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An embarrassment to the Second Amendment
Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E-mail him at daryl.lease@pilotonline.com. SHERIFF Andy Taylor, call your office, please.
The good constable of Mayberry has come to mind several times in recent days amid reports of an army of Barney Fifes on the move.
At least I hope they’re as wellintentioned as Barn. I wish we had someone of Sheriff Taylor’s caliber around to counsel the more ballistic-minded among them to keep their bullets tucked in their shirt pockets for safety’s sake.
Early this week, a group of 100 or so gun-rights advocates gathered in Capitol Square in Richmond to celebrate legislative victories that broaden their abilities to carry guns during more of their daily travels.
Virginia’s premier Fife, Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, was there to praise the crowd as “people, who, as I do, love the Constitution.” He reminded folks just how hard he’s working to protect us against folks who presumably don’t love the Constitution nearly as much, i.e., President Barack Obama and Congress.
Cuccinelli’s references to the federal government’s meddling with state’s rights — over health care legislation and fuel efficiency standards, in his mind — are echoing around the country, often in unsettling ways.
In Oklahoma, for example, tea party leaders have been talking to legislators about creating a state-approved volunteer militia, according to The Associated Press.
Why? To protect citizens against the federal government, of course.
Some lawmakers are receptive to the idea. State Sen. Randy Brogdon, a Republican candidate for governor in Oklahoma, told the AP that he thinks such a militia would be okey-dokey under the Second Amendment.
The nation’s founders, he explained, “were not referring to a turkey shoot or a quail hunt. ... The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government.”
Ah. Thanks so much for the clarification.
“It’s not a far-right crazy plan or anything like that,” J.W. Berry, one of the tea party leaders behind the effort, told the AP. “This would be done with the full cooperation of the state legislature.”
And Berry, apparently, is just the sort of fellow that James Madison and the boys had in mind with the Second Amendment. At his Web site, OKforTea.com, Berry refers to Obama as “the Reincarnation of Pol Pot,” among other things.
I fail to grasp the comparison , but Berry is free to say what he wishes.
I’m not at all comfortable, however, with the thought of any state in our nation arming a bumbling, malicious crew of twisted Fifes and setting them up to stage “citizen’s arrests” against federal employees.
Neither, thankfully, is Gary Jones, the head of the Republican Party in Oklahoma. As the militia blather spread this week, he stepped forward in Sheriff Taylor fashion and started talking sense.
Jones said the state’s GOP doesn’t support the idea. No way, no how.
“I’m very pro-Second Amendment,” he told Politico.com. “But when you start talking about this, it turns people off.”
Joseph Thai, a constitutional law professor at the University of Oklahoma, was more blunt. “Have they heard of the Oklahoma City bombing?” he asked the AP.
The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, you’ll recall, was carried out by Timothy McVeigh and other militia wannabes who felt they were protecting the nation from an overreaching federal government.
Monday, as it happens, is the 15th anniversary of the attack that killed 168 people and wounded hundreds. It’s also the day chosen by gunrights advocates to stage a “Second Amendment March” on Washington, D.C.
Organizers say they picked April 19 for the event because it’s the 235th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, the first armed conflicts in the Revolutionary War. They bristle at any suggestion that another date might be more appropriate, given the events of 1995.
So they’ll arm themselves, march and speechify — all protected under the Constitution. And, let’s hope, they’ll keep their bullets in their shirt pockets — in acknowledgment of the unstable constitution of some of their compatriots
An embarrassment to the Second Amendment
Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E-mail him at daryl.lease@pilotonline.com. SHERIFF Andy Taylor, call your office, please.
The good constable of Mayberry has come to mind several times in recent days amid reports of an army of Barney Fifes on the move.
At least I hope they’re as wellintentioned as Barn. I wish we had someone of Sheriff Taylor’s caliber around to counsel the more ballistic-minded among them to keep their bullets tucked in their shirt pockets for safety’s sake.
Early this week, a group of 100 or so gun-rights advocates gathered in Capitol Square in Richmond to celebrate legislative victories that broaden their abilities to carry guns during more of their daily travels.
Virginia’s premier Fife, Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, was there to praise the crowd as “people, who, as I do, love the Constitution.” He reminded folks just how hard he’s working to protect us against folks who presumably don’t love the Constitution nearly as much, i.e., President Barack Obama and Congress.
Cuccinelli’s references to the federal government’s meddling with state’s rights — over health care legislation and fuel efficiency standards, in his mind — are echoing around the country, often in unsettling ways.
In Oklahoma, for example, tea party leaders have been talking to legislators about creating a state-approved volunteer militia, according to The Associated Press.
Why? To protect citizens against the federal government, of course.
Some lawmakers are receptive to the idea. State Sen. Randy Brogdon, a Republican candidate for governor in Oklahoma, told the AP that he thinks such a militia would be okey-dokey under the Second Amendment.
The nation’s founders, he explained, “were not referring to a turkey shoot or a quail hunt. ... The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government.”
Ah. Thanks so much for the clarification.
“It’s not a far-right crazy plan or anything like that,” J.W. Berry, one of the tea party leaders behind the effort, told the AP. “This would be done with the full cooperation of the state legislature.”
And Berry, apparently, is just the sort of fellow that James Madison and the boys had in mind with the Second Amendment. At his Web site, OKforTea.com, Berry refers to Obama as “the Reincarnation of Pol Pot,” among other things.
I fail to grasp the comparison , but Berry is free to say what he wishes.
I’m not at all comfortable, however, with the thought of any state in our nation arming a bumbling, malicious crew of twisted Fifes and setting them up to stage “citizen’s arrests” against federal employees.
Neither, thankfully, is Gary Jones, the head of the Republican Party in Oklahoma. As the militia blather spread this week, he stepped forward in Sheriff Taylor fashion and started talking sense.
Jones said the state’s GOP doesn’t support the idea. No way, no how.
“I’m very pro-Second Amendment,” he told Politico.com. “But when you start talking about this, it turns people off.”
Joseph Thai, a constitutional law professor at the University of Oklahoma, was more blunt. “Have they heard of the Oklahoma City bombing?” he asked the AP.
The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, you’ll recall, was carried out by Timothy McVeigh and other militia wannabes who felt they were protecting the nation from an overreaching federal government.
Monday, as it happens, is the 15th anniversary of the attack that killed 168 people and wounded hundreds. It’s also the day chosen by gunrights advocates to stage a “Second Amendment March” on Washington, D.C.
Organizers say they picked April 19 for the event because it’s the 235th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, the first armed conflicts in the Revolutionary War. They bristle at any suggestion that another date might be more appropriate, given the events of 1995.
So they’ll arm themselves, march and speechify — all protected under the Constitution. And, let’s hope, they’ll keep their bullets in their shirt pockets — in acknowledgment of the unstable constitution of some of their compatriots
