What if the non-crazy people bought guns too?

Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly raised a valid point. He wondered about all these right-wing white-power psychos who insist on asserting their Second Amendment rights to stockpile mountains of guns and ammunition, so they can resist tyranny – whenever they decide that government has crossed some line which exists only in their fevered brains, they have a constitutional right to start shooting up our policemen and soldiers.

But what if other people took the same stance? People that the right-wing yahoos don’t like?

And Kilgore mentioned a few examples – activists protecting animals, Native Americans demanding their land back…

What if women bought guns and started defending abortion clinics?

What if blacks bought guns and asserted their constitutional right to roam our white neighborhoods?

What if gays began arming, looking for “tyrannical” Republicans depriving them of their rights?

What if Mexicans began arming so they could assist illegals in crossing the border?

What if Muslim Pakistanis were roaming the streets with AKs, looking for “tyrannical” churches to attack?

What if poor people bought guns and decided that the owners of the local bank were committing “tyranny”?

What if “Occupy Wall Street” turned into “Get a Gun and Occupy Wall Street”?

There’s a fine line separating “armed resistance to tyranny” from “armed robbery”, or “mass murder”. And right-wing yahoos are not so good at seeing fine lines. Or, indeed, any line that lies between them and what they demand as their right.

So let me point out two things. First, even with all of the fear and chaos in our country right now, the huge majority of Americans who are not crazy right-wing loons are not buying guns. There has been a spike in gun purchases, but it is overwhelmingly by the right-wing loons who are already stockpiling guns. Because we, the sane majority, believe in this country and we believe in democracy, unlike the whackaloons. We believe that eventually everything will work out, and whenever we lose an election we can just roll out our maps and get ready for the next one, rather than screaming “Voter fraud! Tyranny! They’re coming to get us! Revolution!”

And second, if the right-wing whackaloons try to force an armed clash with the rest of us, they would lose. Because there are a lot more of us, and we’re smarter than they are. Even setting aside the fact that the U.S. military would mow them down.