While there has been a lot of attention focused on gun control lately, not quite as much attention is being paid to a related underlying question.
Who is being disarmed, and why?
The gun control plans that I have seen always exempt the police, the government, and the military, so in that sense their proponents cannot literally be called anti-gun. Rather, they want guns to be only in the hands of certain people — especially themselves and their bodyguards.
But a news report which got my attention last night continues to bother me today (well, last night I was bothered; this morning I feel downright horrified), so I thought a post was warranted.
The president and his bodyguards do not trust armed United States Marines:
“Didn’t know the Marines had to take the bolts out of their rifles for the Inaugural,” an email forwarded to Gun Rights Examiner from a United States Marine Corps source observed. “Wonder if someone can explain why [they] would be marching in the inaugural parade with no bolts in their rifles!”
The email linked to a YouTube video of the 57th Presidential Inaugural Parade, embedded in this column, featuring Bravo Company Marines from the Marine Barracks Washington. Sure enough, the observation in the email is confirmed by watching the video, with screen shots provided in the photo and slide show accompanying this article.
This prompted an internet search to see if others had also noticed, and the Blur-Brain blog had.
“The bolts have been removed from the rifles rendering them unable to fire a round,” the post stated. “Apparently Obama’s Secret Service doesn’t trust the USMC. Simply searching each guy to make sure he didn’t have a live round hidden on him wasn’t enough, they had to make sure the guns were inoperable.
As if that’s not bad enough, concerns have been raised on both the right and the left, about using the military in civilian law enforcement. And I find myself in rare agreement with The Nation:
This isn’t just a worry for tinfoil-hat-wearing right-wingers and NRA extremists who want to arm themselves with automatic weapons to fight government tyranny. This is a real threat that ought to worry everyone, especially civil libertarians.
Worst of all, I read something I simply do not want to believe and have been unable to confirm.
.. litmus tests on top brass willingness to fire on American citizens alleged by a heretofore prominent and credible Nobel Prize nominee…
OK, so I clicked on the above Facebook link, and sure enough, a man named Jim Garrow said this:
“I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that Obama is using a new “litmus test” in determining who will stay and who must go in his military leaders. Get ready to explode folks. “The new litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US citizens or not”. Those who will not are being removed.
– Dr. Jim Garrow – January 21, 2013
That is the single creepiest thing I have read so far this year. I sincerely hope it is not true.
It has of course been widely repeated, but alas! There is no way to verify it, so all I could do was click “Like” on the following comment:
Mr. Garrow – stop with the rumor and gossip or spill the name of your source. This hero should immediately resign, find a safe place, and go public with this information. Until this happens both you and your source are perpetrating rumors and gossip. Serious Americans, in this time of such intense emotions, should not play in rumors and gossip.
Common sense suggests that if this in fact is a new “litmus test,” by now at least one of the military leaders removed for unwillingness to fire on US citizens would have sounded the alarm. I refuse to believe that any such military leaders would simply allow themselves to be removed and remain silent.
Anyway, the whole issue causes me consternation as a libertarian, because it makes me wonder whether universal military service might not be the best way to prevent rogue military leaders from currying favor with the elites and turning their guns on the American people.
Comments
3 responses to “In the future Obamatopia, who will be allowed to have the guns?”
Just a nitpick and not with you, but while I grant them a partial thumbs up for recognizing this is a problem, this is why I don’t read The Nation. ” . . . tinfoil-hat-wearing right-wingers and NRA extremists who want to arm themselves with automatic weapons to fight government tyranny.”
Automatic weapons have been illegal for private citizens since the 1930s and I’m pretty sure the NRA has not been advocating making them legal. Just recognizing the propaganda inherent in anything they print.
Looking into Mr. Garrow, he appears pretty … unreliable.
A whole bunch of self-aggrandizing/unconfirmable report flags come up, even looking at his mostly-verifiable work in China.
(My first question is why does this unnamed American military official spill the beans to a Canadian?
My second question is, where would the President find more than one or two such men – unless the “willing to fire on American citizens” question was qualified with “in time of civil war or armed insurrection”.
After all, part of the oath to Defend the Constitution would be to defend it against American Citizens in armed rebellion; see the Civil War.)
(Also, along RickC’s lines, I think the main issue there is that people at The Nation literally don’t comprehend that a semi-automatic firearm is not an “automatic weapon”.)
I suspect the ban on automatic rifles was a result of the failure of the 18th amendment. Some people attributed that to the government being outgunned by bootleggers and decided that wouldn’t happen again.