Nice little democracy you have here…
by digby
Over at The Nation, Perlstein has a great piece up about gun nuts and their effect on our civic life. This the idea that it’s considered completely acceptable for people to show up at political gatherings packing heat has always struck me as a far greater threat to my personal freedom than the abstract notion that my blind neighbor and I will someday be called to fight the marines with our semi-automatics as they go house to house here in Santa Monica.
He discusses a very creepy Militia website that illustrates why this is such a concern. They’re working themselves into quite a frenzy:
Once cowed at the thought of provoking Second Amendment supporters, leftists will soon attempt to ban ‘assault weapons’ (and much more) as legislation offered by Diane Feinstein makes its way to the Senate floor…. Maybe Democrats are confident that fallout from Sandy Hook [sic] will provide the floor votes necessary to disarm the American people. But if the left is willing to risk picking this fight with millions of American gun owners, it must also believe something far more important—that Americans who have spent years arming themselves against the ultimate expression of tyranny by their own government—the overthrow of the Second Amendment—will choose to not fight when the time finally comes.
He then highlights some of the lovelier comments. These were particularly vivid:
“thats right there could be a lot of dead LEFTIST!!”
“Stack them in the streets like cordwood. There’s no room for prisoners.”
Sure, it’s mostly idle blather from a bunch of losers. But when people show up at a political rally and stand around with guns, grimacing and saying nothing, this sort of thing tends to come to mind.
Perlstein discusses all this in the context of the Colorado recall elections this week in which a committed band of gun nuts managed to unseat two office holders who had endorsed some very mild gun restrictions in the wake of the Aurora massacre. They unseated them in spite of the fact that the majority of Colorado citizens are in favor of those restrictions. Why? They just care a lot more about this than those who want to stop the blood letting and got their people out to vote. As Perlstein points out, those of us on the other side of this issue can learn a thing or two from them.
But I cannot help but blame the Democratic Party just a little bit for this. For well over a decade we were all told that our quixotic insistence on chasing the rural white male voter, meant that guns were a deadly issue for Democrats. A good many of us bought into that CW and dropped all discussion of it. It lost its salience as a Democratic voting issue and the organizing that had been done around it withered and died.
Obviously, it shouldn’t take institutions to make people vote on an issue around violence and carnage in our communities. But it’s hard for voters these days to believe they can have an effect on anything, and this least of all. With yahoos getting away with killing unarmed teenagers in hoodies (and receiving huge support and accolades from gun owners all over the nation) while groups of menacing “protesters” show up at political events armed to the teeth, you can’t blame normal people for thinking that standing up and being counted on this issue could be a dangerous proposition.
We know people think that. When the gun control group Moms Against Action held a rally and armed protesters showed up it had a chilling effect:
A member of Moms Demand Action said that she felt unsettled by their presence and said that the organizers would have to think twice before holding another event, particularly one where children could be present.
Can you blame her?
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