“Update FWD: They’ve recruited armed militias to intimidate us”

That is the actual headline of a fundraising email I received this afternoon at 4:41pm EST from Brady United Against Gun Violence (sic).

Nothing like some hyperbolic lies to get that old money flowing in when you don’t have Mike Bloomberg funding you. At least that is the impression they are giving.

BREAKING: The Washington Post reports that thousands of armed militias and pro-gun extremists plan to descend on the Virginia State Capitol on Monday, threatening “violent insurrection and civil war” over the state’s proposed gun safety laws. The FBI has already arrested six Neo-Nazis. The pro-gun group organizing the event has now raised more than $55,000 to bus extremists to Virginia and stop lifesaving gun safety bills.

This is a trend across the country. Our democratic process is under threat and we need to stand up to these extremists.

The pro-gun group is the Virginia Citizens Defense League which has been holding Lobby Days since 2002. I may be wrong on the first year but it goes back quite a ways.

Lobby Day is not a threat to “our democratic process”. It is, in fact, nothing less than real democracy in action as people are petitioning their elected representatives for a “redress of grievances” as enshrined in the First Amendment. Moreover, VCDL has never threatened civil war or violent insurrection. This is a libel.

Just like the screed from the Demanding Mommies this is an othering. Brady United is saying that those of us standing up for our God-given, Constitutionally-guaranteed rights are inferior and alien. When you characterize any group as an “other”, then you are saying it doesn’t matter if they ostracized, belittled, or even killed. It is what Adolph Hitler did to the Jews before setting the Brown Shirts lose on Kristallnacht. Later it was the box cars headed east to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor.

As Michael Bane said as recently as his last podcast, they are our blood enemies and they want us dead. I think he is right.