by Claire Wolfe
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“Went to Lexington Green this morning at 5am to watch reenactment of anti-government terrorists killing cops over sensible gun control laws.”
So tweeted super-attitudinal gun owner TJIC a couple of days ago. He was talking about this, of course. But so much more. This has been a good week for bad attitudes toward gun-grabbers. That Marvelous Mistress of Snark, Tam, hearing a wimpy TV response to antigunner Ed Rendell’s snide query about why any law-abiding person could possibly need a “magazine with 33 bullets in it,” retorted:
“Why do we never close the deal on this one? Why do we never response, ‘Well, Ed, I need a magazine with 33 rounds in it because when smug, officious, overreaching petty tyrants and their tame enforcement thugs come trampling up my herbaceous borders, they rarely do it in onesies and twosies’? Or, better yet, give him the real reason: ‘Well, I need a magazine with 33 rounds in it because f$ you, Ed.’ Seriously, where does he get off thinking how many bullets’ are in my magazines is any business of his? Vobis non me dux, Ed — you ain’t the boss of me. That’s why I own guns in the first place: to make sure nobody, from the mugger on the corner to the King of England to some washed-up political has-been from the Keystone State can come force me to do things against my will without me at least having a chance to shoot back.”
And that’s just what the “well-regulated” militiamen of Lexington and Concord were doing that April morning in 1775 when they sent the Redcoats skedaddling in panic back along the road to Boston.“You want our guns and ammo?” said the newborn Americans figuratively to the Brits who’d come to take them. “F$ you, George.”
TJIC might have a shocking way with words, but he’s exactly right about the facts. Unfortunately, this has also been a “good” week for the hoplophobes, the ignorami, and the political disarmers (but I repeat myself). The Trayvon Martin shooting has given fools reason to resurrect the long-ago debunked and utterly pathetic pseudoscience of Arthur Kellermann and the equally faulty science of Charles Branas. The antis are probing at “stand your ground” and the castle doctrine, looking for weaknesses like a burglar looks for unlatched windows.
On this anniversary of historic rebellion, the ATF agent(s) who were going around Anchorage, Alaska, “requesting” gun-buyer records to which they had no earthly legal right are still running around loose. Not fired. Not jailed. Not sued. Neither tarred nor feathered. That’s rather a shame. And, of course, the perpetrators of Fast & Furious remain unaccountable. That’s more than a shame. Nevertheless, capital-A Attitude is alive and well on this notable day.
Americans are stocking up on guns and ammo like (literally) nobody’s business. While we’re not seeing the noisy resistance of the early 1990s, we’re seeing something ultimately more meaningful — quiet contempt of the people toward a government they increasingly recognize as not legitimate and absolutely not freedom-enhancing. We’re seeing a big shift toward personal independence — both from the preppers of the “right” to the locavores of the “left.” For every government overreach, we can count on swift and decisive reaction. On the Internet. In social media. And in the real world. Everywhere, everywhere, the people push back. Will some future April 19 see another “shootin’ war” between We the People and a government that can no longer claim the loyalty of any free person? Who knows? But hallelujah! — the Spirit of April 19 is as alive as it was all those centuries ago when John Locke wrote:
“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins . . . and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command to compass that upon the subject which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without authority may be opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of another. . . . [W]henever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience . . .”
Claire Wolfe is the author of the Paladin books The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship, Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook, and I Am Not a Number, and a contributor to The Paladin Book of Dangerously Fun Stuff and Tough Times Survival Guide, Vol. 2.