“The nutty notion that a citizen can be heavily enough armed to fight off the government went up in smoke near Big Bear Lake,” George Skelton opines at latimes.com. “This may sound crazy to most normal people, but there are some obsessed gun owners — although a minority, surely — who believe they need to arm themselves to perhaps combat government oppression.” Skelton proceeds to quote readers’ emails to paint gun owners as deranged right wing racists and proto-terrorists. Which doesn’t really matter because they’ve already lost the argument over the Second Amendment, apparently . . .
I’m certainly no constitutional lawyer, but it should be obvious to everyone by now that the right to bear arms can be “infringed.” We’re not allowed to bear bazookas. Or machine guns. No automatic rifles. What’s mainly at issue these days are semi-automatics — so-called assault weapons — and mega-magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
In Skelton’s humble not-to-say-ill-informed opinion “assault weapons” (all semis?) and “mega-magazines” (standard capacity?) are no damn good when it comes to preventing government tyranny. As Christopher Dorner’s demise proves—despite the fact that he managed to stay alive for so long without any logistical support, forcing police to spend millions in his pursuit.
As of this writing, it’s not clear what suspected killer Christopher Dorner had in his arsenal. But it was enough to hold off law enforcement in Tuesday’s shootout until someone upped the firepower, literally, by lobbying incendiary tear gas into the cabin where the axed cop apparently was making a last stand against the government.”
The government virtually always wins.
And here I was thinking that we the people—armed as we are—ARE the government. Silly me.