TCTI: Too Crazy Too Ignore
 Dave Ross

To protect against tyranny

BY Dave Ross  on December 21, 2012 @ 10:08 am (Updated: 10:36 am - 12/21/12 )

AP: d9ad2c0f-2536-4b5f-89a3-8c3d72b90f97
Anxious parents reeling in the wake the Connecticut school shooting are fueling sales of firearms enthusiasts who stock up on assault rifles nationwide amid fears of imminent gun control measures. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
All over the country, the guns are flying out the door.

Not just any guns, but as you might expect, the very guns the President wants to ban on the grounds that in the wrong hands they are just too deadly.

Now obviously these gun-buyers are not going to shoot up a classroom. But you might ask, why DO they need such weapons?

Well let's think back a few days, when Texas Representative Louie Gohmert answered that very question.

"A free people should be an armed people," said Gohmert. "It insures against the tyranny of the government if they know the biggest army is the American people, then you don't have the tyranny that came from King George."

It's what the founders believed. It's why they insisted on a Second Amendment 225 years ago. But we should at least take a moment to think through what that would mean today.

It would mean that some Americans are arming themselves so that, if necessary, they can fire upon members of the U.S. military. Should our government go rogue, and dispatch blindly obedient soldiers to march through our neighborhoods to round us up, we will ambush them - just as the Taliban would.

That's what I find weird - Americans arming themselves so that if necessary, they can kill the very soldiers that we now thank for their service at every opportunity.

But these soldiers are the sons and daughters that we raised, aren't they? If the order ever went out to round up and enslave the citizenry, wouldn't our sons and daughters say 'hell no' or would we really have to shoot at them?

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
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Comments (167)


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  • SeattleD wrote...
    The Tea Party did threaten to start a civil war if Obama was reelecteed
    December 22, 2012 8:41 am
    Is Nugent dead or in jail yet?
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  • Mavila wrote...
    Occupiers
    December 22, 2012 12:07 pm
    Advocated for a revolution, too. Last year.
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  • sohojo wrote...
    Tyranny
    December 22, 2012 8:43 am
    What level of tyranny is acceptable? The government certainly has policies you could deem tyrannical. My boss can be tyrannical, so can my neighbor. Police officers can be tyrannical, my dog can act like a tyrant. Tyranny is all around us every day. Does this mean I want to shoot everyone who acts like a tyrant, of course not. The right to bear arms is an absolute necessity to maintain an open and free society, we must be able to protect ourselves if we must. I do think if ordered to that some of our military personal would march on civilians. They are trained to protect against all threats foreign and domestic.
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  • FormerMarineSgt wrote...
    @sohojo....
    December 22, 2012 9:40 pm
    What level of tyranny is acceptable? --- depends clearly on how you define tyranny. The right wing has (since Obama was elected) defined tyranny as 'anything Obama invokes through bills passed by Congress or any and all executive orders, and by any statements made regardless of thier topic'. In other words - we don't like him, so anything he does is tyrannical. It's a pathetic way to be politically, but that's where they clearly have wanted to be - and it got them ever so much in the 2012 elections, now didn't it?
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  • adkim67 wrote...
    It Means the Same Today as It did Then
    December 22, 2012 8:45 am
    2nd Ammendmaent means the same thing today as it did when it was written; just the same as all the other ammendments. We are on the BRINK of tyranny today with Obama and his underhanded, overbearing, deceptive leadership. When you think about it, RED DAWN won't come from Russia, it will come for WASH DC.
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  • Forrest wrote...
    Our government will fire on it's citizens...
    December 22, 2012 8:49 am
    Remember Kent State.
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    But, for how long will they fire on their mothers and fathers?
    December 22, 2012 9:14 am
    Russia: 1905. The Czar's troops readily dispersed crowds with swords and gins. .. Russia: 1916. The army shot those who begged for bread. Russia: 1917. the troops no longer shot their fellow Russians, but joined them.

    After Kent State, many of those young guardsmen wept at what they had done.

    Yes, any government will fire on its citizens. But the soldiers are not slaves to the government.

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  • rational wrote...
    Signs of tyranny...
    December 22, 2012 8:59 am
    Perhaps it'd be useful to consider what tyranny is. I found a list of 16 indicators at this link:

    http://listverse.com/2009/03/07/16-signs-that-you-live-in-a-tyranny/

    that seems a decent list. I don't know anything about this site, but this list seems a good place to start.

