Liberty is being free from the things we don't like in order to be slaves of the things we do like.--Ernest Benn

Monday, January 10, 2011

Message to Those Hiding Behind the 2nd Amendment

Get your guns off our streets!
All those in favor of the rights of unregulated militias to bear arms should get in line to wash innocent blood from their hands...

First in line with his blood-stained hands, should be National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre who told the Conservative Political Action Committee in March 2009 that
"the guys with the guns make the rules".

The warning signs have been there for some time now. In August of 2009, a gun rights activist spurred controversy by bringing an AR-15 assault rifle to a rally outside the Phoenix Convention Center, where President Barack Obama was scheduled to speak. "He was clearly there to intimidate people who were there exercising their First Amendment rights,” one witness said.

That same month, self described Libertarian William Kostric showed up to a rally outside a town hall meeting with President Obama carrying a pistol. He also carried a sign quoting from a quote from Thomas Jefferson,

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Well, that it was, last Saturday. Only if we can learn from the Tucson tragedy, that is.

Some - many - thought the tragedy waiting to happen would happen in Arizona. Representative Giffords certainly saw the looming danger. On March 25th last year, she said,

I think it’s important for all leaders, not just leaders of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party … community leaders, figures in our community to say, ‘Look, we can’t stand for this.’ I mean, this is a situation where people really need to realize that this rhetoric, and firing people up, and even things … For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. And when people do that, they’ve gotta realize that there’s consequences to that action.
Until last year, Arizona was an "open-carry" state. That meant anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it's visible. Last year Arizona became a concealed-carry state: Arizona residents at least 21 years old can carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

I am persuaded that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik represented the law enforcement community Saturday, when he blamed

the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business....The bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
But the current cant of the corporate media to the effect that both sides need to tone down political speech is a diversion. It doesn't matter if the shooter was a member of the Tea Party or the Weathermen, a neo-Nazi, a Communist, a Fabian or a member of the Flat Earth Society. What does matter is that he expressed himself with a gun fired at an elected representative.

Despite his apparent delusions, Lougher was coherent enough to know that he would be allowed to carry out his crime without meeting any resistance from police or other law enforcement officials, at least until after the fact. Loughner knew he was acting with the law when he purchased the semi-automatic handgun used to carry out the shootings at a local gun shop. He also knew he'd be allowed to carry the weapon to the “Congress on the Corner” event where the shootings took place.

This is called an assassination attempt, a kind of personal, freelance coup d'etat. Any murder of one for political reasons is civic cancer; it eats at the core foundations of democratic polity.

I just want to see guns regulated/licensed/registered like automobiles. After all, laws generally license the privilege of driving a car; and they restrict that privelege from people with serial DUI's on their track record.

Additionally, people with guns in their homes are not the problem. It's people out and about with guns on their belts and in their cars who are the problem. I may trust you, dear reader. (Actually, I think I'll suspend judgment on that.) But I absolutely don't trust that guy standing next to you. Or the woman behind you. Not in the shopping mall. Not at a football game. Not in the national parks. Not on college campuses. Not at my place of work. And not at  political events. Not at all.

It is time for us, as a nation, to take up the unconstitutionality of standing un-regulated militias.

7 comments:

  1. I'm 100 % in agreement. Way to go Doc!

    Moore said it well: (clipped – no pun intended - from Conn Bob) – “Michael Moore asked in a Tweet : If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking.”

    And to follow up I say that I would vote for arresting Beck, Limbaugh and Palin etc. and sending them all to Guantanamo for inciting terrorism. Let them be held with the other terrorists! They are no different.
    In the mean time we should all do our part. We should all call Fox News and tell them it is time for them to take responsibility for what they have created. Call numerous times. Tie up their phones. Hit their pocketbooks. That is all they understand anyway. It is outrageous that they support these purveyors of vitriolic babble.
    Then contact the advertisers and let them know under no certain terms will you NOT PURCHASE their products if they advertise for Beck or Limbaugh. What they have done to this country is criminal.
    Then call the NRA and ask to talk with Wayne LaPierre and then tell him you are calling to complain about their policies. If they won’t let you through asked to talk to a staff person in charge of programs or membership or whatever. Be creative. It is time for a change. Tie up their phones. The gun laws we have on the books are obscene.

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  3. A great post, Doc. I keep hearing Michael Douglas vowing to "get the guns"! Would that he, and we could.

    The Founding Fathers NEVER envisioned that every person in the country would be entitled to his or her own arsenal of automatic assault weapons of mass destruction. But thanks to Cheney and Bush,and the NRA's fear-mongering campaign of lies and distortions,the minimal and unenforced "regulations" of guns that were (finally)enacted following the attack on "Ronnie", were allowed to sunset.

    What we have is an obscenity - as you so aptly named it: an un-regulated militia that threatens to destroy the very fabric of our country.

    The whole issue has become untouchable because of the clever tactics of the NRA which has made the subject of gun control impossible to even raise, never mind, discuss.

    I second Contiguous' suggestions that we speak up, but I don't feel much hope that sanity might prevail.

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  4. The NRA is the hub of gun violence in this country, Emily. And our gun industry, through exports, is the hub of Mexican narco-terrorism. Hand and Glove?

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  5. Right on.

    I am a former gun owner and expert rifleman, but I grew up.

    I am now living in a country which has virtually no such weapons in private hands (Japan). I wish that those in the US who are so fond of pointing to the 2nd Amendment would learn to read the FIRST HALF of it.

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  6. There is a link between hate speech and mass killing. Remember the Tides Foundation plot?

    On July 18, Byron Williams, an ex-felon with a history of violent criminal behavior, was pulled over by California Highway Police on I-580.

    Williams was reportedly heavily armed with a handgun, shotgun, rifle and body armor. Shortly after the shooting, a CHP sergeant said that "There is no doubt in our mind, given the body armor and the extensive amount of ammunition he had, that he was on his way to do a very serious crime against either someone or a group of people" And indeed, Williams reportedly told investigators that "his intention was to start a revolution by traveling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU."

    According to his mother, Williams "watched the news on television and was upset by 'the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.'"

    Since Beck's show premiered on January 19, 2009, Tides has been mentioned on 31 editions of Fox News programs, 29 of which were editions of Beck's show (the other two were on Sean Hannity's program). In most of those references, Beck attacked Tides, often weaving the organization into his conspiracy theories. Two of those Beck mentions occurred during the week before Williams' shootout.

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  7. I have to add to the record, Glen Beck's statement last June 9th:

    I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don't. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep's clothing -- change the pose. You will get the ends.

    You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.

    They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them -- they're revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.

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