Thousands of gun owners rallied around the country yesterday in armed solidarity against President Obama and any regulation of the flow of guns whatsoever.
They marched and scootered passed schools, courthouses, hair salons and crowded local diners in their "Guns Across America" movement to break America of its aversion to mass shootings. In a fun-filled weekend of gun nut festivities involving multiple shootings at multiple gun shows, it looks as though it was a glorious sight to behold:
Hartford, Connecticut Image by Jessica Hill / AP
That green and white ribbon next to the assault rifle says, "Newtown."
It went on and on like this, all across the country, with crowds varying and parents dragging their children out and using them as literal props to bear witness like an unwitting accomplice to a mass temper tantrum across America.
All those peaceful protesters with their concealed and not-so-concealed weapons and signs and threats of armed revolution. It feels like every single day for the past four years all over again.
And according to a new study, via Think Progress:
Titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right,” this new report instead looks as the risk that domestic groups pose to the U.S. Breaking down these groups into three categories — the Racist/White Supremacy Movement, the Anti-Federalist Movement, and the Christian Fundamentalist Movement — allows the study to examine the background ideologies and methods of each subset thoroughly, opposed to lumping them all together as most studies have.
Each of the groupings in the study represent competing ideological views, with none of them likely to cooperate in achieving their aims. The chances that each of these groups will use violence also varies. What they share, however, is a use of violence against their chosen targets — be it minority races or abortion clinics — to draw attention to and emphasize their given ideology.(emphasis mine)
The gun nuts, racists, and the pro-life groups are all cogs in the same crazy wheel.
Just don't call them "violent," or "crazy."
Call them, "peaceful protesters," like mainstream media reports, protesting peaceably, or they'll send you death threats and show up in the town square with their assault rifles.