Only Guntards Have Rights - and If You Disagree They'll Shoot You

"Un-American" is the worst thing I can think to call it, yet even that does not even begin to describe what's happening..

Digby:

You've probably seen the story about the five year old who accidentally shot his 2 year old sister with a "kids" rifle. Here's just one little piece of evidence about how this sort of thing plays out in American "civil discourse."

After the funeral service, two men advanced across North Main Street toward a single television crew present, from the German network RTL, and punched the cameraman, bloodying his face and knocking him down.

Two other men told a newspaper reporter, “If you had any sense, you’d get out of here. You’re next, buddy.”

Now sure, this is probably hyperbole from some people who are embarrassed by their barbaric custom that puts lethal weapons into the hands of babies. But the larger point that Kilgore makes is correct. These gun nuts are basically saying, "do what we want or we'll shoot you." They believe their "second amendment remedy" legitimately cancels out the rest of the bill of rights.

That's un-American. 

And this, also from Digby:

What an excellent idea:

On the morning of July 4, 2013, Independence Day, we will muster at the National Cemetery &; at noon we will step off to march across the Memorial Bridge, down Independence Avenue, around the Capitol, the Supreme Court, & the White House, then peacefully return to Virginia across the Memorial Bridge. This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded &; slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated &; cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government &; to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, &; returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.

This supersmart event is the brainchild of Ron Paul supporter Adam Kokesh, a veteran who protested the Iraq war (and was kicked out of the army for doing so.) 

And for all his assurances that they come in peace:

When the government comes to take your guns, you can shoot government agents, or submit to slavery.
— Adam Kokesh (@adamkokesh) May 3, 2013

Because it's not about guns.

bspencer at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Gun-owning now is largely a cultural signifier and little else. It says something about you if you own a gun. It says something about you if you are for gun control. And the bottom line is that gun-humpers are willing to watch a whole lot more children die so they can thumb their noses at liberals.

They don't want a debate; they want an excuse to kill everybody who's not one of them. They don't want America; they want Somalia.

Ed Kilgore at Political Animal:

By now you may have seen some buzz about a poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University reporting that 29% of Americans, and 44% of Republicans, think “in the next few years, an armed revolution may be necessary to protect our liberties.” It was taken in the context of understanding the sources of hard-core opposition to gun regulation measures, and sure seemed to indicate a subscription to Second Amendment absolutism that’s deeper than anything we’ve seen before. You can dismiss it for its sample size or its question order or its wording if you want, but I’m sorry: when nearly half the self-identified members of one of our two major political parties in any sample looks benignly on the possibility of “armed revolution”—particularly when it’s the supposedly conservative party—we’ve got real problems. If the actual percentage of Republicans thinking positively about armed revolution as a near-term necessity is 15%, we’ve got real problems.

I’ve preached for a good long while now that the absolute minimum the rest of us can expect from the leaders of the Republican Party and the conservative movement is to spend some serious time declaring anathemas against any talk on the Right of some “right to revolution,” particularly in the context of discussions of the possession of lethal weapons. Combine a “right to revolution” with the belief that most people voting for Barack Obama are baby-killing looters who are revolting against God’s very specific plan for America as laid right out there in the Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution, and you could get some unfortunate consequences, beginning, obviously, with a lot of people whose commitment to the rule of law and democratic procedures is perpetually conditional.

We need to get right in the faces of people blandly asserting a “right to revolution” and make sure they explicitly acknowledge that “armed revolution” is not some sort of Independence Day parade, but the very tangible enterprise of taking weapons and spilling the blood and taking the lives of police officers and members of the United States Armed Forces. Even if they continue to maintain that “right” as a remote, 1% contingency if America becomes a very different place, perhaps they’ll be less likely to talk as though it’s a lively proposition that might be triggered by next week’s health care regulations or next year’s adverse election results.

But our main target ought to be the politicians and pundits and bloggers that walk the revolutionary rhetorical road because it’s “entertaining” or it makes them feel all macho (like Grover Norquist swaggering around Washington with a “I’d rather be killing commies” button after one of his trips to Angola in the 1980s), or it’s just useful to have an audience or a political base mobilized to a state of near-violence by images of fire and smoke and iron and blood.

As I’ve observed on many occasions, you can only imagine how these self-appointed guardians of liberty would feel if casual talk of “armed revolution” became widespread on the left or among those people. There should not, cannot, be a double standard on this issue.

So please join me in calling on conservatives to cut this crap out and separate themselves from those who believe in vindicating the “original constitution” or defending their property rights or exalting their God or protecting the unborn via armed revolution. If William F. Buckley could “excommunicate” Robert Welch and the John Birch Society from the conservative movement back in the 1960s, today’s leaders on the Right can certainly do the same to those who not only share many of that Society’s views, but are willing to talking about implementing them by killing cops and soldiers.

Later, he adds:

So yes, there is a moral “right to revolution” just as there is a moral obligation to take a “prophetic stance” on extremely rare occasions (particularly in a country like the United States, with its many avenues for free speech and activism). When either becomes just another lever of political or cultural conflict, it quite naturally elevates the stakes to the level of virtual warfare, dehumanizing the “enemy,” and debasing all discourse.

Why is revolutionary rhetoric becoming so routine these days? Some of it stems from the kind of “constitutional conservatism” that raises every political or policy dispute to a question of basic patriotism or even obedience to Almighty God. But a big part of it can also be attributed to cynical opportunists who manipulate those fearful (usually without much cause) of tyranny for their own very conventional ends—usually power and money.

Wherever you think it’s coming from, it needs to stop, and if it can’t stop, it must be made disreputable as part of ordinary partisan politics.

At a minimum, those who toy with the idea of overthrowing our government to stop Obamacare or prevent gun regulation need to stand up to the charge that they hate America. It will make them crazy to hear it, but it’s the truth.

I'll close with an update from Firedoglake on the story of the Kentucky five-year-old with his very own lethal kiddie gun:

“Keystone Sporting Arms, the company that makes Crickett rifles for kids . . . has taken down [its] web site, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages” that were used for marketing the deadly things.

Cowards.