I am a Veteran. I am a member of that fraternity in this country who identify as Veterans. I disagree with some members of my fraternity, for example, those Veterans who attacked the Capitol this past January.
Pack the heat … shoot someone … then run and hide.
My thoughts today in reaction to the following articles
The Cowboy Fantasy of a ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ – John Pavlovitz – October 2017
Unfunny humor about gun control – Brian Hines February, 2013
It seems that the slogan driving these folks with the big iron(s) on their hips is …
“If you block me from using my First Amendment Right I will exercise my Second Amendment Right and use my weapon on you!”
… or something like that.
As to who the traitorous un-American “YOU” bent on destroying our liberties is … and the reasoning behind the extreme step of using a weapon against another citizen, well that’s up for interpretation.
What does “under attack” mean?
What is in the mind of someone who feels the need to publicly flaunt personal ownership of a weapon because something frightens him that is not frightening most people who are otherwise civically engaged and active.
“That’s the rub here: that every villain is a hero in his own head, and every small man wants to feel big—which is why the blood of thousands of Americans will continue to be spilled every year, and why the NRA and the GOP will joyfully swim around in it. – The Cowboy Fantasy of a ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ – John Pavlovitz
Is there a difference?
Well, although we all have that right some of us use common sense that dictates that one need not “carry” unless a defense of rights is under literal and immediate physical attack, war or invasion of our country.
What gets me, every time I see black-clad guys and gals strutting around with their weapons, is how little they have to be proud about. It takes zero courage and zero skill to own a gun. All you need is a VISA card. Shooting defenseless animals from long range, or defenseless targets, earns zero “guts points.” – Brian Hines Unfunny Humor About Gun Control
A veteran myself, I know active duty military members as well as other veterans in my community who HAVE used a weapon in defense of our country. They are genuine – the real thing – and would not hesitate to leave their homes, leave the churches before the sermon ends, leave the tavern with the last beer unfinished, drop what they’re doing, jump in their own transportation, get their weapons and make haste to the scene of threat or action.
They’d do it in a moment’s notice because they know where their weapons are – kept safe under lock and key until needed. Furthermore, for most of those I know it would not be any different if those attacking were government agents or military troops sent to forcibly take weapons away, put folks in some kind of internment camp, force citzens to pay taxes or execute sinners for fornication.
… But that is not what is happening. Nothing even close to that is happening.
Fantasy is not real, it’s merely fantasy.
Obsession with a fantasy that appears to summon heroes is the spin of political manipulation. Particularly it is an extreme so-called “patriotic” spin that seems to be endorsed by broadcast drugstore patriot networks and personalities.
So what drives an attempted public display of strong sounding but still drugstore performance of swearing life’s blood to defend family and home from imaginary villains. They would be the very villains creatively portrayed by Fox News, the alt-right, the NRA, the government coming for your guns, cut and paste internet meme makers (or perhaps Russian hackers trying to undercut and divide our supposed patriotic solidarity that may or may not exist. ) The imaginary – for example, a mysterious Sharia Law that has about as much probability of being forced on America as an elephant can hang over a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy. But if you’re sweating tonight, whatever keeps you up is in the same tradition of how the Nightmare on Elm Street kept you up at night when you were a little kid.
All I can venture is a perceptual speculation based on behavior, verbiage and posturing.
Most posturers appear to be dying to be seen publicly wearing symbols of patriotism on their sleeves.
They are the producers of the grisly cowboy fantasy.
They compose the narrative, they profit from the plot—and the good guys with guns all dying to be cowboys will continue to gladly generate sequels for them.I’ve had it with the myth of heroic men, saving women from the bad guy.
I prefer that we save humanity from the deadly cowboy fantasy—by not giving it ammunition of any kind.” – The Cowboy Fantasy of a ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ – John Pavlovitz
It seems to me that would-be Second Amendment heroes won’t hesitate to manufacture (imagine) enemies to the homeland in order to sustain a macho sense that hearkens back to every Wayne or Eastwood movie where the good guy gets to shoot somebody.
Or they are willing to suspend judgment and critical thinking by falling for any broadcast lie hook, line and sinker.
Like I said, this sort of ignorance would be comical if it wasn’t so unfunny. People who are clueless about the Constitution are pretending that they’re the only ones standing between us and tyranny. That’s hilarious.
Except, it isn’t funny. – Brian Hines Unfunny Humor About Gun Control
Flash your weapons guys, get out those comic books and to hell with anyone else in the crowd, their children or their grandchildren.
Just like the Hannity acolyte in Tennessee a few years back who gunned down several human beings in a church because they were Hannity-defined “liberals” …
Just like that … people are gunned down and it doesn’t matter which Wayne or Eastwood character did the shooting.
It won’t matter whether he believes that Limbaugh, Hannity or Fox News said it would be acceptable
… there will not be anything heroic about the perpetrator.
… only a stick horse, plastic chaps and cheap sunglasses trying to cover cowardice, a junior high maturity and a lack of the greatest civic attribute a citizen can offer the country.
Common Sense …
One of the Founding Fathers beloved of gun-toting Constitutionalists was Patrick Henry, who said, “give me liberty or give me death.”
Mr. Henry did not declare that everybody needs to “carry” so shooters who are irresponsible can gun down a real or imagined “bad guy” regardless of collateral damage.
And woe unto those too afraid to speak up or disagree with the heat packers.
“Salesmanship the likes of which has rarely been seen in history, even in this nation of boiling commercialism.
It is no small accomplishment to convince millions of people that their safety and security – indeed, their very existence as a nation – absolutely depends upon the astonishing preponderance of devices that kill them on the hour, every hour, every day.
All the gun lobby does is bellow about freedom, about the Constitution, about preserving the ability to defend oneself against the onset of an intrusive, tyrannical government.
This is the song that has been sung for decades now, to the point that it is holy writ to those who think the ability to own an AR-15 with a magazine capacity large enough to take out half of Yankee Stadium, should the need somehow arise, is the apotheosis of American freedom.
Good luck with that; send me a note from the front, hero. I’m sure your Red Dawn fantasy will unspool itself any day now.
Convincing so many people that their freedom is inviolably attached to things that kill them in piles every single day is amazingly successful salesmanship…and as we embark upon this national debate over guns, we must encompass this essential truth: all the grandstanding over personal freedom, over the Constitution, over the ability to defend oneself against the government, is the end-product of perhaps the most magnificent sales job ever deployed against anyone, ever.” -William Rivers Pitt
Arthur Ruger: Curmudgeon at Work 
Hundreds of thoughts, yet no answers.Have we gone too far with this abomination? Have other nations had to deal with this problem.It’s nearly impossible to roll back something as entrenched as this
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/second-amendment-distortions-kill/
I’d like to see the narrative shift away from gun ownership rights and the constitution to a dialogue on why the “right to bear arms” exists constitutionally. I might be wrong, yet I believe it is there because the Irish in America remembered what happened in the old country when the English overlords “disarmed” them over the course of the English occupation.
The question today might be how that issue might be addressed today and still remain within the intent of your founding fathers. The right to bear arms may not apply to protecting your home against your fellow citizens.
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