Kansas National Guard commander sees intimidation as a second amendment right

By SJ Otto

The conceal and carry laws, favored by Kansas conservatives, are getting crazier every year. It is one thing to claim they have a right to carry guns, but it is an absurd twist in logic when they suddenly insist they have the right to carry guns for the purpose of intimidating others. Intimidation is not a second amendment right.

Most professors and students oppose having students carry guns on campus. Most don’t want to go to school surrounded by pistol packing nut-jobs. If these conservatives are so insecure that they need to protect themselves from other students, maybe they don't belong at a university. Maybe they should avoid education—or maybe they lack the ability to be educated.

The latest absurd conservative argument comes from Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Holder, commander of a squadron based at a Kansas National Guard Armory in Emporia. He said he was offended that Representative Stephanie Clayton, Overland Park Republican, proposed legislation that would undermine his constitutional rights, by repealing a law that prevents the state’s higher education institutions to ban concealed carry guns on campuses. Holder said on a Facebook comment that Clayton should “swing from a tree,” according to the Garden City Telegraph.

Clayton is among those Kansaslegislators who want to repeal a law that would prevent the state’s higher education institutions to allow concealed carry on campus starting July 1. Clayton’s bill would make the existing ban on concealed guns permanent.

The Civil Air Patrol is a civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force created by Congress. The Kansas Adjutant General’s Department has provided administrative support and budget oversight for the CAP for the past 20 years.

Holder leads the 77th Composite Squadron and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in June 2016. He is among the adult mentors responsible for promoting integrity and self-discipline among cadets as young as 12. Adults in the CAP are expected to encourage cadets to embark on careers in aviation or the military.

So a person like this is a public official who feels free to intimidate an elected official. He hammered out these comments on Facebook and according to the Garden City Telegraph:

"Holder said sharing his personal “opinion with spleen” could only be viewed as a threat by “intolerant social justice warriors who believe free speech only applies to their way of thinking.”

“We have laws in the country that protect our civil rights from individuals who choose to oppress others under the color of the law, authority of their office or through violence,” Holder said. “These crimes are punished up to and including the death penalty. I firmly believe that any elected official who brings legislation clearly intending to violate my civil rights is guilty of these crimes and should suffer those sanctions.”

If I go by his logic, I am justified to kill those in the "pro-life" movement who seek to destroy women's rights and women's access to health care. If we all took his advice we would have permanent war between liberals, other leftist and right-wing political activists. People who use that kind of logic really should not have guns, much less carry them in public. Where in the constitution are we given the right to shoot and kill those whose opinions differ from our own?

If this were an isolated case it could easily be dismissed as one lone crack-pot. But he is hardly alone. Just cruising Yahoo News, lots of conservatives like to leave comments. Some are revealing. For example, in response to an article called “Illinois concealed carry rules survive suits by gun owners,” this racist comment was left:

“Don

Only black thugs are allowed to carry concealed guns in Chicago.”

Then there are comments as this one:

“Cognitive Dissident

it would be nice to know what the supposed "explanations" were. You wanna bet they were vague? I know of a guy who tried to get a carry permit in New Hampshire (hardly a gun-grabbing state, in context) and he was denied because he had been arrested for PROTESTING the government.”

He doesn’t say what kind of protesting this guy was doing. Was it just protesting or something more like intimidation? We have no way of knowing from the comment. A few years ago a man with a gun strapped on him was counter-protesting a protest by Wichitawomen at a Hobby Lobby. Although he was peaceful, his gun was intimidating to some of the people there.[1]

Then there were those comments that were simply not true:

"Homer

The communists want a disarmed citizenry.

From my Cold Dead Hands!!!”

Pro-gun conservatives like to say this, but it simply is not true. Most of

America

’s communists and Marxist oppose gun control.[2]This is a case of people making assumptions. This assumption is that communist want people to be submissive to a communist state, therefore they want to confiscate all the citizen's guns. The assumption also comes from cold war propaganda from the 1950s that was never based on anything other than conservative assumptions. That assumption is wrong.

Do we really need a lot of racist people running around with guns. We need to let conservatives know we will not be intimidated by their threats. Their rights only go as far as they can protect themselves, not their right to threaten those who disagree with them.

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