I’m one generation removed from the Holocaust. My father was a survivor. My grandparents were not. That’s one very important reason why I’m a gun owner: to prevent and/or defend against government genocide. Walking that back a bit, I’m armed against government tyranny.
If, for example, the U.S. government created death squads to eliminate political opponents, I’d be armed against them, defending myself and those targeted for extra-legal assassination.
Writing for theguardian.com, Rebecca Solnit reckons that’s where America is headed, now that Donald Trump is President-elect.
In the United States we are probably headed for a very grim phase of uncertain duration. We will see much that we love under attack. . .
We would do well to study the countries that have sunk into tyranny or despotism and survived. To discover how Argentina and Chile and Brazil went through an era of dictators and death squads and emerged, in part because people like the Argentinian women in las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo stood up to their fears and their regime.
El Salvador is now governed by the FMLN, which fought against the death squads in the 1980s, and Chile’s current president is Michelle Bachelet, who was kidnapped and tortured under the Pinochet regime. Most of the countries in our hemisphere besides Canada have gone into horror and emerged, many more than once . . .
Note that Ms. Solnit credits peaceful protesters as “part” of the overthrow of homicidal South American dictators.
She makes no mention of the fact that the oppressed people overthrew the fascists and murderers by force of arms. El Salvador’s FMLN, for example, only managed to get the government to the negotiating table after battlefield victories.
Other liberals fearing a Donald Trump-led tyranny aren’t as naive as Ms. Solnit, or, perhaps more accurately, as coy. As we’ve reported, many formerly anti-gun liberals have suddenly found ballistic religion. They suddenly see the potential future than The People of the Gun have kept in their minds since 1776.
It must be said: the libs’ hypocrisy is stunning. These are the same people who cheered when Barack Obama dissed conservative gun owners as paranoid fantasists who “cling to their guns and their religion.” The same people who worked, indeed still work, to implement gun control.
These Johnny-come-lately gun owners owe conservative gun owners yes, even the NRA, a tremendous debt of gratitude. We conserved (i.e. protected) their right to keep and bear arms.
In fact, if it weren’t for armed Americans, there wouldn’t be liberals. Government tyranny would have swept them aside long ago. And us as well.
We have a responsibility not just to our country but to the world to contain and weaken and try to defeat Trump and Trumpism to the best of our abilities. Those of us who are not in immediate peril have a grave responsibility to those who are.
Substitute the word “fascists” for “Trump” and “fascism” for “Trumpism,” accept that this “grave responsibility” needs ballistic back-up, and we’re right there with you Ms. Solnit — believe it or not.
Meanwhile, I’d like to point out that fascism is a liberal disease; the Nazis that killed my family were socialists after all. Sad to say, I don’t expect liberal gun owners to make that connection, or to remember it’s us vs. the government. Any government.
But I’ll say this” if and when left-leaning politicians return to power, rest assured that we won’t give up our guns. Why should we?