NRA’s Paranoid Fantasy Flouts Democracy
A sane person might argue that the president and his family require special protection because they face threats the rest of us don’t. But the NRA and many of its most fervent supporters don’t see it that way. As far as they’re concerned, all of us are just as threatened as the person in the Oval Office. The fact that you’re an ordinary person and not the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth doesn’t mean you haven’t already been targeted by an al Qaeda death squad or a murderous drug gang, so you’d better be prepared, not just with a gun but with an entire arsenal of military-style weaponry.
But the real threat in the fantasy world some gun owners have spun inside their heads isn’t terrorists. You know the people I’m talking about: the “doomsday preppers,” the angry tea partiers talking about “watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants,” the folks who can’t talk about guns for 30 seconds without bringing up Hitler (who, for what it’s worth, didn’t actually disarm the German people, as so many gun advocates believe). What’s important isn’t just that these folks are paranoid, it’s who they’re paranoid about: the United States government.
Take, for one vivid example, James Yeager, the CEO of a Tennessee company called Tactical Response. In response to the prospect of stricter gun laws, he posted a YouTube video saying, “If that happens, it’s gonna spark a civil war, and I’ll be glad to fire the first shot. … I’m not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I’m not letting anybody take my guns. If it goes one inch further, I’m gonna start killing people.”