even though we maintained the pretense of democratic machinery. The mere presence of a Supreme Court, a House of Representatives, a Senate and a President would not be sufficient protection against the utter centralization of power in the hands of a few men who might hold no office at all.

How's that for describing the Fox News vision of how we should live? I live in Greene County, Ohio, where there are self-styled "patriots" who have no problems with offshored billions (as long as they're owned by Right-wing billionaires) nor with the rich paying no taxes - but boy, they're not going to let anything remotely like Canada's healthcare system ever take place here.

I make a point of trying to find INTELLIGENT conservative spokespersons as an antidote to these knotheads.

thanks for your column. I personally don't think we need all the guns, and I do question their sanity and judgment, but I think we citizens need to take them on one on one, rather than call on the government to react with hysteria a la Ruby Ridge or Waco. "domestic terrorism" and all that.

Arthur
What they inwardly imagine is the only thing they'll accept.

by Arthur Ruger on Sun Aug 30, 2009 at 06:52:27 AM PST

* 1 none 0 *


DarkSyde

Top 10 Signs You Might Not Be A Libertarian

Arthur
What they inwardly imagine is the only thing they'll accept.

by Arthur Ruger on Sun Aug 30, 2009 at 08:21:38 AM PST

* 2 none 0 *


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