Threat of Arizona Pro-Gun Activist: "The dragon is too large to quell with the ballot."

For years, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) has closely monitored insurrectionist activity across the country, in part by publishing an "Insurrectionism Timeline" that logs threats and actual acts of violence against the U.S. government by gun rights activists who believe the Second Amendment gives them an individual right to respond to what they perceive as "tyranny" with force of arms.

Occasionally, we will receive correspondence from pro-gun extremists who make it clear—in no uncertain terms—that a war with our government is what they want. On July 11, 2011 we received exactly such an email from Steve Grant of the "Republic of Arizona." A Google search indicates that the group is incorporated in Benson, Arizona. On its homepage, the Republic of Arizona shares missives like "We stand with all Arizonians that oppose illegal aliens in this country" and "We will not serve with queers nor will we defend a nation that embraces this abomnation in the sight of both God and man."

The text of the email we received from Grant—which conveys a direct threat of violence against our government—is as follows:

Lets see if you can answer the following:

Do you believe that there is at least 30% of American gun owners that will take the same path as the Founding Fathers did to throw off tyranny?

Do you believe that this path will be an actual house to house blood fight?

If you answered no to either, you better guess again.

The British called it insurrection as well.

The very foundation, the thread of this nation was built on God, guns and blood to throw off tyranny.

You may not think that we live in a nation of growing government tyranny, but you are not the last word nor are you the majority.

The regime in power and the socialist sludge that supports it do not want guns outlawed to make it safe for citizens from gun crime, they want the guns to give the people that same power the people in Darfur and Syria have ..... none.

Go back to the two questions. Reread them ad get a clue.

May God steady our aim and deliver our enemies, both abroad and especially at home, into our hands.

To arms! ye soldiers, The trumpet call obey! Arise from dreary slumbers. To watch, and fight, and pray.

The dragon is too large to quell with the ballot.

We await the coming storm.

Steve Grant
Republic of Arizona

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

Gun owner till death do us part.

We support the Arizona Immigration Law

In nomine Dei et sanguinem belli

Pro-Gun Activists Fantasize About Brutally Killing Young Black Men

It’s no secret that pro-gun activists like to fantasize about using their guns to take down “bad guys.” As author and concealed handgun permit holder Dan Baum wrote in an August 2010 article for Harper’s magazine, “Anyone who tells you he has no fantasy life constructed around his gun either has been packing it for as long as he’s been watching television or is flat-out lying.” Speaking from experience, Baum says that firearm training classes in modern America are “less about self-defense than about recruiting us into a culture animated by fear of violent crime.”

For decades, the primary target of these fantasies has been young black men. Recall longtime NRA Board Member Jeff Cooper, who voiced the feelings of white gun-toting males throughout the pro-gun movement when he (in)famously wrote in 1991, "Our men in the Los Angeles area tell us that the radical rise in the murder rate in the L.A. basin should be viewed with due reference to the Good Riddance factor ... A certain amount of subjective guesswork is involved, of course, but the consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition."

While the current-day crop of pro-gunners might not be as brash and candid as Cooper, the violence-fueled, racially-tinged day-dreaming remains the same. Consider the July 1, 2011 edition of the "VCDL Update," the e-newsletter of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a radical pro-gun group that seeks to eradicate all existing gun laws (including background checks on gun purchasers).

In the newsletter, VCDL President Philip Van Cleave points members to a June 26, 2011 article by Gabe Suarez, who fancies himself a "Professional Personal Combat Consultant" in "Arizona Territory." The article, entitled, "The Flash Mob Attack—How to Defend?” promotes a bizarre conspiracy theory about "flash mob events" in which hordes of "urban thugs" converge on innocent whites to beat and rob them while yelling things like "Kill Whitey!" Suarez describes four such "events," but fails to provide any links to the original source material to confirm that they actually happened.

That doesn't stop him, however, from telling readers—in graphically violent terms—how to kill black teenagers. "If you cannot avoid," he instructs, "attack...brutally and viciously." And there's more:

Stab the first man deep and hard in his face and move to the next guy and repeat the exercise. Do the same to anyone within reach. When their buddies reel back, screaming in horror and pain, holding their bloodied faces with eyeballs hanging out, it will create hesitation. Use that time to disengage. If you have a pistol, please make sure it is a modern high capacity weapon with a couple of spare magazines in your belt. The Suarez International company gun, a Glock 17 with three magazines, yields a sum total of 52 rounds. Figure three rounds per man, and you can reduce an angry mob of panga swinging killers into a fleeing group of bloodied bad guys. Draw it and yell, "Get The F*** Back!" If they do, run away. If they do not, shoot the first man in the face. The rest will take care of itself.

A panga, for those who are not familiar, is an African weapon similar to a machete.

During the same week that Van Cleave and the VCDL were sharing this reading material with their friends, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence received the following short email from pro-gun activist "John Jackson":

I want guns in all houses because you wacko people don't want to have the death penalty and you let all these thugs run loose. So if another drug dealer gang Banger gets killed its less money from our taxes."

Jeff Cooper, who passed away in 2006, would have been proud...