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F**k the Second Amendment! [1]

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Date: 2023-01-24

More Guns More Death

Our Democracy is hanging by a thread. Likewise, our Tell Them Tuesday protest group is hanging by a thread. Tell Them Tuesday, to the best of my knowledge, is the longest running anti-Trump resistance group in America. It started right after the orange menace was elected. We used to chant, “Every Tuesday from noon ‘till one; we won’t quit ‘till Trump is done!” I thought we’d quit after Trump lost and Biden was elected, or at least after Biden took the oath of office. But then came January Six. So we kept meeting every Tuesday on Main Street in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. So far, we have lasted six years.

But after the 2022 midterms, the wind went out of our sails. A lot of the protesters don’t show up until almost 1:00, when most of us get together for drinks and lunch. If it is cold and rainy, we often skip the protest altogether. I used to provide over a dozen protest signs for anyone who needed one that I wrote and made myself— until one day I foolishly lost them all in the parking garage. Since then, I made two new signs. One sign said, VOTING OR VIOLENCE on one side, and SAVE DEMOCRACY, VOTE DEMOCRATIC on the other. The other sign said TRUMP COMMITTED TREASON on one side, and LOCK HIM UP on the other.

I argued we need to keep the group going because sooner or later some issue will arise which we are compelled to protest. That happened to me two days ago, when I heard there were two back-to-back mass shootings in California. I get so distraught every time I hear about another senseless mass shooting, I feel I have to do something just to keep my sanity. So this Tuesday morning I made a third new sign using the above image of skull and “bones.” That side said, MORE GUNS MORE DEATH. The other side said, PROTECT CHILDREN NOT GUNS.

When I arrived for the rally five minutes late no one else was there, but a couple of people I called said they were coming. I shouldn’t say no one else was there. Our lone counter-protester, a scruffy-looking red-neck right-wing extremist Trumptorian who often wore a shirt or hat advocating protecting gun rights, stood across the street. Seeing I was alone, he taunted me that Biden was going to prison for stealing government documents. After exchanging a few “pleasant” comments, he suddenly started running across the street yelling, “Don’t you even care when one of your own falls down?” Sure enough, behind my back he saw one of our protesters fall to the pavement as she approached our protest area. He was running to help her.

By this time her husband and another passer-by helped her to her feet. Neither myself nor my political nemesis needed to provide anything other than our concern. I helped walk her to a chair, and our adversary retreated to the other side of the street.

Soon, a few more Tell Them Tuesday protesters showed up. I held up my anti-gun sign. The counter protester never carries a sign, but kept yelling at us, asking why we care about gun violence when 80,000 children are killed each year by abortions. The idiot doesn’t have a brain, but at least has a heart.

I don’t suffer fools gladly, but for the life of me can’t comprehend how anyone can use rational thinking to conclude our country doesn’t need to do more to curtail the epidemic of gun violence. Yet perhaps I am the one being foolish thinking that those who put the right to play with deadly dangerous toys over the rights of others to live, are using any rational thinking at all.

I got a clue today from the big-hearted, but brainless, protestor. He kept yelling that Biden was going to prison. I yelled back that Biden didn’t break any laws. It didn’t faze him; he insisted that now the Republicans took over the House, Biden would be imprisoned for treason. Suddenly it dawned on me that it didn’t matter to him one iota whether Biden was guilty of anything or not, just as it didn’t matter to him whether Trump was guilty or not. In his mind, might makes right, and if his guys (The Republicans) win, then his political enemies (the Democrats, especially Biden), should be imprisoned. Democracy is on its deathbed. For him and his ilk, elections are inconsequential. Dictatorship is fine and dandy—providing Trump is the dictator.

I have written several articles about gun control here at Daily Kos. I felt like there was nothing more to say that I haven’t already said. Moreover, here I am preaching to the choir. At least on the street, there is a chance a sign might actually change someone’s mind—even though persuading someone like the counter-protestor across the street is an exercise in futility.

So what is the real reason people like the idiot across the street wants to oppose any legislation that will curtail gun violence in our country? It isn’t for hunting deer or other animals. It isn’t for target shooting. It has nothing to do with heritage or history, as gun collectors claim. It really isn’t even for self-defense or protect one’s home. And it certainly isn’t to “protect the Second Amendment.” All of the above are touted ad nauseam, but that is merely the smoke screen that obscures the real, perhaps unconscious “reason:” They want guns to forcefully take over the federal government in an armed insurrection. Ironically, this isn’t to preserve democracy from a government hell bent on taking it away. On the contrary, it is to destroy our democratically elected government; to replace it with a fascist dictatorship.

William Timmons, the Representative from my district in South Carolina, won his third term with only a last-minute write-in campaign providing scant opposition. But six years earlier he admitted, at a gathering of Tea Party Republicans, just why the second amendment is “sacred.” Quoting from my article, A Jewish Perspective on the Pittsburgh Massacre:

Timmons said the Second Amendment was sacred because that means the American people can take-up arms against the Federal Government. The last time that happened (The Whiskey Rebellion) George Washington was in the White House. Three hundred farmers, incensed they had to pay the feds a tax on whiskey, took up arms against the Federal government. Washington responded with 3000 militia. Hopelessly outnumbered, the incident ended without a shot. So it is nothing but a fantasy to believe owning a gun can protect you from the government, unless you also own tanks, jet fighters, and more military power than the US armed forces. Yet it isn’t paranoid fantasy to fear that someday a tyrant like Trump will encourage gun-owners to take up arms against enemies of the government, in other words, enemies of Trump. [Written Nov.2018.]

One year ago, Barton Gelman in The Atlantic, emphasized that many Americans endorse the violent overthrow of our government in his article January 6 Was Practice:

Just over 8 percent [of Americans, 12 million people] agreed that the election was stolen and that violence was justified to restore Trump to the White House. I found out an even larger proportion of Americans, 12 percent… believed that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

Now we know why so many are afraid to prosecute Trump for his many nefarious crimes. If he is prosecuted and convicted, brainwashed gun-toting members of his cult may very likely take up arms believing it is their patriotic duty.

In my opinion, justice should prevail regardless of the chances for chaotic violence. I hope to see Trump finally go to prison. If he doesn’t (unless he conveniently drops dead first,) our democracy could become mortally wounded. America would become a country where banks are too big to fail, and Trump is too big to jail. But if Trump does end up behind bars, don’t be surprised when it becomes evident that the real “reason” so many crazies want guns is to launch another armed revolution.

The irony doesn’t escape me. For years, literal liberal defenders of the Second Amendment have been echoing the theme, that the right to bear arms only applies to “a well-regulated militia” and not to individuals. Yet twelve percent of Americans already believe they already are part of a “well-regulated militia” and that they have the right to conduct an armed overthrow of our government no matter how many people are killed in the process.

We need to control guns, not just to prevent mass shootings, murder, and suicide. We need to control guns because those with the most guns are holding our democracy hostage. The second amendment needs to be abolished before it destroys the rest of the Constitution. F**K the second amendment.

(Open below link for an amazing anti-gun sculpture.)

www.vice.com/...

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/24/2149140/-F-k-the-Second-Amendment

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