Why Do All These Republican Officials Think They’re Allowed To Murder The President?

Tuesday night, after a gunman murdered 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school, President Joe Biden responded somberly:

Former President Barack Obama expressed similar despair after the Sandy Hook massacre. Even if you’re a total monster who loves guns more than human life, you could at least let Democratic leaders vent for a while, but the gun-obsessed are too paranoid to realize that no one is coming for their guns. Republican lap dogs Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are never going to nuke the filibuster. Just let us grieve and maybe hope for a better country.

But no, Republicans come out in full, gross force against the meekest calls for gun safety legislation. This morning, Florida state Rep. Randy Fine tweeted: “I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place.”

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I’m not the professional law talker in the Robinson family, but I do know that the Second Amendment wasn’t written so that gun-humping assholes could publicly threaten the president’s life, which is a crime. I’m reminded of the 1997 (!) episode of “The Simpsons” when Homer tries to buy a gun. He’s pissed to discover that he has to wait five days: “I’m mad now!”

“I’d kill you if I had my gun,” Homer yells at the gun shop clerk, who replies, “Yeah, well, you don’t.” The violent, unhinged responses from gun lovers whenever a Democrat gets on their knees — literally in Sen. Chris Murphy’s case — and begs for sensible gun legislation only reinforces the fact that they probably shouldn’t have guns at all. They aren’t rational people.

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When the Secret Service pays Fine a visit, he might argue that he wasn’t directly threatening Biden but rather the entire US government. The Guns & Ammo crowd believes the Second Amendment guarantees them the right to take up arms against a “tyrannical” government that legally passes laws they don’t like. This is obviously absurd, but they won’t shut up about it. Last year, not long after a violent insurrection at the US Capitol, Fine’s equally esteemed fellow Florida man Rep. Matt Gaetz told an appreciative audience, “The Second Amendment is not about hunting, it’s not about recreation, it’s not about sports. The Second Amendment is about maintaining within the citizenry the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government, if that becomes necessary.”

But one person’s tyrannical government is another person’s MAGA paradise. Women aren’t crazy about Republicans reshaping America into a Margaret Atwood-written nightmare, but when they protested outside a Supreme Court Justice’s house, conservatives freaked out. Maybe everyone with a uterus should arm themselves with assault rifles and storm the Supreme Court building while wearing “Come and take it!” masks.

Obviously, I don’t advocate for such extreme responses, because gang warfare isn’t effective democracy. As writer Garrett Epps observed in The Atlantic, “If good government actually came from a violent, armed population, then Afghanistan and Somalia would be the two best-governed places on earth.”

Even with a stockpile of weapons, random civilians can’t stand up against the US military, which has planes and tanks with missiles. The “well-regulated militia” can have their assets frozen with a simple court order. This isn’t the 19th Century. All the Second Amendment is good for these days is keeping children from reaching the third grade.

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