Using Guns to Fight the Government…

…means you’ll be shooting police and soldiers.

Gary, Indiana mayor and Democrat Presidential candidate Pete Buttieg made this tweet:

From a certain point of view, it does.  And it also means shooting at politicians.  As such, the bar to be cleared before starting that party should be high indeed.  But, however, there’s also another point of view.  Consider.  When I enlisted in the Air Force, I swore an oath:

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

Officers, swear a similar but somewhat different oath:

I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the _____ (Military Branch) of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.

Police officers likewise swear an oath.  They can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but a typical example is the one from Indiana, to wit:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will at all times protect life and property, abide by the policies and regulations established by Indiana University, the department, the laws and Constitution of the State of Indiana and the Constitution of the United States of America.

Note one thing that all of them, every single one of them, has in common?  They are swearing an oath to follow the Constitution of the United States.  Every one.

And if they are violating the Constitution, then they are oathbreakers–just about the worst “sin” in the tradition I follow.

They are also traitors, perhaps not in the Constitutional legal definition (although perhaps even arguably by that case if they are using violence and force to do so: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”)

If they are violating the Constitution, they are no longer, at a fundamental level, American soldiers or American police officers regardless of what their legal citizenship might be.  They are domestic enemies making war on the very essence of what America is.  This remains true even if we as a people have not risen up against that…yet.  For as Thomas Jefferson wrote, more than 240 years ago:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

To which he followed:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So, should unconstitutional usurpations of power continue, the human rights and freedoms of American citizens continue to be restricted, the Constitution continue to be ignored to the point that a significant number of Americans say “enough”, then those soldiers and police officers who enforce that tyranny will no longer be American, whatever uniforms they actually wear.

They will be enemies, and treated as such.