The Virginian-Pilot
©
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 well-intentioned 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 gun-rights 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.
Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E-mail him at daryl.lease@pilotonline.com.
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nice to see the free-thinkers-in-lockstep have a new hero
It's always good to find a new hero for those who are constitutionally challenged.Now that Goober is writing snarky editorials like this,it's only a matter of time before he exposes Floyd's compulsion to make Noam Chomsky's hairpieces out of Opie's last haircut.I'm sure Aunt Bea's nocturnal Tourette's-like tirades over the loss of this Goober's philosophical fantasy leader,Che(hug a Bolivian)Guevara will merit a comment.But most of all,I'm guessing Goober will follow the example of one of his fellow 'writers',who put in an appearance at the funeral of a former colleague this past year to talk more about his love of Obama than the deceased being honored.Welcome to the world of odd editorialists,the provincial territory of the Pilot's opinion page.
Dr. Tabor
I must agree with you. The Pilot Editorial Staff has become a shrill, excited, delusional, out-of-touch, partisan, mouthpiece for the extreme left. Nothing they print these days surprises me. The way I see it, everyone is put on this Earth for my own personal entertainment. And I find the Pilot very entertaining.
Chances are excellent
that the federal government will not march on Oklahoma. So any effective use of the militia would probably be to take hostages from federal offices in that state.
Otherwise, why would they need an armed militia?
What would they have done in the early 60's when federal marshals came to enforce the rights of black citizens to attend previously all white public schools in the South? Gone to war? Killed more citizens?
If they are unhappy with government, they can vote and make their voices heard.
Or is that no longer enough?
The Dems are trying, imperfectly perhaps, to rectify a health care system that is going out of control, and the solution is an armed insurrection?
What is this, a childish temper tantrum with real guns?
Good gracious, we went to war for $1 Trillion, lost 5000 American lives, maimed 10's of thousands more, not to mention Iraqi casualties. And we invaded the wrong country for Pete's sake. No call to arms, just voted the miscreants out of office.
With a daily drumbeat from the right wing media that our country is being destroyed, going socialist, going communist, going fascist or all of the above and the true patriots must do something, I think
An embarrassment to journalism
Seriously, is editorial writing to be lowered to the level of notes passed between particularly nasty 15 year old girls? Such snarky hyperbole may seem clever to the elite who would not bother to put their own time and energy into giving life to the Constitution, but to those who take their citizenship seriously enough to back it up with their lives and treasure, it is just juvenile tripe.
Rights not asserted fade away. Forming a militia is a living expression of the sovereignty of the States, even if the militia is never called to duty. Further, it is the deterrent effect of the willingness to form such militia's that will hopefully make it unnecessary to ever act as a militia in reality.
So, go ahead and snipe at the real patriots from your ivory tower. We put you there and we will keep you safe in your temple of elitism, because we understand the importance of a free press and will defend it, which clearly is something you would not do yourself.