is a response to Donald Trump's statement that he was "just kidding" when he suggested that "second amendment people" (meaning gun owners and gun rights advocates) "might be able to do something" about Hillary Clinton or about the pro-gun control judges she might appoint after being elected. What might a gun owner do to prevent a sitting president or a sitting federal judge from carrying out their mandate?
Tom Friedman pointed out in a New York Times editorial that this sort of casual threat is the sort of language that resulted in the very real assassination of Menachem Begin after members of Israel's right wing suggest that Begin was a traitor to his country. A caller in to a program on C-Span illustrates this issue:
Trump, of course, denied that he had implied a threat. At first he said he meant these people should band together and vote. But as Wolf Blitzer pointed out in an interview with one of Mr. Trump's defenders, Trump clearly was referring to the aftermath of a hypothetical Clinton victory. If the election's over, there's no more voting. Then the argument changes: Trump didn't really mean that citizens should take up arms against President Clinton if she is elected. Nobody would ever say that and mean it! He was only joking! The statement "only joking" is analyzed in the following series of tweets. I found it quite interesting.
Trumpt's claim that he is "only joking" serves to invite people to agree that it's acceptable in political discourse to call for the assassination of rivals. In effect, the statement unifies people who don't have time for so-called "politically correct" norms -- like not using positions of incredible power to call for violence -- and to alienate those who believe in and respect those norms.
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