Where are all the “Come and take it!” Patriots Now?

Where are all the “Come and take it!” Patriots Now?

Photo by Jamie Ebert on Unsplash

“Come and take it!” was a phrase I heard all the time living in Texas. I heard people shout it down the halls at work when Presidential hopeful Donald Trump lied to them on Truth Social, telling them that Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz, an avid hunter, were going to send federal troops in to capture their beloved fire arms.

I saw it on bumper stickers too. Actually, I saw it on most bumper stickers with Texas plates. At a minimum, they were sporting a Gadsden flag.

I always laughed at the innocence of the statement, “Come and take it.” Being a combat veteran myself, the statement always made me smile. I knew damn well that if given the order to take every one of their precious assault rifles from them, with a squad of Marines and very little accountability for my tactics, I could do so in minutes.

I could then proceed to confiscate all the weapons in their neighborhood that were deemed illegal and, without oversight or accountability, I could even confiscate the weapons that were still legal, assuming that was the scenario.

When explaining this I always got the same response, “Let ‘em try. What are they gonna do when I start shooting back!?”

“Kill you. That’s what they’ll do. They’ll kill you; quickly.” That would always get them really angry.

“Bull shit! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Really? In the Marines we are trained to instantly react to enemy contact. We are not trained to take cover and blast rounds into space either. We are trained to immediately turn towards the enemy, advance without cover if necessary, and destroy.

The training paid off and the tactic works. Trust me, I know.

So yes, shoot at me from your bedroom window and you will be dead in minutes.

I enjoyed riling them up, but deep down I understood the sentiment, and my wish would always be for them to be left alone.

To them, their political opponents, aka the government, were trying to spread fear about what they have grown accustomed to as just a part of daily America life.

And their deepest fear, in this scenario, is the government sending federal troops to take away a constitutionally protected right that they value deeply. When people threaten to take away their gun rights they envision being harassed on their way to work, asked if they own weapons by armed men demanding they show paperwork for weapons that they may even legally own, even though they are not required by law to carry that paperwork around with them.

They envision even those who have weapons they aren’t supposed to losing their due process rights as they fall victim to unwarranted searches and seizures.

They envision masked soldiers coming up to their home, maybe even just breaking down the door if their data base says they have an illegal weapon registered to them; a weapon that was legal last week. Maybe they would just come in without any evidence at all?

And they always said one thing. “You know damn well that they would come straight for Texas, even though there are just as many weapons in the liberal states. They would come after the red states and republican voters. It wouldn’t have shit to do with the guns themselves.”

Correct.

And in their minds, this would warrant fighting back.

I agree. So why in the name of God aren’t these assholes all amped up now; amped up against a government that is treading on its citizens?

They know that masked federal agents are harassing US citizens, demanding paperwork that they aren’t even required by law to carry. They know that people are being detained and deported, even though they were of legal status prior to Trump just saying they aren’t. They know that they are trampling the rights of US Citizens in their efforts to find the criminals they claim to be after; trespassing, profiling, harassing, abusing. They know that people are standing up against this and in turn are being killed.

They know these things, but they side with the aggressors. Why?

If the scenario was flipped they say they would revolt and overthrow the government. Literally.

One of my good friends was that guy. He would say, “Let ‘em try.” I sent him the video of Alex Jeffrey Pretti’s murder. He watched as Pretti was being sprayed with mace, as he tried to get away and help up a bystander who was on the ground in the process, as agents, who should have been trained to “reassess the threat” dragged him to the ground anyways, beat him, and shot him ten times after taking his weapon which he clearly never tried to use.

His response?

Am I justifying the deaths? Absolutely not. But you know what, I don’t think I’ll ever be shot at by a police officer. Because I will listen to their directions and overall, be respectful, even if I disagree.

Weird. His point is valid, but that’s a far cry from, “Come and take it!” or “Let ‘em try!” What happened? Is it because our gun culture has become so toxic that we are unable to come to terms with the thought that bad things happen when we play with firearms? Is it because they are liberals? Is it because we think that liberals should just be submissive?

Even if Pretti, hypothetically, pulled the firearm and used it against an officer who was illegally profiling US Citizens, who was sent by the government to tread on his rights and the rights of others, who wore a mask to intentionally intimidate his neighbors… isn’t that what “Let ‘em try” means?

Don’t we claim the second amendment exists so that we, the people, can defend ourselves against tyranny? Why aren’t they cheering these people on as they oppose our oppressive government?

So what’s next? Flash forward to 2029. What if the next guy in office wants retribution? What if he has all sorts of guns himself but whips out a bunch of executive orders, declares a state of emergency, and sends troops to red states to take their guns because we all know that Texas is full of conservative extremist whack jobs? What if he says that they should just submit because he knows what’s best for them and their safety is at risk because every one who owns a gun is the worst of the worst; rapists and murderers?

In this case, they won’t be sending a bunch of ICE rookies who only had to do 22 pushups to qualify for the job. Hell, they probably could stand up to and repel that. But they won’t send ICE. They will be claiming that the crazed conservative MAGA lunatics of Texas now represent a legitimate military force due to the amount of guns in the state. They will claim that Texas is under siege by this gun toting lunatic army. They will send the Marines.

They want to fight back?

“Let ‘em fucking try it.”