Originally posted on July 5, 2020

For several weeks some unknown person was posting on Facebook all about plans for Antifa to burn U.S. flags at the Gettysburg Memorial. Anyone with more than half a brain would be skeptical, but apparently there’s a lot of people around who don’t qualify. Several hundred of right-wing gun-toting “militiamen” showed up to, what, exactly? Protect the flag ? The burning of which is protected by the first amendment?

Almost needless to say, it was a hoax. First, there’s no Antifa organization, at least not worthy of the word “organization.” Second, this hoax has been foisted upon the “patriots” of the right wing any number of times before. It’s like they have their guns and they are eager to use them against anyone who is not like them.

The Washington Post had a long article about the fiasco, and if you just look through the pictures you can get a pretty good sense of just who these self-proclaimed “militiamen” are. Obviously, they are not well-regulated, as the second amendment requires. Just jerks out looking for trouble. I was especially intrigued by the Harley with a Confederate flag, pretending to be some sort of patriot. The irony is gobsmacking.

The comments were pretty interesting as well. The best one I saw was from nanouk, and it is copied below in its entirety.

In 2017, Antifa did not show up to that flag burning. In fact, no one showed up because there is no mass movement of people seeking to burn the flag or to desecrate US heritage. But, in 2020, these yahoos with guns fall for the same hoax. Exact same thing! And again, no flag burner shows up. The logical conclusion should have been that Antifa is not a threat, and that there aren’t throngs of people looking to burn the flag to roast their S’mores on 4th of July. This should have made them realize that Antifa and the ‘flag-burners’ are not a real threat. But again, that is not the conclusion reached by these ‘militias’. 

These guys live in a dream world where Antifa is a powerful well-organized radical and destructive dark and evil force. They are delusional. The worst is that their delusion is based in no small part on projection. They imagine Antifa to be like them: radical, senseless, destructive and full of rage. Just hitching for a fight, and maybe some murder, if the weather permits.

These Right-wing types are the dangerous ones. They are the threat to the Republic. Their enemies are largely imaginary, but their hatred, their rage and their guns aren’t. If the Second Amendment is really about allowing losers with guns to threaten and intimidate others, in a made-up game of ‘war’, then maybe the Second Amendment should be revisited.