Wingnut tactic: when in doubt, intimidate

The right-wing in this country has been using intimidation as a means to their nefarious ends for decades. Whether it's poll taxes or literacy tests for voting back in the '50s and '60s, active intimidation at the voting sites as recently as last year, or threatening letters to voters and officials, trying to "scare" people is the wingnut trump card.

And they're doing it again in Naples, with the support and, likely, involvement of the crazed radicals at the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Naples mayor Bill Barnett recently joined a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), which seeks to rid America's cities of illegal weapons and to have gun owners comply with the law regarding registration and possession of firearms. The group, led by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg (a Republican), wants to work within the Second Amendment, recognizing a right to bear arms* but trying to ensure that the right is exercised legally.

More than a year and a half after Mayor Barnett joined MAIG, though, the NRA got wind of his involvement and sent out a "legislative alert" -- otherwise known as a "dog whistle," calling their followers to attack -- "warning" Naples citizens that their mayor was part of (gasp!) an anti-illegal-gun group. And predictably, the nutjobs who got the "alert" responded by confronting the mayor.

“I believe very strongly in the Constitution put forth by our forefathers, including the Second Amendment. I do not believe, for one minute, that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his ‘MAIG’ group are doing what is best for the citizens of his community, and he is trying to expand the liberal New York mentality to the rest of the community,” Naples resident John H. Rothert said in a Sept. 14 letter to Barnett.

“As a member of NRA, I was sent notice that you have joined the group. Please don’t! What Mayor Michael Bloomberg is attempting to do fits right in with the extremely liberal establishment that is trying to get a choke hold on this country. I, for one, will not allow that to happen.”

Rothert wasn’t the only Naples resident to send Barnett an angry e-mail or letter about his decision to join.

Barnett’s office received hundreds of e-mails.

“I am saddened to learn of your enrollment in Gov. (sic) Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. I can understand how you could consider this movement because of its title, which is very misleading,” Naples resident Wayne Jenkins said in a Sept. 10 e-mail to Barnett.

“I too, am opposed to illegal guns, but I also support lawful gun ownership of citizens. I would like to urge you to consider checking the facts, and if you agree with me that this is a disguised anti-gun organization, that you would withdraw your membership.”

That isn’t happening, Barnett said, even though the coalition has lost some members since the NRA began its campaign against the group.

Post said he was unsure how many of the 450 mayors have backed out of the organization, but said the coalition has continued to see its membership grow.

“I did this because I felt for the cause,” Barnett said.

A close cousin of intimidation, of course, is fear. Fear allows intimidation to be effective. And fear appears to be one thing Mayor Barnett doesn't feel in this instance, even if Neapolitans like John Rothert and Wayne Jenkins express their fear that their guns will be taken away (which they won't -- and can't) and that there's some "extreme liberal" takeover going on (which I would applaud, but which isn't happening). Even though the NRA has sent out the marching orders and their minions are responding, their intimidation tactics aren't working, and here's hoping they don't work.

The problem is that these ideological freaks, who see President Obama as evil incarnate and any attempt to regulate gun ownership as anti-American, have far too much of a voice in our country today. I urge Mayor Barnett and all members of MAIG to stand strong in the face of wingnuttery and recognize that these people, sadly, have a very skewed view of what's going on in our country today ... the kind of skewing that necessarily results from a steady diet of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

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* I personally do not believe there is a constitutional basis for a right held by every citizen to own firearms, since the Second Amendment expressly makes such a right subject to the formation of a "well-regulated militia," but since that is how the courts presently interpret the Amendment, that's the law.