Apparently Donald J. Trump’s incessant drum beating is reaching gun-toting Americans seeking liberation from frustrations they can’t escape. In their own bizarre way, the raging reactionaries are another cruel manifestation of Mother Nature’s punishing new game.
Novel coronavirus protesters with military-style mowing machines are showing up around the country to demonstrate their resolve to reopen America by force of arms. Their sentiment is understandable, their motives are arguably even noble, but their reasoning, if any was applied, is grossly flawed. Nobody is on their side except Trump.
At another gun show in Shepherd, Texas last week, armed protesters gathered to support the owner of a tattoo parlor and bar in nearby Odessa, which reopened in defiance of an order that it remain shuttered. The New York Times reported that when owner Jamie Williams opened up her East Texas tattoo business she asked customer Philip Archibald for help. He showed up with his dog Zeus, his friends and his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
“We go out there because we want peace, but we prepare for war,” the Times quoted C.J. Grisham, 46, another friend of Williams. The retired Army sergeant’s gun rights group Open Carry Texas helped the arrested owner of the bar in Odessa get a lawyer. “I hope this never happens, but at some point guns are going to have to cease to be a show of force and be a response to force.”
At some point the scary appearances of armed protesters among peaceful citizens will provoke a confrontation with authorities loaded for bear, The misguided malcontents will lose. Whether or not such a conflict will ignite a bigger conflagration depends on what Trump says and does next. Will he call for more guns if his economic plan causes increased deaths and he fails?
Most folks are understandably concerned when a bunch of Joe Combat wannabes with movieland versions of death machines show up to save them. The potential victims usual reaction is to call for help, loudly and repeatedly, ratcheting up tensions already stoked by the appearance of idiots with guns.
The popular solution is deploying a heavily force trained to distinguish a serious threat from a bunch of gun toting bozos so far just disturbing the peace. Tampering with peaceful assembly is loaded with political dynamite. The pros are taught to approach the situation as a complex problem rather than the end of time. Their need to train for such events is a sad commentary on our society.
Contrary to the movies, most mercenary wannabes go home at the thought of facing down determined police with guns of their own. Sane and balanced people have no desire to use deadly force. Unbalanced people are the threat. Hopefully appearance and demeanor are not the primary keys to identifying them.
Conversely, most of the idiots carrying their gunshow marvels are locked in Rambo mode, convinced that with their souped up $1,000 semi-automatic assault rifles they can take out the opposition they way role models do. The problem with that is, while they are standing around wearing their best “I’m-not-a-SEAL-but-I-play-one-at-protests” face, the authorities confronting them are thinking about the best way to kill them.
In contemporary times, think Waco, Ruby Ridge, Wounded Knee, the Attica prison riots, and lastly, the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on January 2, 2016. None of them ended well for the gunmen or for the soul of our nation.
Stories of armed protests are woven throughout the fabric of American history. Since the American Revolutionary War at least 24 major insurrections and dozens of protest related shootings and slaughters have occurred in America. In between were range wars, coal wars, sheep wars, cattle wars, and bloody miner strikes.
In modern “civilized” America thoughts of anyone shooting fellow Americans to protest used to be almost beyond belief. Apparently not anymore. Somewhere, some governor or sheriff is going to get tired of Bubba and the boys usurping their authority and forcefully act. If the hooligans resist and survive, they get to go to jail. If they aren’t that lucky, they may become more unfortunate victims of COVID-19.
America is in a fragile, vulnerable place. Guns are not the problems, it is the people openly carrying them around and the elected idiots encouraging them on. No doubt Trump is ecstatic at the very thought of his budding Brownshirts.
Is it reasonable to get scared?
natshouseblog 
I’m not scared. I’m demoralized. Is this country going to be like this for the rest of my life? It’s beginning to look like that. I’ve read so much about the 14th century and now I feel like I’m living in a teched up version of it.
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After reading your current state I am worried for you. Please get a new battery… another hummingbird arrived today… this one a female ruby throated one… more what we usually see. We had a family last year. Nest is so cool. Recovered one unhatched egg when they left in fall… incredibly fragile. Saved a cotton-filled pin box.
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Reblogged this on Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth and commented:
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
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Hi Marilyn, thanks for reblogging. Seem to have hit a nerve with this story. In the final analysis I say the vast majority of the armed idiots would melt like driven snow on a hot street. With Trump leading not sure what official govt response might be. His lackeys will do whatever is his bidding. He is as scary as COVID-19. Enjoyed to retrun of red house finches… officially here they are red headed sparrows… but universally called red headed finches. There are people around here who LOVE golden finches that will attempt to do them harm because they are so aggressive. I like them and put out two finch feeders… seems to keep them from fighting. You notice finch food is crazy expensive this spring?
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I’ll vote whimper any time. People just don’t understand… Bosnia looked like Missouri. Neighborhoods and little streets and neighborhood stores… religious, temperate… people well educated, articulate, cultured… used to cut each others head off with saws.
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One must wonder if you’re rooting for Trump to win against gun owners or gun owners to win against Trump. Either way, it must to be so conflicted and have a fundamental lack of understanding about the value of freedom.
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Thanks for reading. Interesting point of view. In this context I don’t know what “win” means.To put a fine point on my thoughts, if the genie ever got out of the bottle what will Trump do… use the full force of the US to stop it, or waffle around talking out both side of his mouth like now while casting for votes.
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The “full force of the US” isn’t going to turn on the American people. If the military or wholesale law enforcement were used to suppress the American people’s frustration, you’ll see defections like never before. I say this as a recently retired First Sergeant. Trump is douchebag, but unfortunately he’s better than the other side has to offer. However, this power and control over the rights, liberties, and happiness of the American people must stop.
“[M]ankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” – Declaration of Independence
That’s what these shows of force are about. This isn’t a right/left issue. It’s a right/wrong issue. Shutting down the economy over a virus with a more than 97% recovery rate is absurd and dangerous and it’s sad so many American people are so brainwashed that they are going along with it.
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Couldn’t disagree more about Trump, your perception of events, the absolute need for isolation and strict precautions, or that the idiot in the White House knows more about science than scientists and more about the economy than economists. He is a shuckster, a draft dodger and a coward. Trump is a menace to American democracy, world peace and civility among people. You need to go somewhere else to find a sympathetic ear. Trump wants to be king or premier, or Putin or maybr even the fat, little North Korean. Let him go there and rule. he doesn’t belong in America.
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When and where did you serve again? I missed that.
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Never mind. I googled it. You’re a Vietnam veteran. Welcome home, brother.
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I was a soldier for 8 years, three tours in Nam and a cop for 9 years in Texas.
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