Who You Gonna Call?

by digby

A political climate that’s already more overheated than any time in a generation. Plans for a large-scale rally of firearms enthusiasts in the nation’s capital. A fast-growing group of (mostly ex-) military and cops that pledges to disobey “unconstitutional orders” from the president, and an “urgent” call from the group’s leader to flood Washington to “shout your oaths in the tyrant’s face” — on the 15th anniversary of the worst home-grown terror incident in U.S. history, the Oklahoma City bombing. What could possibly go wrong? The world will find out on April 19, now that the leader of the Oath Keepers — the alliance of mostly veterans and ex-cops that didn’t exist at the start of the Obama administration but now claims nearly 15,000 members — has issued that urgent call to all members to attend two politically charged events in or around Washington on that Monday, which organizers stress as the 235th anniversary of the first shots of the American Revolution. Stewart Rhodes, the Yale law school grad and ex-paratrooper who founded the Oath Keepers after working on Rep. Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign, sent out an email blast to members over the weekend urging them to attend either a Second Amendment March on the Capitol that’s slated to take place on Washington that day, or an open-carry rally in which many attendees will be bringing their firearms, to be held just across the Potomic River at Fort Hunt National Park.

There won’t be any trouble because it’s highly unlikely anyone would dream of standing around screaming and spitting on radical wingnuts who are armed to the teeth and trigger happy. But hey nobody’s saying you can’t protest these yahoos. It’s just that everybody knows that your right to protest is somewhat, shall we say —curtailed —by the possibility that one of them might shoot you in the head on the spot if you look at them sideways. I suspect most sane people get that loud and clear so dissent isn’t going to be a problem. Everyone will be very, very careful not to upset any of these fine patriots. Message sent and received.

God bless America and all the liberty and freedom it provides (as long as some nutbag with a loaded gun doesn’t get agitated and open fire in a crowd.)

You have to love this, though:

In an irony that event organizers don’t seem to be playing up, open-carry of weapons used to be banned at national parks before February of this year, when a longstanding ban was overturned in legislation signed by the man Rhodes alluded to as “a tyrant,” President Barack Obama.

Give ’em an inch and they’ll shoot you in the face.

Update: of course it’s always possible that these folks will start arguing amongst themselves about whether the biggest threat to America is health care or FEMA camps in which case — take cover.