Learning to love your gun

[kelley]

Ashcroft May Teach Lefties to Love Guns
Knute Berger, AlterNet
February 13, 2001
I have never understood why the left in this country has decided to 
unilaterally disarm. Why is it that liberal civil libertarians are always 
gung ho on the constitution, until it gets to the Second Amendment which 
was what, written in invisible ink?
In trying to stake out some kind of moral high ground, the left has 
abandoned not a only a basic right, but a potent symbol. Face it, in 
America, you only get respect if you're packing.

The right has known this for a long time: guns are as American as John 
Wayne, as righteous as Charleton Heston, as cool as the latest, hipster 
noir revival film (Snatch comes to mind). But more importantly, the 
militias, patriots, NRA-nuts, and neo-Confederates comprise an 
important—and much pandered-to—Republican constituency. Their guns, and the 
money that goes with them, have gained them the attention of the media and 
the powerful. Unlike Barry Goldwater, their extremism in the defense of 
liberty has been good politics.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10466