Are the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence guilty of treason? :: 06/14/2013

Sipsey Street Irregulars 0 Email Policy & Issues newsletter Last December, as advocates of "gun control" were gearing up their campaign to exploit the murdered children in furtherance of their forcible citizen disarmament agenda, Stewart Rhodes, founder and president of the Oath Keepers, wrote an important piece articulating his commitment to a personal stand against citizen disarmament, particularly attempts to strip Americans of detachable magazine-fed, semi-automatic rifles (so-called "assault weapons").

Says Rhodes (excerpt): The truth is that our semi-automatic, military pattern rifles are the single most important kind of arm we can own, and are utterly necessary for effective defense of our lives, property, and liberty. When you are disarmed of your military rifles, you are DISARMED. At that time, the lion's share of your military capacity to effectively resist tyranny is removed (yes, accurate bolt action hunting rifles are useful in that role too, but the semi-auto battle rifle is truly the Queen of battle, as Col. Jeff Cooper correctly noted). It is a significant force on the battlefield, and as Patrick Henry said, when you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. For those unfamiliar with the Oath Keepers, Rhodes, a former paratrooper, founded the organization in 2009 to encourage active duty and former military, law enforcement and firefighting personnel to take an oath to never obey an unconstitutional order, such as those listed here (a list that begins with forcible citizen disarmament). This, bizarrely, is seen by some as "dangerous," as evidenced by the Southern Poverty Law Center profiling them on their "Hate Watch" page. They are also, like this correspondent, featured in the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence "Insurrectionism Timeline." As this column asked once before: [I]f our men and women in uniform reaffirming their oath to refuse unconstitutional orders so bothers you, what unconstitutional orders do you expect them to receive, and want them to obey? Remember that with Nuremberg the world established that "just following orders" is no defense against a charge of war crimes. It can no more legitimately be considered a valid defense against charges of violating citizens' Constitutional rights. Apparently, CSGV only just now noticed Rhodes' December article, and they (and their Facebook friends) are not happy about it. The comments cover pretty much the entire gamut of the gun prohibitionists' "logic"--from, "Think of the children!" to, "Resistance is futile [wanna bet?]," to the desperate gun grabbers' favorite standby when all else fails--claims that gun rights advocates' reproductive anatomy is lacking (and yes--some gun haters evidently make that "argument" in all seriousness). The most troubling theme in the comments, though, is that the Oath Keepers are "traitors," and guilty of "treason" (one comment went so far as to say that "semiautomatic assault weapons are the tools of treason") Granted, the fact that many of CSGV's followers are libeling patriotic Americans who willingly risk their lives for the nation would not necessarily mean that the organization itself holds that sick opinion--except that they explicitly agree with it: Coalition to Stop Gun Violence We've been calling them traitors for some time. And that's what our Founding Fathers would have called them. Remember now how the Constitution defines treason (very narrowly, as it must in a country that dares call itself free): Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. Readers have probably noticed that the Oath Keepers have not been "levying War against" the U.S., and CSGV would probably be hard pressed to name any "Enemies" of the U.S. to whom the Oath Keepers have given "Aid and Comfort." There is no denying that there are subversives in this debate. They're the ones trying to demonize those who have vowed not to obey an unconstitutional order. The only logical reason to object to the Oath Keepers is a desire that such orders be carried out. So who are the "traitors," again?