James Yeager Is a Good Representative for Gun Advocacy’s Extreme Right — but His Passion and Profane Directness Do Not Automatically Make Him an Idiot — a Comment on the “Not So Fringe”

13 January 2013

Theme — allegedly “extreme” American gun advocacy is not really a fringe philosophy

I said recently that the ultimate gun question is a spiritual one:

Is my right to be armed at all times, with whatever I choose, equivalent to yours to retain an un-holed soul?

Pertinent is the fact that the most primary divide between Libertarian Conservatives and “Liberals” is the competing emphasis both groups put on the proper ratio between Personal Freedom and Community. Libertarian Conservatives favor the former. Liberals the latter.

What Liberals often overlook in the gun debate is that the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the Second Amendment makes it highly unlikely that regulation can affect gun ownership substantially enough to reduce the numbers and availability of the ordinary firearms that do most of the killing in the United States.

Which brings me to James Yeager’s passionate gun advocacy that disturbs some gun control advocates.

Who is James Yeager — and what did he say?

Attorney Mark Potok (of the Southern Poverty Law Center) introduces us to Mr. Yeager:

When Tennessee weapons instructor James Yeager threatened Wednesday to “start killing people” if President Obama moved ahead on gun control, his infuriated rant went national, with dozens of media outlets and blogs expressing amazement.

But the truth is that the death threats from Yeager — a man who is a former police chief, protective services contractor in Iraq, and owner of two companies that provide tactical weapons and training to police and military units — are not unique.

Although Yeager said it more clearly than most, and with more profanity, the far right in America generally is reacting to the prospect of gun control with hysteria.

Mark Potok, Radical right: “We’ll start killing people” if Obama enacts gun control, Salon (11 January 2013) (paragraph split)

Salon writer, David Daley, provides the relevant quotation from Mr. Yeager’s original (now edited) video:

In the YouTube video, which went viral today, Yeager vowed that[:]

”I’m not going to let anyone take my guns. If it goes one inch further, I’m going to start killing people.”

According to writer Daley, the State of Tennessee took Yeager seriously enough to suspend his handgun permit

Citations — to Yeager’s videos (which contain profane language)

James Yeager, Pack Your Bags Part 1, YouTube (10 January 2013) (this is the subsequently edited version)

James Yeager, Pack Your Bags Part 2, YouTube (10 January 2013)

Yeager’s point — emphatic defense of Second Amendment gun rights

The two videos show how strongly Mr. Yeager feels about his right to bear unregulated arms.

Reacting to critics who had accused him of doing Second Amendment advocacy a disservice by saying that “I’m not gonna stand for the tyranny,” Mr. Yeager replied:

Our country wasn’t founded by . . . fair weather pussies. Either you’re in or you’re out.

If you’re out, don’t call yourself a . . . Second Amendment advocate.

If you’re not prepared to go all the way, then you’re not prepared to go anywhere.

I do not condone anybody committing any kind of felonies, up to and including aggravated assaults or murders. Unless it’s necessary.

Right now, it is not necessary. Now is not the time.

It is time to get ready. Start coordinating on a local basis.

I stand fast with my message. I have drawn my line in the sand. Not one more inch.

James Yeager, Pack Your Bags Part 2, YouTube (10 January 2013) (at 1:59 to 3:57 minutes into the video)

Mr. Yeager is not just a “whacko”

Having lived as long as I have in Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming — Mr. Yeager seems (to me) to be a fairly representative spokesperson for a relatively large proportion of America’s public. Simply dismissing him as a lunatic would be a mistake.

Attorney Mark Potok points out that:

Wyoming . . . lawmakers have sponsored a bill that would ensure that “any federal law which attempts to ban a semi-automatic firearm or to limit the size of a magazine of a firearm or other limitation on firearms in this state shall be unenforceable in Wyoming.”

Mark Potok, Radical right: “We’ll start killing people” if Obama enacts gun control, Salon (11 January 2013)

Having worked in the Woming Attorney General’s Office — and reviewed my share of proposed statutes there — I know that the state’s legislators are sophisticated enough to know that such a statute would be preempted by federal legislation. Introducing the bill simply expresses citizens’ outrage in a formalized way.

The moral? — Dismissing gun “extremists” as “kooks” underestimates the portion of the American public that feels identically

Our “Imperial Presidency” — and the Plutocracy that runs it and Congress — do not inspire any more confidence in me than they do among the Gun Right.

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker observed:

Today, the most vociferous defenders of gun rights tend to be white, rural males who oppose any regulation.

But theirs was once the ardently held position of radical African Americans.

Notably, in the 1960s, Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Huey Newton toted guns wherever they went to make a point:

Blacks needed guns to protect themselves in a country that wasn’t quite ready to enforce civil rights.

Though my spiritual side has me siding with sensibly increased gun regulation, I fully understand the passion of those who do not. The spectrum of their fears is differently balanced than mine, or (presumably) yours.

PeteFree.com

James Yeager Is a Good Representative for Gun Advocacy’s Extreme Right — but His Passion and Profane Directness Do Not Automatically Make Him an Idiot — a Comment on the “Not So Fringe”