    1. Control of public information and opinion

    2. Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers

    3. Undue official influence on trials and juries

    4. Usurpation of undelegated powers

    5. Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force

    6. Militarization of law enforcement

    7. Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform

    8. Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers

    9. Use of the law for competition suppression

    10. Subversion of internal checks and balances

    11. Creation of a class of officials who are above the law

    12. Increasing dependency of the people on government

    13. Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them

    14. Use of staged events to produce popular support

    15. Conversion of rights into privileges

    16. Political correctness

    At the link they flesh out these points a ilttle. I expect progressives might take exception to point 16, but what they're getting at is the enlistment of the citizenry to watch other citizens.

    It would be easier to count how many of these signs have not occurred.

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  • Rick (4) wrote...
    @rational
    December 22, 2012 10:21 am
    Great comment!
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  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    Rational shoots...and SCORES!!!!
    December 22, 2012 5:19 pm
    ...
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  • FormerMarineSgt wrote...
    @rational
    December 22, 2012 9:42 pm
    Your list is an interesting one. And it's being violated just as much by your beloved Republicans as by anyone else.
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  • rational wrote...
    FormerMarineSgt
    December 23, 2012 7:14 am
    Firstly, they are not "my" beloved Republicans...I'm an independant. And yes, republicans are violating those elements of tyranny as well. The Patriot Act, for example, came from the Bush admin.

    Something most seem to miss is that the real divide is not democrat/republican. The real divide is progressive/small goverment tensions. And the majority of republicans are progressives, and almost all democrats are. We have essentially a 1 party government and the elections are kabuki theater.

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  • Saltchucker wrote...
    We won't have to fire on US soldiers.
    December 22, 2012 9:03 am
    More than half of them will disobey orders to assault thier own people and deprive them of the liberty they swore an oath to protect. Same with the rank and file police. Why else would Obama order a billion rounds of ammo last yeat year via executive order? The same order that gave him all the same powers Roosevelt had during WWII. National "security force" here we come.
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  • cigarfan wrote...
    @Saltchucker
    December 23, 2012 9:14 am
    I didn't vote for Obama...but are you sure that a president uses executive orders...to order rounds of ammunition? This smells funny/right wing conspiratorial. What is the order number?
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  • dori monson fan wrote...
    if Jim Sanders had owned an ak-47
    December 22, 2012 9:33 am
    he might be alive today. And Kiyoshi Higashi, Joshua Nathan Reese, Amanda Knight, and Clabon Berniard might all be dead. Not all armed robbers work alone, and when two or more come to your house you really want to have a semi-automatic rifle to protect you and your family.
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  • Rick (4) wrote...
    To protect against tyranny is a still valid reason.
    December 22, 2012 10:15 am
    I see comments from others that state tyranny has not happened for the last 200+ years, so why do we still need the 2nd amendment? Could it be that tyranny has not happened over that last 200+ years because of the 2nd amendment? It looks to me that the 2nd amendment has worked and still works today. IMO, the Obama administration is very close to tyranny and probably would be if the 2nd amendment did not exist.
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  • dsbab wrote...
    Tyranny?
    December 22, 2012 10:21 am
    Ruby Ridge, Waco TX...Have any of you bothered to delve in to the Patriot Act?
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  • lazarusrose wrote...
    a relevant book quote
    December 22, 2012 10:47 am
    "Evil thinks not to beguile us by unveiling the terrible truth of its festering intent, but comes instead disguised in the diaphanous robes of virtue, whispering sweet sounding lies intended to seduce us into the dark bed of our eternal graves." ----- Tyranny won't present itself obtusely in this day and age. Like other schemes, it will evolve to the times, and with global communications and media, will have to approach us with subterfuge.
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  • Rick (4) wrote...
    @dsbab - Are you responding to me?
    December 22, 2012 11:50 am
    Have you bothered to delve into the NDAA of 2012? Have you realized that Obama has renewed the Patriot Act? Ruby Ridge, Waco TX - not examples of tyranny but action taken legally against people breaking the law. Yes, Waco went bad but it was not tyranny.
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  • Snout wrote...
    Dave's view of the Constitution is dosconcerting
    December 22, 2012 10:49 am
    It means what it meant when it was crafted. If it means whatever we want it to mean whenever we want it to mean that then it means nothing and we're in a heap of trouble. If you want to change it, then try and get it changed. The founders set up a process for that and didn't make it easy for a reason.
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