You’ve Got that Right

 

         Michigan State Capitol

“It will make people treat you differently if you are armed with an AR-15.”

Anonymous Virginia rightwing militant AR-15 owner

It’s not just a gun… or even just an assault weapon. It is both a symbol – one that clearly strikes fear in those on the other side of it – and a tool to tear down our existing government, kill the deep state, disassemble the bloated governmental bureaucracies, and replace all of that with a simple top-down White Christian nationalist dictatorship that will set the rules for everybody… and enforce against dissidents with rapid-fire bullets. This is the AR-15-style semiautomatic long-gun. Although only a third of Americans actually own guns, there are still around 350 million firearms in civilian hands, and of those, somewhere between 20 and 30 million are semiautomatic assault weapons.

The AR-15 owners guard Trump rallies, pose on state capitol buildings with weapons brandished (pictured above), often stand in their militia uniforms as close to polling stations as they can get, pledged to purge trans people and treat drag-show artists as “groomers” and pedophiles. A few, very few, on the left are arming too, but that is not much of an issue. The AR-15 is relatively inexpensive, bullets affordable, and it is legal to buy them almost anywhere. Even though we had a national assault weapon ban from 1994 until the law expired in 2004, state efforts to assert such bans seem to go down in flames as forum shopping for a friendly federal district court is not much of a challenge these days after a mass of Trump appointees took to the federal bench.

As what appears to be a litany of criminal indictments for ex-President Trump has begun, there is an overwhelming groundswell among GOP congresspeople to parrot Mr. Trump’s verbiage in castigating NYC’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg, falsely claiming that liberal billionaire George Soros funded Bragg’s election, and using a long list of other false claims and vituperatives to describe a “deep state witch hunt” to discredit Trump.

But various calls for “protests” (remember January 6, 2021, where similar calls were made) suggest that Trump’s allies are hell-bent on intimidating those in the legal system, including potential jurors, into fearing for their lives. And nothing intimidates like uniformed militia carrying AR-15s into an otherwise peaceful civilian world. Increasingly, rightwing courts and red state legislatures are enabling that practice. AR-15 mass killings notwithstanding. As my recent Number One with a Bullet blog points out in detail, the AR-15 is a particularly nasty killing machine designed as a military weapon. And as Hannah Allam points out in her March 27th Washington Post’s The radicals’ rifle:

“The AR-15’s image as an instrument of domestic terror has been crystallized in recent years by its use in a string of hate-filled mass shootings. AR-15-wielding extremists targeted elderly congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Jewish attack in U.S. history; Jewish families on the last day of Passover in Poway, Calif., in 2019; and, last year, Black customers at a supermarket in Buffalo, to name a few.

“Other far-right factions throughout the country have shown up with AR-15s to intimidate voters and local officials, harass Muslims outside of mosques, and stand as self-appointed guards at pro-Donald Trump rallies. Anti-government militias also have brandished AR-15s in armed standoffs with federal agents, such as the one in 2014 led by rancher Cliven Bundy in Bunkerville, Nev. ‘Boogaloo’ extremists, part of a right-leaning movement calling for violent revolution, have made the AR-15 a core part of their look, sometimes adorning their weapons with coded symbols… militants on opposing extremes of American society are arming in anticipation of unrest, and overlap in the belief that civilians with rifles — and specifically, AR-15s — provide an important check on federal powers.

“There is no parallel, however, when it comes to the use of violence by the extreme right and left. FBI and Homeland Security officials repeatedly have called far-right extremists the most urgent domestic terrorism concern; the White House strategy document on domestic terrorism specifies that white supremacists and violent militia groups ‘are assessed as presenting the most persistent and lethal threats.’”

But the shamelessness of pro-Trump House Committee chairs to intimidate Bragg’s indictment is nothing short of amazing: “House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil sent a letter to Bragg on Monday [3/15] ‘demanding communications, documents and testimony relating to Bragg's unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority and the potential indictment of former President Donald Trump.’

“The four-page correspondence warned Bragg about engaging ‘in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority’ should he pursue legal avenues in relation to Trump's alleged $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The Republican leaders of GOP-led majorities cited Trump's status as a former president and now a current candidate running again for office.” Newsweek, March 21st.

Ah, but there’s a catch, particularly because we have a constitution that clearly separates the judicial and legislative branches, a flaw in Israel’s governing structure that threatens that nation’s checks and balances that are designed to protect democracy. See also my March 26th Oy... blog. But the new power of the GOP is intimidation. I guess when your base is has a major and highly motivated White Christian nationalist base, protecting democracy is not remotely a priority. Combine a call for protests with ubiquitous, AR-15-armed militia, and you just might start a civil war. Trump is a self-labeled agent of “retribution,” a value that seems to echo in a political party determined to shelter the criminal activity of their leader. Normally, a coup d’état turns a nation’s military against the incumbent. Since that is not a likely path here, the GOP seems to have done well with its own uniformed militia armed with explosives and AR-15s. Stand back and stand by.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I have to wonder if and when another GOP/Trump-led coup is likely to occur… now, after the 2024 election… or…