Josh Marshall: "lot of folks who believe we’re free in the US because of guns."

[CreekDog]

It is a bizarre, weirdly narcissistic notion that is totally unhinged from any of our history. It is also comparatively new.

It is a bizarre fantasy, I believe of comparatively new vintage, and one that holds pretty much the entire actual history of a free people in some combination of ignorance and contempt. It’s the crazy black helicopter nonsense from the 1990s just slightly updated.

The Second Amendment really is rooted in a worldview in which gun ownership, always in a civic, if not always a formal militia context, was seen as a bulwark of liberties. I’d like to get into in a separate post just what that history is about and how it relates to today. But for the moment let’s look not at concepts but an actual lived history. Has private gun ownership helped keep us free? We’ve had two centuries to look at this one. And the results make the very idea laughable.

And yet many people now believe this. And it imparts an aura of self-righteousness to their desire to stock up private arsenals, fire off semi-automatic weapons and blow shit up. That sort of ignorance is dangerous.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/in_search_of_the_guns_freedom_unicorn.php?ref=fpblg

[Historic NY]

1. Free but held hostage to the thinking a gun will keep you safe.