I think we are. I think there's no avoiding it.
There's been a lot of hot-headed talk coming from the Gun Lobby, NRA and wild gun rights supporters over the last few weeks, and even the last few months. Particularly in their Demonization of, and threats against the President.
Ted Nugent in 2012 - We need to "Chop Their Heads Off" in the Election to protect gun rights.
Wayne Lapierre in 2012 - If President Obama gets reelected, he’s gonna have one to three Supreme Court appointments and I guarantee you this, if that happens, one to three more [Justice Sonia] Sotomayors and [Justice Elena] Kagans and we can kiss our constitutional right to own a firearm in the United States goodbye, along with a lot of the rest of our freedoms. And we can’t let that happen.
Jim Yeager - "I'm Gonna Start Killing People!"
Sen. Rand Paul - "Obama is acting like a King."
Rep. Steve Stockman - "He should be Impeached".
Some of it is just your standard blowhard-ism. People simply trying to push buttons. Just Shit Talk. Some of it isn't.
This is what they said 4 years ago...
Imagine what they think, are saying and are willing to do now that the President really has put forward the dreaded "Gun Grabbing Plan" (or so they believe) he's always wanted.
We have to realize, that at some point - someone - somewhere - is going to respond to all that button pushing, all that verbal diarrhea, someones going to overreact and real blood will be spilled.
And it's not like we weren't warned. DHS issued it's report on Right-Wing Extremism early in the Obama Administration only to be crowed by the crying and whining of "Political Profiling" by the Right.
They were up in arms at the Reports suggestion that Right-Wingers could grow Violent en mas.
But this was released after the Southern Poverty Law Center Report which said essentially the same thing. http://www.dailykos.com/...
As in recent years, hate groups were animated by fears of Latino immigration. This rise in hate groups has coincided with a 40 percent growth in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2007, according to FBI statistics.
Two new factors were introduced to the volatile hate movement in 2008: the faltering economy and the Obama campaign.
"Barack Obama's election has inflamed racist extremists who see it as another sign that their country is under siege by non-whites," said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report, a quarterly investigative journal that monitors the radical right. "The idea of a black man in the White House, combined with the deepening economic crisis and continuing high levels of Latino immigration, has given white supremacists a real platform on which to recruit."
And this occurred
after the Terrorist Attack on the Unitarian Church in Knoxville by James Cummings.
Who left this note:
Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....
There have also been numerous other events and portents.
The Tea Party forming an Confederate Army in Oklahoma.
The Associated Press reports that Oklahoma tea party leaders, "frustrated by recent political setbacks," are working with right-wing Republicans in the Oklahoma legislature to create a new "volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty." State Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-OK) and State Rep. Charles Key (R-OK) have met with tea party leaders, like J.W. Berry of the Tulsa-based OKforTea group, to plan legislation for a state-authorized militia.
The Neo-Nazi attack on Sikhs in Wisconsin.
http://www.splcenter.org/...
When Wade Michael Page strode into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and began to murder people, it was the culmination of more than a decade in the neo-Nazi movement. The best evidence suggests that Page initially came to his beliefs while serving at a North Carolina Army base that was then a hotbed of white supremacist activity, but they were honed by a dozen years on the white power music scene.
There was the attempted attack by Byron Williams against the ACLU and Tides Foundation in Oakland.
Which, according to the shooter himself, was directly inspired by the "preaching" of Glen Beck.
Byron wanted to spark a "Revolution" of true patriots against the dreaded socialist "Left" and the Government, just like James Adkisson wanted, just like Timothy McVeigh wanted.
So far, they've all failed. So Far.
But I absolutely guarantee you that there will more incidents like the above. Somebody is going to try again. There will be more "Crazy", "Deranged" Lone Wolves fired up by extreme over-the-top rhetorical lies coming out and causing mass death in protest of the Usurper/Fascist/Socialist/Kenya/Gun-Grabber/Health-Care Bringer and his "Leftist" Supporters like Soros, Tides, ACLU, ACORN, the Tooth Fairy, Tinkerbell and Time Warner.
That's. Going. To. Happen.
The only real question is whether that person - probably a middle-aged white male - will be alone, or whether he'll be part of a larger group like the "Confederate Army" mentioned above or the Hutaree Militia.
Most likely, they will not face the U.S. Army or drone strikes - they'll be going against local police forces, maybe the FBI, maybe the ATF and Homeland Securty -- and they'll be vastly better armed (as they were in Waco and in North Hollywood) than any of those.
Remember North Hollywood?
But there's another possibility that it won't be a contest of determined and well-armed civilians against local law enforcement - the Shooting War just might start as Local Cops take on Federal Authorities. Especially if it comes from people like "Sherriff Mack" http://www.splcenter.org/...
He’s a graduate of the FBI National Academy who preaches that county sheriffs are the highest legitimate law enforcement officials in the land. He’s a hard-right libertarian who believes the federal government has no authority to require drivers to wear seat belts and who once demanded the government give him back the $4,800 he paid in income taxes. He’s a self-styled “constitutional conservative” with little or no formal legal training who believes that states can ignore federal laws they don’t like, despite clear language in the U.S. Constitution that says otherwise.
Meet Richard Mack — or “Sheriff Mack,” as he is more commonly known.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented an Explosion in Patriot Groups in the last two years.
http://www.splcenter.org/...
The radical right grew explosively in 2011, the third such dramatic expansion in as many years. The growth was fueled by superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country.
And some of those groups have attempted to move forward with dramatic violent plans.
... last November, federal officials arrested four members of a Georgia militia. The four elderly men were accused of plotting to assassinate public officials, bomb federal buildings, and carry out mass murders in four U.S. cities by dispersing deadly ricin dust from the windows of speeding cars.
So far many of these larger and more dangerous plots have been thwarted or stopped -- possibly because of the difficulty in maintaining operational secrecy amongst a large group that needs to organize and co-ordinate vs a sole person who doesn't have to worry about logistical concerns.
But there is no reason to assume that we're going to just remain lucky forever.
It's going to get ugly.
There are two questions we all have to consider. How will prepare ourselves for this eventuality and how will we respond?
The tragedy of Sandy Hook shouldn't have been a surprise. It really shouldn't, but it was. It was shocking and before we've even fully proceed it's emotional impact on our national psyche we're running headlong to implement new policies to salve that open wound. Perhaps, striking while the iron is still hot is best and necessary. The resistance to rational gun safety rules is entrenched and well burrowed.
However we need to be ready for the eventual Blow-Back.
We can all see how the Leadership of the NRA has quite literally Lost their Minds as they propose sticking an Army of George Zimmermans in all our schools, attacking the President's Children for being protected by the Secret Service and alternately crying and whining about the "Death Threats" they themselves claim to have received.
Don't think the President, his Wife and Children have received Death Threats?
You bet they have. And from people I would bet, who are card carrying members of the NRA too. As deranged as the NRA leadership has responded to all of this, even tho most members of that organization are fully reasonable and sane -Some of them are Not, and those persons will. eventually. ACT.
There will come a time when all these threats and tough talk will no longer be idle. We need to be ready for that, emotionally and rhetorically. We will need to keep our heads, not over-react, over blame and finger point, but truly get our heads around it, and respond appropriately.
We'll need to stay the course and continue moving toward a more safe and sane nation. They can't stop us. They won't stop us. They may fight back, they may kill - but they won't win. Period. They don't have enough bullets to stop us all.
Vyan