The audacity of the Tea Party is amazing. I cannot believe they, along with the NRA, can stoop as low as they have in the past 5 years. Last week, while traveling in Michigan, I happened across a couple who set up a table alongside the road in front of a post office. They had a picture of President Obama with a square moustache in the form of the one worn by Hitler. Their sole purpose of being there was to advocate the removal of our president and state that he is like Hitler as well as cover the standard NRA rhetoric about the government wanting to take away guns; that the government knew about the Boston tragedy, and other typical propaganda spewed forth by the politically far right. I chose not to stop, as I needed to get my errands taken care of and back home. However, I should have stopped, as it is bothersome to me and likely to many others who passed.
For one reason, it is comparing our president to one of the worst dictator/genocidal maniacs ever to live. President Obama is not a dictator. He is the president. He has not illegally invaded a sovereign nation. He has not established martial law. He has not banned trade unions. He has not forced people into concentration camps. He has not established a gang of henchmen to do his bidding. He was legally elected and did not come to power in a coup or court-ordered fashion. Besides, if he were a dictator, then the people spewing forth this nonsense would be either dead or jailed.
Next is the rhetoric that the government knew about the Boston tragedy before it happened or somehow allowed someone involved in it to escape. Why in the heck would they do that? While another president allowed the family of a known terrorist to travel back to their native country during the air stoppage after 9-11, President Obama was as much shocked by the tragedy as everyone in the United States. Possibly more as he is the leader of our nation. The President reacted as a leader and allowed the law enforcement agencies to do their job and go after the perpetrators. He added the services of the F.B.I. as well to assist.
Finally, the government does not want to take away all the guns. They want to make certain that when guns are purchased that those buying them are trained in both how to use them as well as how to keep them safe. They want to make certain that those buying guns are not mentally unstable. They want owners to register their guns so that if the guns are stolen, then reported as such that the owner is not blamed if a criminal uses their gun to kill or hurt someone else. This is common sense. It makes so much sense that one cannot understand how someone translates this into taking the guns away from law- abiding citizens. Yes, in history, there likely were dictators who required registration of weapons so that they could then use it against gun owners in a negative fashion. This is highly unlikely here in the United States as a dictatorship is almost impossible to imagine given our governing system as well as the fact that Americans cannot band together in that large of numbers to agree on anything in the first place.