The Campaign to Stop Gun Violence Facebook page is an anti-gun posting machine. They share dozens of posts per day, linking to pro-gun control screeds and stories, highlighting examples of “gun violence”, uploading cartoons that portray gun owners as buffoons (and worse), re-publishing threatening and generally dumb-ass pro-gun comments from other blogs, zines and websites…generally beating the drum for civilian disarmament. Recently they created the above meme, which borrows an image of John “Guns Save Life” Boch posted on our “I Am A Gun Owner” Facebook album, captioned “This is for all the lonely people…” When we posted their diss, they sent us a snarky Tweet . . .
@CVGV: @guntruth Hey, nothing against that ferret! He’s undoubtedly good people.
I didn’t reply. Others did on our behalf. I won’t trouble you with the exchange. This was the CSGV’s last Tweet on the subject:
@CSGV: @GRAAmerica @guntruth We’re saying that the people who compare our democratic gov’t under Const. to the final solution are insurrectionists.
Good Lord! What does that even mean? I’m not sure. But in the interests of deconstructing the CSGV’s misguided, indeed misguiding mindset, I’ll take a stab at it – realizing that the CSGV would ban knives once they stopped “the wrong people” from having guns.
I think he’s saying that people who believe that the current United States government could/would/will (given half a chance) commit mass murder against a group or groups unspecified – something akin to the Nazi’s ‘final solution’ (mass extermination of the Jews) – are insurrectionists. Unspoken but implied, people are insurrectionists who believe they [might] need guns to overthrow the United States government – to stop it from committing mass murder.
Deep breath. merriam-webster.com defines insurrection as “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.” The CSGV uses the term insurrectionist here to describes people advocating, plotting or attempting a violent overthrow of the government.
Now, as far as I know, you can round down to zero the percentage of American gun owners actively plotting insurrection – especially if you remove the deluded domestic dullards encouraged and enabled by the ATF/FBI/DHS. As for the idea that gun owners believe the government is capable of mass murder, The Wounded Knee massacre occurred 124 years ago, two generations. The Waco Siege, resulting in the death of 76 Branch Davidians, is a more recent example.
Regardless, ignoring the huge number of murderous governments throughout the world (including our neighbor Mexico), the CSGV clearly finds the idea that the U.S. government could get to the point where it commits mass murder to be highly improbable. Impossible. Laughable? That too. And they might be right – because Americans own guns. Weapons with which they can defend themselves against a murderous, tyrannical government, thereby forestalling that very activity.
In fact, this is another example of the Second Amendment’s success being used against it. It mirrors the anti-gunners’ assertion that Americans don’t need guns because the crime rate is so low – another positive benefit of gun ownership. In any case, the CSGV’s reasoning – such as it is – is built upon a straw man argument. American gun owners do not compare the current Constitutional republic to Nazi Germany.
There are some gun owners – certainly not all, perhaps not even the majority – who worry that the current federal government could become a Nazi-like murderous dictatorship. Yes, but…in the same sense that a person who could kill an attacker is not a killer until he commits the act, a person who believes insurrection is not an insurrectionist until he engages in [violent] insurrection.
In short, some American gun owners are proto-insurrectionists. If armed insurrection was needed to prevent mass murder, armed insurrection it would be. Just as the Founding Fathers intended when they crafted and enacted the Second Amendment, protecting Americans from government infringement on their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
The CSGV, of course, makes no such distinction. They see gun owners as paranoid, blood-thirsty malcontents. People who refuse to get with the progressive agenda of a better world through big government intervention. Make that domination. Because that’s what the antis believe: government must dominate the people for their own good. And to do that they must disarm them. And to do that they must vilify them. As violent insurrectionists itching for a fight.
American gun owners who understand the point of the Second Amendment don’t fantasize about confiscation. They fear it. Dread it. And oppose it in all its forms. Why wouldn’t they? Nobody with any sense wants violent insurrection. Anyone with common sense, anyone with a sense of history or contemporary events, knows that confiscation puts a people on the path to extermination. Always has. Always will.