This article begins with a quote from Herb Titus, an attorney who represents Gun Owners of America:
"[I]f you have a people that has basically been disarmed by the civil
government," he added, "then there really isn't any effectual means
available to the people to restore law and liberty and that's really the
purpose of the right keep and bear arms—is to defend yourself against a
tyrant."
Authors Sarah Posner and Julie Ingersoll place this statement in context:
If this sounds like standard-issue Tea Party fodder, it's because the Tea Party movement emerges out of the confluence of different strands of the far right, including Christian Reconstructionism. Titus has long been a player at the intersection of Christian Reconstructionism, the standard religious right, and other far-right groups in which the Tea Party finds its roots. He was a speaker at the Reconstructionist American Vision's annual "Worldview Conference" in 2009, has been a member of the Council for National Policy, and is a long-time home-schooling advocate from a Reconstructionist perspective. In 1996 he was the running mate of conservative icon (and Christian Reconstructionist) Howard Phillips for the far-right U.S. Taxpayers Party (now called the Constitution Party) whose platform included the restoration of "American jurisprudence to its Biblical premises" and, notably, opposition to every gun law in the United States.
This brings up a whole bunch of questions in my mind, not the least of which is how in the hell do so many people get so paranoid to come to believe that the only voice they can trust comes out of the barrel of a damned gun?
The first time I ever entertained the thought of getting a gun, the God I know sent me an abandoned hound dog instead, and, with her, an amazing lesson in the unlimited power of unconditional love to change the world.
Read the whole article at Religion Dispatches here.