Gun Fears

Liberals, such as historian Robert Dallek writing in today’s USA Today, fear people with guns. People with guns — denizens, according to Dallek, of America’s benighted and anachronistic “gun culture” — fear liberals and the government they control are coming after their guns and other freedoms.

“For those of us who cry out for gun control,” Dallek writes, “our fears cannot be eliminated as long as the country remains an armed camp…. The challenge for this generation of Americans is to address not only our own fears by curbing access to guns, but also to reassure the country’s most devoted gun advocates that their government is not after them.”

That task is made considerably more difficult by news stories like this one revealing that Homeland Security has designed drones customized to identify civilians carrying guns.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security’s drone requirements through a Freedom of Information Act request; CNET uncovered an unredacted copy.

Homeland Security design requirements specify that its Predator B drones “shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not” and must be equipped with “interception” systems capable of reading cell phone signals.

The first known domestic use of a drone to arrest a U.S. citizen occurred last year in the small town of Lakota, North Dakota when rancher Rodney Brossart was arrested for refusing to return six of his neighbor’s cows that had wandered on to his property. Critics say the fact that domestic drones are being used in such minor matters raises serious concerns about civil liberties and government overreach.

UPDATE

And let’s not forget, via Politico:

Holder: Obama could order lethal force in U.S.

President Barack Obama could order the use of deadly force against an American inside the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released Tuesday.

Say What? (1)

  1. CaptDMO March 6, 2013 at 6:36 pm | | Reply

    We have nothing to fear but fear itself

    1. Fear vs. Clear, proved, and present danger.
    2. Fear vs. -phobia, an irrational fear or haterd.

    I realise such memes can be difficult to discriminate in the writings of a (peer recognised?)”historian”, with an opinion,as published in USA Today, accomidating the alleged comprehension level of a graduate of the US public school’s eighth grade. The color pictures help.

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