What Violent Right Wing Rhetoric?

March 21-22, 2009 — Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) states that she wants residents of her state to be “armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people—we the people—are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.”

July 15, 2009 — Katherine Crabill (Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates 99th District) makes headlines by calling on Americans to resist the course President Obama has set for the country. Appearing at a “Tea Party” rally “We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box. But that’s the beauty of our Second Amendment right. I am glad for all of us who enjoy the use of firearms for hunting. But make no mistake. That was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. Our Second Amendment right was to guard against tyranny.”

August 25, 2009 – Rex Rammell, (candidate in the 2010 Idaho Republican Primary) remarks on “Obama hunting tags” at a discussion about state-issued tags for wolf hunting.”The Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.” In a subsequent press release, he adds, “Anyone who understands the law knows I was just joking, because Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tags in Washington, D.C.”

August 26, 2009 — Debra Medina (Texas gubernatorial candidate) “We are aware that stepping off into secession may in fact be a bloody war. We are aware. We understand that the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

September 28, 2009— Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Chairman of the Second Amendment Task Force in the U.S. House of Representatives, calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “domestic enemy of the Constitution”

April 10, 2010 — Martha Dean (Republican candidate for Attorney General in Connecticut) “If government is legitimate and truly is the voice of the people, it need never fear the people themselves when they’re armed. Only a government that uses secrecy and force to impose improper laws [to] which the people do not consent need fear the wrath of its law-abiding citizens at the ballot box or, ultimately, with arms … Our right of free speech and to back it up with arms if necessary if our government becomes tyrannical and unjust as King George’s was to the colonists are the most essential of the rights we as Americans have … I will oppose all efforts to create nonsensical distinctions that are nowhere supported by our constitutions between different types of firearms. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the government gets the effective firearms and the people the ineffective ones. Nowhere in our Constitution does it say that the government gets the modern firearms and the citizens only get the antiquated ones.”

April 13, 2010 — Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-OK) on meeting with Oklahoma Tea Party groups to discuss the formation of a new “volunteer militia” to defend against ‘improprer federal infringements on state sovereignty’ Brogdon states that the Founding Fathers “were not referring to a turkey shoot or a quail hunt. They really weren’t even talking about us having the ability to protect ourselves against each other. The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government.”

May 6, 2010 — Christina Jeffrey (Republican candidate 4th Congressional District South Carolina) holding an AK-47 assault rifle; “Why do we have the Second Amendment? The Second Amendment ensures all of our other rights … The Second Amendment was placed in the Constitution, plainly, to ensure that our limited government stayed limited and that we would be able to enforce those limitations if need be … We are a sovereign people. A sovereign people is an armed people.”

May 15, 2010 — Newt Gingrich “The Second Amendment is not in defense of hunting. It is not in defense of target shooting. It is not in defense of collecting. The Second Amendment is in defense of freedom from the State.”

May 30, 2010 — Sharron Angle (Republican candidate U.S. Senator Nevada) “...the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn’t that they are so distrustful of government? They’re afraid they’ll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways.”

May 31, 2010 — Rex Nichols (candidate for sheriff Montana’s Lincoln County) in reference to federal agents, Ruby Ridge, Waco and keeping feds out of the county if elected. “I am going to take my deputies and stand in the middle of the road and tell them to get the hell out …..And if they want a war, they got it.”

September 30, 2010 — Steve Kendley, (candidate for sheriff Montana’s Lake County) threatens “a violent conflict” with federal agents if “they are doing something I believe is unconstitutional.”

October 21, 2010 — Stephen Broden (Republican candidate for 30th Congressional District Texas) states the violent overthrow of the government is an “option” that remains “on the table.” “Our nation was founded on violence….I don’t think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.”

November 9, 2010 — U.S. Representative-Elect Allen West (R-Fla) “I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendments rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will.”
November 29, 2010 — U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) comparing the Obama administration to the Nazi regime in Germany “Put anything in my scope and I will shoot it.”