Dreams of A Reason to Commit Treason

It’s time for a party again…even if it’s a tea party. The patriots are back, but this time, they’re anything but patriotic. The gun lobby has sicced its dogs on America. Richard Mack, a gun rights advocate and former Arizona sheriff who now lives in Texas, is urging defiance of the Obama Administration’s efforts to curb gun violence and says he has compiled a list of more than 200 sheriffs who have come out against further gun restrictions.

A band of duly-elected sheriffs are questioning the constitutionality of the President’s gun-control initiatives and are even suggesting that they would not allow federal officials to enforce laws they deem a violation of the Second Amendment. How are they suggesting that they stop them? One is even quoted as saying that he’ll “sacrifice his life” if Obama attempts to enforce the law. That sounds pretty treasonous to me!

In a letter written to the President from this group of defiant sheriffs, they say: “We respect the office of the President of the United States,” the letter says. “But make no mistake, as the duly-elected sheriffs of our respective counties, we will enforce the rights guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution. No federal officials will be permitted to descend upon our constituents and take from them what the Bill of Rights - in particular Amendment II - has given them.” Sounds like a declaration of war to me.

You may recall the racist alarmists when Obama was on the brink of winning his first term as president: “[If Obama wins,] there’ll be blood in the streets!” There are 3,079 sheriffs in the country, according to the National Sheriffs’ Association. I guess they’ve stockpiled more than enough ammunition to take on Obama’s army - the National Guard. The last time a gang of folks attempted to usurp the authority of the union, they got their asses kicked. We labeled that event The Civil War. 

Now, every time I hear these zealots embracing this contorted interpretation of the Second Amendment, I quite accurately draw a mental picture. Then, I google the voices and there you have it…white males with fear a-blazin’. Even more, they want you to revel in their fear too. What I know is this language and inference is eerily similar to an oft-forgotten event in America’s sordid history: The 1898 Wilmington Insurrection.

These gun zealots have dreams of the coup d’etat, when white Democratic (the original racist party) insurrectionists overthrew the legitimately elected local government - the only time that ever happened in United States history! Social conservatives today have dreams of re-enacting the show of their power of old. These Democratic white supremacists illegally seized power from the elected government. More than 1,500 white men participated in an attack on the Black newspaper, burning down the building. They ran officials and community leaders out of the city, and killed as many blacks as humanly possible in vicious attacks, but especially destroyed the neighborhood called “Brooklyn”. They took photographs of each other during the events to preserve their power for generations to come.

Of course, you are now calling me a racist; perhaps, thinking that I am stoking the coals of fear. I’m not scared, that’s why I am for gun control. The real concern is that gun zealots like this band of sheriffs get to get away with such disrespect of American processes and law. We won’t let them do this again…but that’s exactly why they cling so dearly to The Second Amendment. They won’t say it, but guns are the single greatest weapon ever invented to empower a coward.

The former Navy Seal, Chris Kyle, who was unexpectedly gunned down at a Texas firing range, was gunned down by a coward. The Midland City Alabama man, Jimmy Lee Dykes, who kidnapped and held a 5-year-old boy for five days, was a coward. The Newtown, Connecticut school massacre where a gunman opened fire killing 20 children and six adults in December, was committed by a coward. They all had that one thing in common. The NRA will tell you the men’s commonality is mental illness. I beg to differ. No one worried about their mental illnesses (if indeed it existed) prior to them empowering themselves with a gun.

Guns cause men to commit acts they normally wouldn’t. Guns have promoted masculinity and bravado in little boys who grew up with grand misconceptions of manhood. Guns have been used by men to respond to issues of lack of control over women. Guns have been used by men as the final solution to problems they haven’t the patience to negotiate. Guns have proven time and again to provide more tragic ends than joyous ones. 

Gun manufacturers have played the game the way corporations do in a capitalist society: protect their bottom line at all costs. Glock, Smith & Wesson, Magnum, Barrett, Kel-Tec, High Point are among the several firearm manufacturers that perpetuate the Second Amendment myth - not because they believe it - but because they profit from it. These manufacturers use the NRA to lobby their interests. That’s the American Way. Lives be damned; pass the benjamins!