Spartacus: Distant Early Warnings

“Whoever looks upon [the Americans] as an irregular mob, will find himself very much mistaken." -- General Hugh Percy, 2d Duke of Northumberland, commander of the relief column sent to save British forces at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

On Inauguration Day, the Obama Regime will be crowned, believing their electoral college blowout victory is a mandate from the people – completely overlooking the nearly 56 million voters who rejected Obama’s statist/looter ideology. This regime will have on its side a Congress that will be even more Democrat-controlled than it currently is (even now, there are still 4 undetermined Senate seats and 11 undetermined House seats, meaning the Democrats are perilously close to a 60% supermajority).

With one party firmly controlling the executive and legislative branches, their opponents conjure up different policies the Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime (who will be referred to as “The Looters”) could enact, including reviving the Fairness Doctrine, imposing national health care, and exacting onerous taxes on 401k accounts and IRAs (after all, according to The Looters, only the selfish would accumulate wealth for retirement).

One of the direst predictions is that The Looters would enact some type of gun control measure, such as another assault weapons ban. Such predictions range from a repeat of the ban on cosmetic devices such as bayonet lugs and flash suppressors and on large-capacity magazines, banning of semi-automatic firearms with a magazine capacity in excess of some arbitrary number, or even outright banning and confiscation of “assault weapons” (with appropriate bounties paid to those who turn in their neighbors).

And for those of you who think the Supreme Court would NEVER allow such a ban, remember three things: First, although the Heller decision made a masterful argument for the Constitutional basis of owning defensive weapons such as handguns, it laid the foundation for the eventual banning of offensive weapons such as military-style arms; second, Heller was one vote away from allowing The Looters to override the Second Amendment; third, for at least the next four years, expect any Supreme Court replacements to be firm ideologues who identify with The State, not the people.

When would such a ban be enacted? Opinions vary. Some who think The Looters will wage a soft war on gunowners believe The Looters will wait for some tragic accident such as a repeat of the Virginia Tech incident and ride the emotional wave to ban and/or confiscate the dreaded arms. Others who think The Looters will take a harsher stance believe a ban will occur earlier rather than later, as The Looters would rely on the notoriously short voter memory-span to soothe the sting by the 2010 Congressional elections. This theory relies on the belief that The Looters have a seriously harsh agenda they intend to ram down the voters’ throats (such as, say, massive taxes on 401k accounts, means-testing of Social Security, and other outright screwing of proactive members of The Productive Class).

My opinion is that The Looters’ timeline for a ban will be driven by whether or not they realize the firearm issue for the nuclear option that it truly is. There are plenty of sheep in America who feel guns are evil, but there are plenty more people who know that guns are the basis of self-defense, self-preservation, and individual liberty. As the country races headlong toward Government Uber Alles, there are grim men and women in America who realize their rights are being eroded and trampled. These people understand certain facts that The Looters choose not to face, such as the undercurrent of tension toward anyone viewed as successful, the ever-increasing tension between government and law enforcement bodies who view the populace as inmates instead of citizens, and a parasitical underclass whose economic understanding is limited to “want, take, have.”

What The Looters do not understand is that there actually are Americans who love their country but have a rational basis for fearing their government. These are grim Americans who carry a handgun on their hip like most people wear a watch on their wrist. Americans who have read their history and understand that the true struggle is not between Democrat and Republican, Right and Left, or Conservative and Liberal, but between government power and individual liberty. Stern, grim Americans who know that far more people were killed in the 20th Century by government agents acting under the letter of the law than by individual madmen who shot up a school or a post office. The grim Americans know that the government does not care about them or their well-being. They understand that the government cares only about itself. And these stern, grim Americans are learning they are not alone, so they seek each other out.

The main question is whether The Looters make the mistake that these Americans will quietly and calmly turn over their guns in the face of a ban. If The Looters have absorbed the words of Admiral Yamamoto, who said before World War II “you cannot invade the mainland United States; there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass,” then expect them to manufacture some incident to rally behind and energize the population to support a ban. Expect them to find some despicable character, hang a contrived charge on him, and use that example to demonize gun-owners.

Be Vigilant.