Can we call them domestic terrorists yet?
Meet Larry Pratt. Larry is a lobbyist and the executive director of Gun Owners of America. 4 days after the horrific slaughter of 20 school children and 6 adults in Connecticut Larry suggested on national television that people who don't like the results of elections should use guns to politically intimidate elected officials whom they disagree with. You know, like a terrorist.
Watch the whole video, courtesy of ThinkProgress.org. Kudos to Chris Matthews for pushing back against this lunacy. It reminds me of these people from the health care debate. Those same people whose political leaders keep holding the economy hostage in exchange for policies the voters rejected. File this under Great moments in Totally Not Threatening Political Violence.
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Appearing on on MSNBC’s Hardball on Monday, Pratt — who immediately after the massacre accused gun safety advocates of having blood on their hands — claimed that had teachers at Sandy Hook elementary school had firearms, the shooting could have been prevented. He added that all Americans should have guns “in order to control the government”:
CHRIS MATTHEWS (HOST): So you’re like Sharron Angle, out in Nevada, who said we need our Second Amendment rights to control when our politicians get out of hand.
PRATT: That’s what the Second Amendment is all for, she’s not making that up.
MATTHEWS: So how would you use your Second Amendment rights if you didn’t like the way your congressman or senator is representing you? [...]
PRATT: Well, uhm, we have a Political Action Committee and we try to be, be...
MATTHEWS: But how would you use your Second Amendment rights, which you are now bestowing...
PRATT: By being prepared. [...]
MATTHEWS: To do what?
PRATT: You don't have to go and shoot anybody...
MATTHEWS: To shoot? But what you have, to threat though?
PRATT: Oh, I think it bothers lawmakers that we do have that capability, and sometimes they kind of let it loose when they're not quite...
MATTHEWS: So Larry, it’s not just the right to use guns to protect your homes, it’s the right to take on your government?
PRATT: The government has been overboard.
Thinkprogress.org
Yeah, because it's called
terrorism! You're not allowed to hold people at up gun-point and make demands when elections don't go your way! This is not an Authoritarianism of One.
And when Matthews says "What time do you use the gun" Pratt answers "We call up 9-1-1" and then some idiot like George Zimmerman decides he doesn't need no law enforcement to tell him what to do and WE HAVE DONE THIS SO MANY FUCKING TIMES I AM OUT OF PATIENCE!
Woo. Sorry. Needed that. Just a sec. This is getting silly.
Lobbyism is one thing, but Larry Pratt is suggesting something more than that, political intimidation at gun point. Wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross and pointing a gun in your face.
Slightly more below the fold.
The 2nd Amendment does not give you the right to wave a gun in our face while demanding crazy shit. This is not the revolutionary war and you are not at war with the British Monarchy. Guns are not the alternative to dealing with the fact that sometimes you lose elections.
The anti-government extremists have been playing with gunpowder, amping up this horrible evil government that's coming to get you in a way that's nothing short of stochastic terrorism on a grand scale, demonizing the government as an institution while demanding stronger corporate control of the marketplace for their preferred special interests of big business, in this case the arms industry. I've heard anti-government extremists all my life, but NEVER have I heard one of these clowns out and out suggest political intimidation at gunpoint before. The fact that Larry Pratt did this on the Monday after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary is sickening and psychotic.
Does the name Gabby Giffords ring a bell. Didn't we just go through this? Over and over? How about Arizona District Court Chief Judge John Roll or Christina-Taylor Green who both died when Jard Lee Loughner decided to take his gun to a political event one day. As far as I'm concerned I would vote tomorrow for Mark Kelly, who is the husband of now retired Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, to punch Larry Pratt in the face.
In honor of Keith Olbermann I'd like to nominate Larry Pratt as Worst Person In The World for today. Larry Pratt, who loves to remind us of the feats of our founding fathers and their trusty gun, but who failed to learn a single lesson about the responsibility that liberty requires to preserve it. Larry Pratt is a psychotic extremist. The messenger who threatens to bring guns to a debate is no friend of democracy, he is the harbinger of authoritarianism. The only thing Larry Pratt reminds of me about the founding fathers is their solemn wish that we would defend democracy from all enemies "both foreign and domestic"
I leave the floor to you,
Peace and love to all