“‘It’s the reality of the world we live in,’ Portsmouth Police Chief Bill Raisin told WSAZ. ‘Don’t forget there is such a thing as domestic terrorism. This helps us all be prepared.'” Only the domestic terrorism Chief Raisin has in mind isn’t of the typical Nidal Hassan or Tsarnaev brother variety. Accoring to medatracker.org, the Ohio National Guard is training for a much more insidious foe: “Second Amendment supporters with ‘anti-government’ opinions…as domestic terrorists” . . .
Not that this should really surprise anyone. It’s of a piece with virtually every mass shooting or odd bombing that’s happened in the last decade. The immediate tack taken by the media, politi-hacks and even some first responders is to pin the crime on faceless gun-toting anti-guv’mint Tea-wingers. And they stick to that – hard and fast – right up until it’s inevitably shown that the perpetrator was either a psychotic anti-social basement-dwelling wack-o or a left-leaning paranoid schizo basket case.
But when called out on the assumptions behind the ONG training exercise, their communications director got all huffy:
Ohio National Guard Communications Director James Sims II suggested Media Trackers was “inferring” from the ONG document’s contents as opposed to “what’s actually in the report.”
After excerpts of the report were read to him, Sims said it was “not relevant” to understand why conservatives may feel unduly targeted by ONG’s training scenario.
“Okay, I’m gonna stop ya there. I’m going to quit this conversation,” Sims concluded. “You have a good day.”
Ah well. No matter what the reason behind an attack, the training’s still useful, right? Apparently, so is the further marginalization and demonization of American’s who choose to keep and bear arms, as is their Constitutional right. For Chief Raising’s sake – as well as that of our 2A rights in general – let’s hope he continues to be laughably off the mark.