Guns to protect against U.S. government? Constitution doesn’t protect that

Today, May 16, 2014, a group of yahoos promises 10 million armed Americans will descend on Washington to force changes in government, maybe depose the President, and have other yahoo fun squealing tires, drinking beer, and scaring good folks with the guns they wave.

They’ll be lucky to have a thousand people show up and politely decline to run afoul of the District of Columbia’s gun laws and the concomitant prison time.

If they stay out of jail, it won’t be because the Constitution protects them.

Yes, the Second Amendment says they have — and you and I have — a right to “keep and bear arms.”

Yahoos, true to their yahoo ways, really don’t read the Constitution thoroughly.  Otherwise, I suspect they’d be more circumspect.

Article III, Section 3, of the Constitution defines using those arms against the government, levying war against the U.S., as “treason.”

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Neither the First Amendment nor the Second Amendment excuses treason.

How will today turn out in Washington?  There may be some traffic tie-ups.  There always are. Anything out of the ordinary, though?  Not if citizens use common sense, and stick to the Constitution that protects their protests.

Yahoos, in one of their nicer portrayals from the 1947 Crown edition of Gulliver’s Travels; drawing by Luis Quintanilla. Image from Wordmall.

Update:  As of Friday afternoon, the rally fizzled.  Organizers blamed the rain.  Proof that rain falls on the unjust, too?

More:

• Why didn’t more protesters show up? Twitter hashtag discussion, #OperationAmericanSpringExcuses
• Voice of Russia story on the protests
• Rachel Maddow’s pre-protest analysis, “Big nutball day”
• Wonkette has fun with the idea
• By the way, how did George Washington deal with American citizens who took up arms against the U.S. government in protest? A small army and a dozen nooses . . .