Second Amendment Rights and the Electoral College

Recently, speculating that there's a chance in November Governor Mitt Romney might win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College, specialists analyzing state-by-state polling have summoned the apparition of a banshee.



Remember when President Obama was elected in 2008 and many rightists rushed to the gun stores to snatch up inventories of firearms and ammunition?  There were shortages in early 2009; that's how frantic the buying spree was.  In the middle of the worst recession in decades, dealers had banner-year sales.  Customers said they believed that Obama was going to outlaw guns.



But there was more to it than fear; there was anger.



When the frenzy was over, the gun rights crowd began yammering about tyranny and the right to resist it with violence.  They talked about insurrection and war.

Predicated on a couple of things, Obama, they said, was the most unconstitutional president ever.

First, they accused him of intending to confiscate guns.  They had no evidence, and the accusation wasn't fulfilled.  They also said that his health care reform would be socialism.

They declared Obama to be illegitimate.  They imagined things.  They said that the Second Amendment granted them the right to resist him with arms.



And none of it was true.  There was no tyranny, and they have no right to rebellion.

President Obama made no move against gun rights.  The Supreme Court found his signature piece of legislation in health care reform to be constitutional.



The Second Amendment doesn't grant anyone the right to take up arms against the government.  If someone shoots a politician, one of her supporters, a cop or a National Guard member for political motives, then it's felony homicide.  The Second Amendment is no defense.



The people who were saying such things were the kind of people every kid who's played a game of tag has met: sore losers.  Obama won a clear majority that year.  Being upset and projecting blame outward, many rightists manufactured their objections: "He's foreign!" "He's a Muslim!" "He's bad, bad, bad!"  They weren't rational.  Having guns and an argument to use them made them dangerous.



So imagine: If Obama wins reelection in 2012 without the popular vote, there’s going to be a screaming and kicking tantrum the likes of which haven't been seen in a hundred and fifty years---not since the days of the Civil War.  The National Rifle Association would have a new heyday.  Major retailers have different buying strategies based on the outcome of the election, but, if Obama wins like that, then gun sales would skyrocket even higher than they could guess.

"TYRANNY!!!"



Democratic schadenfreude would reign supreme.  It might happen even though the candidate doesn't have a sibling and a party gaming elections in a swing state, and it would be all legal and constitutional if it did.

Republicans often declare that the United States is a republic, not a democracy.  How would they like to be proved right?