1775…again?

When people desperately trying to avoid a fight are left no choice but to fight, they are often the fiercest fighters imaginable.

The reason being an explosion of righteous anger – of berserker fury – directed at the bullies who will not leave them be.

Governor “Coonman” Northam of Virginia is such a bully.

He intends to rescind the current, ancient and long-acknowledged legal right of Virginians who aren’t criminals to possess more than single shot rifles and pistols – by criminalizing anyone who does possess them. These newly minted “criminals” will then be required to turn in their formerly legal firearms to the government or be subject to Hut! Hut! Hutting! by armed government workers sent by the Coonman to enforce his criminal acts.

This is a recipe for 1775.

Another bully – Thomas Gage, the British military governor of Massachusetts – attempted a “Coonman” in that year, which lit the fuse of what became the Revolutionary War. He sent armed government workers – Redcoats – to confiscate the weapons of the colonists – who had finally had their fill of being bullied. These long-ago AGWs eventually gunned down several colonists on the village green at Lexington.

Word of the massacre spread and the people rose in response, fighting back with whatever means available, harrying the column of armed government workers as it made its way back toward Boston, some 18 miles away.

The fury incited by that long-ago “Coonman” was subsequently described by himself:

“These people show a spirit and conduct against us they never showed against the French . . . They are now spirited up by a rage and enthusiasm as great as ever people were possessed of and you must proceed in earnest or give the business up. A small body acting in one spot will not avail, you must have large armies making diversions on different sides, to divide their force. The loss we have sustained is greater than we can bear. Small armies cannot afford such losses, especially when the advantage gained tends to do little more than the gaining of a post.”

Eight years later, those furious colonists finally succeeded in getting the bullies off their backs – permanently.

They probably never imagined that homegrown bullies even worse than “Coonman” Gage would eventually arise to torment them.

The current “Coonman” may not realize just how very tired the people are of being bullied – and how willing they are to fight, if a fight is forced upon them.

The “Coonman” feels confident. He has the full weight and force of the government and all its means at his disposal. He has legions of armed government workers available to enforce his writ.

But he hasn’t got the fury – and that is something he ought to reckon with, before it it is too late.

If this thing starts, it will not end until one or the other side is no longer capable of fighting. It will be no-quarter-given. It will be awful.

But it will be righteous.

And it may be necessary.