Joni Ernst: My Gun Will Defend Me If Government Decides 'My Rights Are No Longer Important' - HuffPo

[WillyT]

Joni Ernst: My Gun Will Defend Me If Government Decides 'My Rights Are No Longer Important'
Sam Levine - HuffPo
Posted: 10/22/2014 10:26 pm EDT Updated: 10/23/2014 5:59 am EDT



<snip>

WASHINGTON -- Joni Ernst, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, said during an NRA event in 2012 that she would use a gun to defend herself from the government.

“I have a beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter, and it goes with me virtually everywhere,” Ernst said at the NRA and Iowa Firearms Coalition Second Amendment Rally in Searsboro, Iowa. “But I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family -- whether it’s from an intruder, or whether it’s from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.”

Ernst made the remark a little more than a month after gunman James Holmes allegedly killed 12 people and injured 58 in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Ernst’s campaign did not respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment about the remark on Wednesday evening.

<snip>

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/22/joni-ernst-guns_n_6032164.html

[LeftInTX]

1. Kick - hope Iowa doesn't vote for this RWNJ

[cyberswede]

2. uh...Joni...you ARE the government.

She's a state senator, right?

[Electric Monk]

3. If you think you need guns to defend yourself from the government...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1262&pid=421

[TwilightGardener]

4. Fucking lunatic. How did Dale Gribble types suddenly become able to grab power?

Does she see black helicopters following her too?

[hifiguy]

6. The Colonel Flaggs, Dale Gribbles and Frank Burnses

took over vast parts of the country somehow.

[randys1]

5. As mature as a 9 yr old she is, or she is playing to the 9 yr olds in adult bodies

either way she is disgusting, embarrasses the holy hell out of me not just as an American but as a human being

[Bigmack]

7. Assholes like her...

... apparently know NO history of the US.

Things like the Whiskey Rebellion and Shays' Rebellion... and the Civil War... made it clear that the government will crush any rebellion. And to think that some dipshit with a 9mm will use it successfully against the might of the US military is smoking some really powerful shit!

"It was the late 18th century and the national government was cash-strapped. In order to raise money, Congress passed a 25% excise (sales) tax on liquor. Anger about the tax was widespread along the frontier from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Many Americans along the frontier resented the tax from a distant legislature. There were outbreaks of opposition. In rural areas where no one was willing to serve as tax collector, the taxes went unpaid.
By July of 1794, the tension had reached a breaking point. Tax collectors were harassed, tarred and feathered; one’s home was burned. In Western Pennsylvania, the rebellion was intense. Reports told that six thousand people were camped outside Pittsburgh threatening to march on the town.
Washington believed he had to act. He and his cabinet members met with Pennsylvania officials. They decided to present evidence of the violence to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court James Wilson. After reviewing the evidence, Wilson certified that the situation could not be controlled by civil authorities alone. A military response could proceed.
On August 7, Washington issued a proclamation commanding all “insurgents” to “disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes.” He cited his authority under the 1792 Militia Act. But the rebellion continued. September 25, 1794, he issued another Proclamation which read in part,
“… I, George Washington, President of the United States, in obedience to that high and irresistible duty consigned to me by the Constitution ‘to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ … do hereby declare and make known that… a militia…force which…is adequate to the exigency is already is motion…”
Washington recruited militia members from Pennsylvania as well as nearby Maryland and New Jersey. In total, there were almost 13,000 men—about as many as had served in the entire Continental Army that defeated the British. Washington personally led the troops into Bedford—the first and only time a sitting US President has led troops into the field."

[spin]

11. Much depends on the popularity of a revolution. ...

If a government becomes extremely unpopular it can be ovrerthrown by its citizens.

For example who would have thought the USSR would break up?

FALL OF THE SOVIET UNION

In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. Indeed, the breakup of the Soviet Union transformed the entire world political situation, leading to a complete reformulation of political, economic and military alliances all over the globe.

What led to this monumental historical event? In fact, the answer is a very complex one, and can only be arrived at with an understanding of the peculiar composition and history of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was built on approximately the same territory as the Russian Empire which it succeeded. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the newly-formed government developed a philosophy of socialism with the eventual and gradual transition to Communism. The state which the Bolsheviks created was intended to overcome national differences, and rather to create one monolithic state based on a centralized economical and political system. This state, which was built on a Communist ideology, was eventually transformed into a totalitarian state, in which the Communist leadership had complete control over the country.

However, this project of creating a unified, centralized socialist state proved problematic for several reasons. First, the Soviets underestimated the degree to which the non-Russian ethnic groups in the country (which comprised more than fifty percent of the total population of the Soviet Union) would resist assimilation into a Russianized State. Second, their economic planning failed to meet the needs of the State, which was caught up in a vicious arms race with the United States. This led to gradual economic decline, eventually necessitating the need for reform. Finally, the ideology of Communism, which the Soviet Government worked to instill in the hearts and minds of its population, never took firm root, and eventually lost whatever influence it had originally carried.

***snip***

Finally, the situation came to a head in August of 1991. In a last-ditch effort to save the Soviet Union, which was floundering under the impact of the political movements which had emerged since the implementation of Gorbachev’s glasnost, a group of “hard-line” Communists organized a coup d’etat. They kidnapped Gorbachev, and then, on August 19 of 1991, they announced on state television that Gorbachev was very ill and would no longer be able to govern. The country went into an uproar. Massive protests were staged in Moscow, Leningrad, and many of the other major cities of the Soviet Union. When the coup organizers tried to bring in the military to quell the protestors, the soldiers themselves rebelled, saying that they could not fire on their fellow countrymen. After three days of massive protest, the coup organizers surrendered, realizing that without the cooperation of the military, they did not have the power to overcome the power of the entire population. ...emphasis added
http://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp

I see no reason for an uprising anytime soon in our nation. Our government is far from a totalitarian state no matter what those on the far right say. However if our government does ever transform itself into a dictatorship it is quite possible that it would fall much like the USSR did.

[Blue Owl]

8. (Trigger Warning)

n/t

[shraby]

9. What in the hell is she pointing the gun at the cameraman for? You don't point a gun

at anything living.

[WillyT]

10. Chris Matthews Has It NOW !!!

[Rex]

12. So she hates the government so much, she wants to become part of it?

Yeah...typical stupid speak by a GOPuker.