American democracy in the crosshairs

As frightening as it is to imagine a madman with an assault weapon targeting indiscriminate victims, it is even more harrowing to imagine a weapon like that in the hands of a madman who views himself as a patriot.

Someone, for example, like major league umpire Rob Drake, who on October 22 tweeted this threat: “I will be buying an AR-15 tomorrow, because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020.”

Just weeks earlier on September 29, the president predicted in a tweet that some might feel this way. Others suggest that his words were not a prediction of civil war, but an encouragement, or even an incitement of it.

Although Drake’s tweet was deleted immediately, Trump’s was not, and for now there is no telling how many delusional pseudo-patriots there are out there with sick thoughts of civil war squirming around in their heads. How twitchy are their trigger-fingers, and how much (or how little) might it take to incite them to action?

Consider for a moment exactly what they threaten to do with those deadly assault weapons.

They are not arming themselves against rapists, robbers, or murderers. Not against rabid animals. Not against ravaging gangs. Not even against foreign aggressors who might forcibly overcome our military and invade our land. A valid argument may be made in favor of gun ownership in all those cases.

No, they are arming themselves with AR-15s—weapons designed for nothing but war—to prepare to wage a war against our own American government if they disagree with the outcome of a legal proceeding conducted according to constitutional means. Never mind that such an outcome would require a majority of elected congressmen-and-women to agree to if it ever got that far.

In Drake’s case, that means that he would take up arms if his vote is canceled out by House and Senate officials who were put in place — by a majority of everybody else’s vote — to do their civic duty.

And who, exactly, would Drake put in the crosshairs when his “cival war” [sic] gets hot?

Would it be the successor to HIS PRESIDENT — which would be Mike Pence in this case?

Or maybe that majority of House representatives and two-thirds of all senators whose vote is required to impeach and remove a president?

Would it be any uniformed peace officer that supported the government’s constitutional right to remove a wayward President through impeachment, and then did their duty to keep the peace after it happens — armed forces members, National Guard, local police in the crosshairs?

Would it be journalists who reported the news, many of whom have already fallen at the hands of madman “patriots”?

Or would it be the increasing number of American citizens who have urged impeachment proceedings in recent polls?

Which of them would be in the crosshairs if delusional “patriots” declared a “cival war” over their disappointment in how America’s government works?

Rob Drake has seemingly set his bar at impeachment, but there are others out there who own assault weapons as a bulwark against some personally determined level of government overreach, a level that they feel they have an absolute right to set, wherever they want to set it.

How low have those armed “patriots” set their bar? What threshold of taxes, immigration, social mores, or other flashpoints would have to be passed before their “cival war” got hot?

Drake is an MLB umpire, so his massive arrogance may be understandable. After all, every pitch is a ball or a strike purely on his call. A runner is safe or out on his whim. It would be easy to lose sight of how democracy works if your job requires you to play “God of the game” day after day.

But this is not a game Drake is talking about, as he threatens to purchase a weapon of war if he doesn’t like the result when duly elected congressmen do their duty as they see it.

It’s not a game when any firearm owner conjures images of another human being in their crosshairs, especially for a reason as fickle as politics.

True patriots do not take up arms when the messy, maddening due process of American democracy doesn’t go their way.

And true patriots don’t just shrug their shoulders when they hear fellow citizens threaten violence whenever they don’t like the congressional call on the field. Because resisting a potential congressional vote with assault weapons is not “cival war;” it’s domestic terrorism.

For what it’s worth, I am undecided about the president’s impeachment, and I will remain so until full transparency shows me all the facts that for now are kept behind closed doors. I felt the same way about Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and about Richard Nixon’s fall from grace.

But once those facts are revealed, and once I have made up my mind how I feel about it, I promise you this: No matter what happens next — whether the House and Senate vote to remove the president from office, or if he sticks around to win another four years in the Oval Office — I will put nobody in my crosshairs.

Nobody at all.

No matter how strongly I feel about it.

And I will not let fear or any other emotion send me out tomorrow to buy an AR-15, just in case I end up on the other side from a “cival-war” hankering lunatic like Rob Drake.

Because I have faith that we will solve our problems by following the checks-and-balances guidelines set up in our Constitution, whether we agree with them all the time or not.

And that makes me a true American patriot, as I hope and trust you are.

Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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