Almost Cut My Hair

 --Obama and Drones, Riber Hanssen

Ranger Question of the Day: 
Must one have a larcenous heart if one
is devoted to America while
believing its government a thief, or is
one simply a hopeless romantic, schizophrenic,
or all of the above? 

Armed only with a rifle,
he quickly made the fascist invader realize
that from now on he would be punished
for every step he took in the motherland 
    --Enemies at the Gates (2001) 

Well, must be because I had the flu for Christmas
and I'm not feeling up to par.
You know, it increases my paranoia 
--Almost Cut My Hair, CSN andY
_____________________

Welcome to Florida, land of human-swallowing sinkholes ("He was my brother, man"), and anguished confusion in a bumper sticker on a Ford-150 truck seen yesterday in Tallahassee:

"Stand for America" was on the man's right bumper; "Don't Steal -- The Government doesn't like the competition" on the left.  Paranoia runs deep.

This was noted while departing for Jacksonville, FL, where Ranger re-visited the gun shop previously mentioned in "Zombie Zoo".  The shop at that time was piled high with cratered ammunition, but this week, nada.  Not a single round of ammunition available for sale, though weapons were flying off the shelves in what was a brisk business day which saw every racial, gender and age demographic.  A gun shop without ammo is a weird site.

Why is something as innocuous as .22 long rifle ammo impossible to find, even at your local Walmart?  Even if every one of us were armed and equipped with ammo and all the squad-level combat gear shown in the gun magazines -- so what?  Does anyone really believe in or espouse insurrection, rebellion or outright war against the government?

Sure, there are the wacko mouthpieces giving vent to the latent frustration of the impotent masses, but they are just that: inert lumpen who shuffle off to work and Costco and grumble about their lot, and consume their poisonous food and obligingly submit to the doctor's invasive tests in order to discover the amount of damage their inert and poisonous habits have inflicted and with which they are complicit.

The thought that these citizens could cohere and rise up is so patently absurd that the gunners should re-think their basic philosophy of why we are armed in the first place.  Even if armed, we can never stand up to the might and authority of both State and Federal government.  Do you think your rifle will trump a Hellfire missile on a Predator with infrared sensors and facial recognition programs?

We are all monitored and tracked, so how would insurgency develop in such an environment?  When elements of our society say that we must "Take Back America", what does that mean?  Are there enemies amongst us that we can neutralize by rifle fire?

There are two views of America, and we must decide what values define our social and governmental structures.  The gun issue is not about guns, but rather the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.  If my government does not trust me to be armed, then they should not expect me to support their right to bear the very same guns that they would deny to the citizenry.

If the government does not trust me to be an honest and law-abiding citizen, how am I to trust the government to be an honest broker.  An adversarial relationship does not encourage health and integrity either of the person or the system.

The days of insurgency and World Wars are over in the developed world.  They are artifacts that may only crop up in the 2nd and 3rd World.  Terrorism will continue in all parts of the world as this is the  tool of the disenfranchised and disillusioned -- groups we shall ever have with us.

This, however, does not describe the National Rifle Association membership, from whose ranks will never emerge terrorists or insurrectionists.  Those who raise its specter are merely bloviators.