(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Logic of Gun Fetishists [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-20 I can repeat over and over that the framers of the Constitution were talking about establishing an all-volunteer army when they wrote the Second Amendment, not the right of citizens to rise up against their government if they came to believe the government was oppressive. But 2nd Amendment enthusiasts aren’t going to accept that. They know in their heart of hearts that the framers meant to give citizens the right to rise against a government they don’t like. First, the idea that a government would give citizens the right to violently rise against the government is just illogical. It’s saying the 2nd Amendment actually says, “Come at me, bro.” But even if we accept that it means that, it’s simply ridiculous to think that there could ever be a consensus on whether the government is oppressive. It’s like the pro-insurrection faction thinks whenever there is a disagreement on which way the government should go, it needs to be resolved through combat. The party that kills the most members of the other party wins. In today’s United States, we do have a battle to resolve which way the country should go — it’s called an election. Before I retired, my desk was across from a gun enthusiast. I once asked him whether he thought his rifle could protect him against a government that had the ability to come after him with bombers, fighter jets, tanks, armored personnel carriers and killer robots. His answer: “I don’t care.” I think he preferred to fantasize about holding off the entire U.S. Army with a hunting rifle. (Which under any of the gun regulations currently under discussion, he could keep). I find it difficult to wrap my head around the idea that children massacred in their elementary school classrooms is an acceptable price of “freedom.” But let’s look a concrete case of what the framers thought the 2nd Amendment meant. It was 1791 and George Washington was still president. At the beginning of the Republic there were no income taxes. Most of the government’s income was from tariffs and excise taxes. But the newly minted United States had a ton of war debt from the Revolution. Revenue, the way they were collecting it, was insufficient. So Congress levied a tax on whiskey. It was the first time the government had put a tax on a product produced inside the country. And the effects fell primarily on whiskey producers. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t like that. Whiskey production was centered on the western frontier. These guys thought this was an unjust example of taxation without local representation. Hmmm, where have I heard that phrase before? A lot of these guys were veterans of the Continental Army. So, they took up arms to resist paying the whiskey tax. The Whiskey Rebellion is also called the Whiskey Insurrection. What did the Founding Fathers do about this exercise of 2nd Amendment rights? George Washington personally led the U.S. Army out to the western frontier to put down the rebellion. How did that go? Well, these brave rebels who were defending their liberty ran away and hid. There was no battle. The uprising sort of continued until 1794 when it came to a negotiated end. I think the Whiskey Rebellion can to seen as a demonstration that the government did NOT think citizens were entitled to rise against the government. But it also demonstrates the impossibility of reaching a consensus that the government is not serving the people’s interest. It’s not hard to argue that the whiskey producers had a legitimate grievance. The whiskey tax meant that whiskey producers were being asked to shoulder an unfair portion of the war debt. I don’t know… maybe a different revenue raising tool might have been more fair… like an income tax? Of course, that might also have been a hard sell at the time. Gun fetishists need to understand that mass murder is not a fair price for “freedom.” Mass murder is tyranny. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/20/2164912/-The-Logic-of-Gun-Fetishists Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/