Elizabeth Scalia – The Anchoress – is a Catholic blogger who tends to blog about things like the feast days of various Catholic saints, the Catholic Church, and the intersection of religion and politics. She is a Benedictine Oblate or lay religious who has made “a promise to a monastery to live a spiritual life patterned after the Rule of St. Benedict.”

Thus, when she has a blog post about people arming themselves, buying ammo, and prepping in general out of a fear of what Obama and his cronies will do to stay in power, I pay attention. Frankly, this is something I would more likely expect to read on James Wesley, Rawles’ SurvivalBlog or any number of prepper forums.

Scalia describes a scene at her local beauty salon where both the stylist and his boss admit to storing food and to purchasing firearms.

In the past few weeks I’ve heard some surprising people admit they’ve been arming themselves and purchasing ammunition — one such discussion happened all around me at the hairdresser’s while I sat and listened. The stylist and his boss, they’re storing food and arming themselves. The chiropractor who popped in to say hello while taking his afternoon stroll said he is armed, too: “never in my life thought I’d have a gun in the house, now we have two.”

They’re arming, they say, because they “see it all going bad.” These same folks who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 were now asserting an idea the far-left had floated around before that election, but instead of “Bush is going to install martial law and suspend elections.” they’re saying it of Obama. “He paid off his friends and did nothing to create jobs and he wants it all to go bad, because then he can stay in power and dictate.”

 I don’t know where Scalia lives but the small businesses are taking it on the chin. 30% of the businesses in her area are closed and new ones are not opening. There is a lot of economic anxiety and fear among the people she is talking with. I’m guessing it is probably somewhere in the Northeast or in the Rust Belt.

There is an absolute collapse of faith in our systems and in the guy they helped put into office. These folks who were so quick to believe the press in ’08 and to believe in “hope and change” are now willfully believing the absolute worst. While I was getting my grey washed away I heard about local goings-on that I won’t write about here until I check it out for myself, because I don’t know what is real and what is paranoid fantasy or conspiracy theory. But the thing is, the anxiety is real, the doubt is real, as is the willingness to believe the absolute worst of all of our institutions — the press, the churches, the government. These folks are utterly convinced that the only thing that is going to be installed come next January is chaos and oppression. They’ll vote for Romney (“assuming there is an election and we’re allowed to vote and the vote is actually counted…”) simply because he’s not Obama, but they’re convinced that America’s best days are over.

Maybe it is because many people have gardens and already own firearms but I’m not seeing this locally in the mountains of North Carolina. People are worried about the economy and keeping their homes but they aren’t talking about a seizure of power. I asked the Complementary Spouse if she had heard anything like this where she works and she said no. She has heard people at work saying they better buy the guns they want now because of Obama but that is about it.

Scalia’s post indicates to me that the fear many of us have in the gun rights community hold about a second Obama term is not unreasonable. We fear that an unfettered Obama won’t be so circumspect as he has been in his current term. That said, what Scalia describes about the attitudes in her community, the fear and anxiety, and even the paranoia go far beyond that and I’m not sure what to make of it.