Now I've stated since the very beginning of this blog that I'm pro-gun ownership but there are so many crazy wingnuts out there that blanket gun ownership rights, as legal and valid as I find them, still just scare the ever-loving shit out of me. Max Blumenthal went to a gun show in California and emerged with the following report and subsequent video:
This auction was conducted in Northern California; these people are my (relative) neighbors. The fact that they believe the garbage being spouted by Beck and others is just one more reason to keep at least one eye and ear trained on them:Fueled by the screeds of radio hosts Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and the lesser-known but increasingly influential online conspiracist Alex Jones, many gun-show attendees I spoke to were convinced Obama planned to usher in a Marxist dictatorship. They warned that the president’s power grab would only begin with mass gun seizures. “If Obama takes away our guns,” a young, .45 pistol-toting man from Reno told me, “it’s just a step into trying to take away everything else.”
Indeed, in their minds, average Americans opposed to the Obama agenda would be herded into FEMA-run concentration camps by a volunteer army of glassy-eyed liberal college graduates. “When they start imprisoning Americans, and people start seeing that we’re the enemy, then that’ll make it hot,” predicted one Antioch-based young man sporting a button for former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul. “People talk about a revolution,” the young man continued, “an armed revolution. I think police crackdowns on individuals will tip the scales.”
More than a few gun dealers and attendees echoed the young man’s seeming enthusiasm for armed revolt. One Contra Costa, California-based gun dealer named Rich predicted during an otherwise casual off-camera conversation that “some nut” would assassinate Obama within one year of any Democratic attempt at gun-control legislation. While the prospect of organized right-wing violence against the federal government seems far-fetched at this point, the paranoid rhetoric I documented suggests the militia movement that organized against President Bill Clinton’s policies during the 1990s could experience a dramatic resurgence by mobilizing resentment against Obama.
3 comments:
1) I live about an hour from the Knob Creek Machine Gun Range, home of the (in)famous Machine Gun Shoot. The number of people I meet on a daily basis that buy into this is staggering to me.
2) I find it hilarious that Alex Jones and his brand of conspiracy has seeped into the mainstream arguments on the Right. He's been spinning the same BS for years -- concentration camps, one-world governments, Illuminati/Elite Cabals, government cover-ups, 9/11 was an inside job.
Funny thing is that he's howled this same exact screed against GWB and the Republicans, as well. There is nothing new in his perspective; he just traded GWB for Obama. To him, their both the same puppets. But now, he's becoming a hero on the extreme Right. I wonder what they would think about his argument that Cheney is a liar?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=721Jy6XYtMg
Of course, the totally wonky thing? The raging conspiracy theorist is more consistent than nuthouse crazies like Beck or Hannity.
Go figure...
Of course, I'm an English teacher and can't use the right damn pronoun.
"their" should be "they're"
Even if the notion wasn't crazy... disarming the population of America would take as much effort as another foreign war (btw this is completely different from just declaring certain types of guns illegal).
I would ask a couple of questions in support of a rather more mundane conspiracy theory: Have the arms makers profiting from this... slipped any money into the cookie jar of the nutcase commentators recently?
The crap that people believe...
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