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As the inauguration of Donald Trump looms on the horizon, we can expect an uptick in the prognostications of doom, gloom, and nightmare scenarios of a conservative dictatorship. I would have hoped the Left would have gotten all that out of its system by now, but who are we kidding?
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Talking about an article in the Sunday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Post highlighted a move on the Left, in this case, LGBTQ groups, to purchase guns before 45/47 is sworn in. The groups have such names as the Liberal Gun Club, the Socialist Rifle Association, and Pink Pistols. The Liberal Gun Club says it has received “thousands” of training requests since Trump was elected, with about a quarter of those coming from the LGBTQ community.
One person told the Inquirer, “Three months before the election, that’s when the alarm bells started to ring. Minorities that are armed are more difficult to legally oppress.” While not a gun enthusiast myself, I have often heard 2A advocates make the same argument on behalf of all people. New Jersey resident Matthew Thompson said that he decided to buy a gun after the Pulse Nightclub attacks. He commented:
The people I’ve been seeing on the left and the gay people who are out purchasing guns for the first time it’s all about self-defense and fear. We’re not looking to arm up and storm the capital. We just don’t want to be put in concentration camps.
The Post pointed out that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was a home-grown Islamic terrorist sympathizer who, as it turns out, likely had no idea that he was in a gay nightclub.
One particular glaring fact that keeps getting glossed over is the fact that Trump has been very supportive of the LGBTQ community to the point of appointing gay people to his administration. But facts like those only serve to dampen the mood of a good screed.
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It goes without saying, or at least it should, that no one is planning on putting LGBTQ people into concentration camps. Are there people who are vehemently opposed to LGBTQ lifestyles and non-traditional marriages and relationships? Are there those who are prejudiced against LGBTQ people? The answer to both questions is yes.
That said, every conservative I have ever met has not cared what LGBTQ people do with one another. And I have never met one who wanted LGBTQ people killed, deported, or placed in camps. Every conservative I have met just wants to be left alone. And that includes the LGBTQ conservatives I have met. Many conservatives have objected to the introduction of sexual agendas into classrooms and efforts to promote the trans agenda among children, which to some on the Left is tantamount to violence. But no one is planning on rounding anyone up.
So why the worry about concentration camps? Well, I am writing this on January 6, and we all know what happened the last time we certified a presidential election. It is true that on that day, some people who entered the capital committed crimes — not all, but some. That gave the Left, which studiously ignored and even advocated for previous bouts of violence, the opportunity to declare January 6 the worst thing since (insert catastrophe here).
That paved the way for waves of incendiary rhetoric from the Biden administration and provided the necessary rationale for various governmental entities to harass, surveil, and kick in the doors of school board parents, pro-lifers, and people who dared question the trans agenda, not to mention wanting to round up anyone at the capital that day and working feverishly to suppress dissenting ideas. Under the guise of fighting totalitarianism, the Democrats became totalitarians.
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The rhetoric and the other rhetoric that came before it found a home with many. And now we have people who honestly believe that the guy with a Trump bumper sticker wants to behead them or toss them in an oubliette and that anyone who objects to sexualizing children is a proponent of genocide. And that raises an uncomfortable question: what will these people perceive as a threat worthy of using a gun? One thing we have consistently seen from the Left is a propensity to project its fears onto its opponents.
Who knows? By availing themselves of the Second Amendment, Leftists may actually begin to understand just how valuable a document the Constitution is. Maybe by purchasing and training with firearms, they may find some common ground with the people they have been taught to hate. Is that possible? I want to think so. Is it probable? Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.