You Better Watch Out

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said that if a Democrat wins the presidential election in November and appoints an anti-gun Supreme Court Justice then right-wing gun advocates will no longer resort to the ballot box, but will instead turn to "bullet box." It's a pretty catchy turn of phrase, but more than just a little troublesome since the GOA make the NRA look like weekend collectors. They refer to themselves as the "no compromise gun lobby." Like the old Robin Williams bit: (sound of gunshot) "Halt, or I'll shoot!"
Mister Pratt, who has been the executive director for forty of the forty-one years that GOA has been in existence, would like us to know that if things don't go their way, there could be trouble. “I didn’t say that would happen," that whole bullets versus ballots thing, "but I would say that’s why we have a Second Amendment. If elections are compromised, that could happen. I don’t think we’re at that point. We haven’t lost that much control, I don’t think, of the electoral process. We have actually been making some progress in recent months with voter ID and that hopefully is going to cut down on some of the voter fraud that could potentially occur.”
Thirty four states have voter ID laws in place, of various types. This is in spite of the lack of any kind of widespread voter fraud, in spite of the regular and seemingly pervasive email claims of such conspiracies. What then can Larry Pratt and his heavily armed followers be so worried about? African American and Latino voters are generally those impacted most regularly by such legislation, so maybe it's not the hanging chads as much as the black and brown faces showing up to the polls to vote. Votes that have historically been cast for Democrats. With the orange vote all but sealed up for the Republicans, Gun Owners of America have nothing to fear but fear itself. And a large turnout by those not-so-orange voters. “If people become convinced that elections don’t matter and that their vote doesn’t count and that there’s fraud that’s rampant, then I think we enter a potentially very dangerous time,” Pratt said. And just who will do that convincing? At the end of a loaded gun? Larry says that we have the Second Amendment to protect us from our government. Who will protect us from Larry?