“The right to shoot tyrants, not deer”

Summary:  As the 21st century unwinds, the nature and extent of American exceptionalism becomes ever clearer.  Exceptionally mad, and growing more so. Today we look at yet another example.

(1)  From America’s daily purveyor of conservative propaganda

“The right to shoot tyrants, not deer“, The Washington Times
“The Second Amendment is the guarantee of freedom”

By Andrew P. Napolitano,  former judge of the Superior Court of NJ, now senior judicial analyst at Fox News

“The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us.”

The White House is a fortress, unlike its equivalents in other developed nations.  For good reason.  27% of our Presidents have had serious attempts on their lives (there have been others, which further lengthen the list).  Such rhetoric doesn’t help, and is unworthy of an American Judge.

Successful assassinations

• Abraham Lincoln
• James A. Garfield
• William McKinley
• John F. Kennedy

Failed assassination attempts

•  Andrew Jackson
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Harry S. Truman
• Richard Nixon
• Gerald Ford
• Ronald Reagan
• Bill Clinton

Is there any other developed nation, let alone a democracy, with such a high death rate? This makes our most dangerous occupations, fishing and lumbering, looks like cakewalks.  Perhaps we could get better volunteers for the job if our leaders, like Judge Napolitano, didn’t so casually suggest assassination as a political remedy.

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His advocacy occurs against a backdrop of right-wing warnings of tyranny — such as loss of sovereignty to the UN, extreme descriptions of ObamaCare as serfdom — that are largely insane but taken seriously on the fringes. Not a good time for a conservative to be talking about killing tyrants.  Especially as it’s so contrary to our traditions. The Founders would have considered this kind of individualism — shooting leaders you consider “tyrants” — to be insane.  Such rhetoric is a hallmark of failed states.

(2)  Enlisting Jesus in the “kill tyrants” campaign

There is another mad note in Napolitano’s op-ed:

“When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, he was marrying the nation at its birth to the ancient principles of the natural law that have animated the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West. Those principles have operated as a brake on all governments that recognize them by enunciating the concept of natural rights.”

Napolitano invokes our “Christian tradition” to support gun ownership and assassinating tyrants.  He doesn’t provide details, which is perhaps just as well for the sake of his immortal soul.  Citing Jesus to support his crusade might prove controversial in Heaven.  It should here, as well.

(3)  Other Posts about Gun Ownership in America

1. The Founders talk to us about guns for a well-regulated militia,24 July 2012
2. Yet another mass killing in America. Watch the reactions on the Right, and learn., 17 December 2012
3. “The right to shoot tyrants, not deer”, 11 January 2013
4. But Hitler confiscated guns, leaving Germans helpless!, 11 January 2013
5. Guns do not make us safer. Why is this not obvious?, 14 January 2013
6. Let’s look at the Second Amendment, cutting through the myths and spin, 15 January 2015
7. Myth-busting about gun use in the Wild West, 16 January 2013
8. Second amendment scholarship (using money to reshape America), 19 January 2013
9. Do guns make us more safe, or less? Let’s look at the research., 23 January 2013
10. Guns in the wild west: regulated, with no fears about ripping the Constitution, 25 January 2013

(4)  Update: the Left does it, just like the Right

Desi Erasmus reminded me that both the exaggerated imagery about Presidents is an old American tradition. Much like the Bush is Hitler meme the Democrats so loved, until they elected Obama to institutionalize and expand those same programs.  similarly, left-wing partisans made various kinds of death threats and hopes for assassination (see Michelle Malkin’s columns about these).

This similarity and behavior of the Left and Right is one of the great themes of the FM website.  Both are composed of Americans, and so have similar thinking and values.  More importantly, both are (in general) gullible cheerleaders for the 1%.  Their behavior with the Bush and Administrations shows both sides to be easily manipulated pawns.

(4)  Looking at how the right-wing sees President Obama

Imagine how their less-well mentally balanced react to a steady diet of this imagery.

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