A myth is building among the educated right wing that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to engage in rebellion against the government. And now it's looking like the National Review vibrant (if often erroneous) conservatism of William F. Buckley's magazine has been reduced to this silly beatification of firearms.
What the "right of rebellion" means in practice.
The Theory
While this has long been the view of the right's lunatic fringe, it's oozed over into the supposedly respectable
National Review (12/28/12)
Kevin D. Williamson writes:
There is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment for military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against disorder and tyranny.
Rebellions ain't tea parties. You have to kill people. That's the "right" being asserted here.
None of the National Review's sofa samurai, nor any of the wingnut blatherocracy are actually going to kill anybody, nor do they have any intent do to so, at least in the criminal sense. The remarkably widespread lack of martial experience among them is sufficient assurance of this.
They do enjoy however pretending to be the victims of this or that liberal conspiracy, in classic Monty Python "Help, Help, I'm being repressed" fashion. And there's nothing as much fun as sitting around and risklessly blathering boldly about revolution: "What has the federal government ever done for us?"
The Practice.
Genteel day-dreaming about revolution only gets one so far. You don't blog about the theoretical right to engage in a revolution. You just do it. You study where others went wrong and then you act.
What does it really mean to make war on a government armed with drone-based missiles and aircraft carriers? Periodically we see an arrest here and there of some plotters, such as that in November 2011, of several sexa- and septagenarians in Georgia, of whom two were sentenced last August to five years in prison. (link.)
Most of these don't proceed beyond a lot of foolish trash-talk, combined with accumulation of guns, ammo, spam etc. This may or may not be criminally actionable, but as a revolutionary tactic, it is a failure. The would-be revolutionaries lack the will to carry out their plots -- fundamentally they are too civilized to become effective brutes.
Practically speaking the number of people who actually are willing to implement the fantasy of pure Second Amendment-sanctioned rebellion must be vanishingly small, I would say maybe even none.
But if one were to pitch the illusion to the various race-haters and Jew-haters of the stupidariat, a rather large range of violent nitwits could be recruited to the cause, such as Robert Jay Mathews (1953-1984) and Tim McVeigh (1968-2002).
The Fantasy.
Put more crudely, but I think accurately, this so-called right of rebellion is simply the latest wingnut masturbatory fantasy straight from Red Dawn. These are the heirs to the McCarthyite wingnut fantasies of the past.
Last month, in between reports of the various gun killings, wholesale as well as retail, you may have heard that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has found that yes indeedy, one has the right to strap on heat and strut down the street.
Twin .50 caliber MG in dual anti-zombie/anti-black helicopter mode.
Now according to the Seventh Circuit, those scofflaws in the Illinois legislature have 180 days to come up with a new law that meets with the approval of the federal circuit court.
So now's your chance, Kossacks! Let's tell the Illinois legislature, those constitution-defying commies, just what they need to authorize to bring them into compliance with the Second Amendment (that's the one protecting religion, right?).
Why bring a knife to a gun fight, when you can bring a machine gun? Ideally you'd like to pack the M-134 electric-drive Gatling gun just in case you're hunted down by aliens with cloaking devices just like Jesse "I ain't got time to bleed" Ventura in Predator. It only weighs 85 pounds and take a truck battery or two to power it, but with a few trips to the gym, I'm sure you'll be up and blasting xenomorphs all over the state of Illinois in no time.
Only problem is that at 4,000 rounds a minute, you'd run through your ammo budget pretty fast. As a runner up then, I recommend the M2 Browning .50 caliber in twin mounts as shown, perfect to convert your SUV into an AFV.
Proven in war since the early 1940s, the .50 caliber Browning is ideal both on the ground as an anti-zombie weapon, or in the anti-Black Helicopter mode.
Now you may have noticed that your Hummer is not in fact an armored vehicle, nor does it have much cross-country capability. (You'll need that when the pod people attack!) Trade in that old rust bucket for the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
Gabrielle Tuite with high explosive incendiary chain gun ammo.
Tell'em what they'll get, Don!
Yes, every Bradley IFV comes with an M-242 Bushmaster 25 mm chain gun, capable of destroying attacking zombie hordes at the rate of 180 rounds per minute.
Enjoy your state of the art internal communication system playing such patriotic hits as God Bless the USA, You Light Up My Life (weaponized version), and of course your assault squad song of choice, Surfin' Bird.
BUT WAIT -- there's more!
Gabrielle Tuite (see photo right for military credentials) will be in personal command of every Bradley IFV licensed for home defense!
Now, you don't want your home town of Santa Mira to be laid waste while you combat the soul-less automatons that the alien seed pods made out of your former neighbors!
Better get out the warning, Louie Gohmert!