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Sipsey Street Irregular Mike Vanderboegh writes to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and explains that there’s an ugly fight coming. “No more free Wacos”, says Mike, and he’s not talking about religious whackos having free reign to to rape children and kill cops; he’s talking about the Federal Government burning men, women, and children who do not toe the line, and then blocking any investigation.

The inspiration for this piece is the case of David Olofson, now rotting in prison because he was in possession of a malfunctioning semi-automatic rifle. He threatened no one, he didn’t offer to sell it, he didn’t claim it was a machine gun. The malfunction was a dangerous one that could easily injure the shooter; there is video of the BATFX technician holding it well away from his body while testing, in case it blew up in his hand.

And yet Olofson was charged and convicted with possession of an unlicensed full-auto machine gun.

- By your department’s failure to restrain [BATX Field Agent Jody] Keeku’s outrageous conduct in returning the weapon to the ATF Testing Branch after it had been found by them NOT TO BE A MACHINEGUN but simply a malfunctioning semiauto rifle, with the demand that they retest it until they came to her opinion;

- By the trial judge’s refusal to allow defense experts to even examine the weapon; and

- By the appellate court’s blind refusal to allow a new trial based on these and other prosecutorial misdeeds,

Those are issues specific to Olofson’s case. Here are the broader implications:

if we can no longer count on a fair trial in a case of obvious ATF misconduct, then rationally, we have no reasonable expectation of a fair trial at all. In that case, we then are faced, when approached by any law enforcement officer attempting to enforce any gun law, with a Hobson’s choice:

- Submit, and be railroaded unfairly into prison, or

- Resist, and endure not only the personal consequences of that defiance, but also the likely consequences of a regional or even national conflagration.

Read the whole thing, please, as you value your life of peace and freedom.

Right now there’s a debate raging about whether or not gun owners should go about openly carrying and displaying their firearms, particularly handguns in a holster, in states that allow them to do so legally.

Read that again: informed, reasonable, law abiding, gun owners, people who have up till now been strong advocates for the right to keep and bear arms, are afraid to exercise their legal, lawful right. It might upset people. It might bring them in conflict with law officers, many of whom are very unaccustomed to and nervous around unbadged law-abiding citizens who happen to be armed.

There was an incident recently where a woman was threatened with arrest or shooting for wearing an empty leather holster at a Second Amendment protest.

A right is not a right if you can’t use it. I don’t care if it upsets people “scares the white folks”, to echo the response to Negroes eating at whites-only lunch counters, and riding up front in the bus.

This isn’t about “recruitment”. Not even about “acclimatisation”.

This is about putting our government, and our fellow citizens, on notice. We’ve been pushed right up to the line, and the trench grave lies on the other side.

Not backing down. Not hiding.

Not compromising.

Especially not compromising, because we’ve been compromising since nineteen thirty four, and all we have to show for it is a single, 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that yes, the Second protects an individual right, but no, the government can infringe it pretty much any way it wants, short of a total ban.

For all that, we at least want to be able to carry our legal weapons on our hips, in public.

Our empty holsters, even.

Listening, Mr. Holder? Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers? The one hundred million angles singing? The multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum, and they’re coming for you.

You swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, Mr. Holder. Uphold that oath, live it, breath it — or wait for the day when you can no longer escape being caught out as one of those the rest of us are defending it from. Your oath is wearing pretty god damned thin.

Wake up. Listen.

You will lose if you fight us.