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Freedom from fear
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Issue
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Aug 21, 2009 02:31pm |
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| Category | Opinion |
| Author | David Sirota |
| Media | Newspaper - Oregonian, The (Portland) |
| News Date | Friday, August 21, 2009 12:30:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Those of us living in the Rocky Mountain region are steeped in America's famous gun culture -- and we therefore know well the binary debates surrounding the Second Amendment. Firearm enthusiasts -- the vast majority of whom use weapons responsibly -- believe the Constitution protects their right to bear arms. Gun control advocates counter that the Constitution doesn't give anyone the inalienable right to wield automatic weapons that can kill scores of people in seconds.
This is the stultified freedom-versus-safety quarrel that seemed to forever define gun politics -- that is, until anti-government activists started bringing firearms to public political meetings.
In early August, a protester came to a raucous Tennessee congressional forum packing heat. Days later, President Barack Obama's health care event in New Hampshire was marred by a protester posing for cameras with a pistol and sign reading, "It is time to water the tree of liberty" -- a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote promising violence. And this past week,12 armed men -- including one with an assault rifle -- not only showed off their firearms at Obama's Arizona speech, but broadcast a YouTube video threatening to "forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority."
These and other similar examples are accurately summarized with the same language federal law employs to describe domestic terrorism. Generating maximum media attention, the weapons-brandishing displays are "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population." Yes, the gun has been transformed from a sport and self-defense device into a tool of mass bullying. Like the noose in the Jim Crow South, its symbolic message is clear: If you dare engage in the democratic process, you risk bodily harm. |
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