If you have son or daughter studying journalism at Marshall University, get them out, right now. Otherwise, they may fall under the sway of a murderous left-wing lunatic named Christopher Swindell, who is a “professor” of journalism there, and is evidently given to spittle-flecked tirades like the one he committed to text for the Charleston Gazette.

It starts out with the usual hateful left-wing bilge, including a gratuitous swipe at Sarah Palin, but then Swindell pops a blood vessel and calls for the mass extermination of the National Rifle Association, using military force, since he falsely asserts that the NRA is calling for armed insurrection:

Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad. The B.S. needs a serious gut check. We are not a tin pot banana republic where machine gun toting rebel groups storm the palace and depose the dictator. We put the president in the White House. To support the new NRA president’s agenda of arming the populace for confrontation with the government is bloody treason. And many invite it gladly as if the African-American president we voted for is somehow infringing on their Constitutional rights. Normally, I am a peaceable man, but in this case, I am willing to answer the call to defend the country. From them. To turn the song lyric they so love to quote back on them, “We’ll put a boot in your —, it’s the American way.” Except it won’t be a boot. It’ll be an M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles. Try treason on for size. See how that suits. And their assault arsenal and RPGs won’t do them any good. So, to return to reality, all of us. Let’s make common sense gun safety a deciding issue for 2014 and beyond. The NRA certainly has. Let’s push back. We the People. The 85 percent who support more robust background checks. And when the next domestic terrorist with an assault rifle comes along, we can blame the leaders and fringe of the NRA for arming them.

It’s difficult to parse this level of pure stupidity, but apparently this is what passes for a “thought experiment” in the deranged recesses of the Swindell mind. You see, NRA types are given to accurately citing the Founders’ view of the Second Amendment as a check against tyranny. That means they’re all secretly dreaming of violently overthrowing the U.S. government, which these knuckle-draggers think is liable to degenerate into tyranny. Therefore, the government should… live down to the most hostile caricature of illegitimate, tyrannical government by sending the military out to murder them?

I doubt Swindell appreciates it, but he’s actually making a powerful case against gun-control lunacy. The only argument he can advance in favor of gun control is a false choice between his preferred agenda, and a new Civil War. His ideas are so weak that he can only advance them by slandering his opponents with bloody lies. He’s written the kind of screed gun-rights advocates can hold up as a sign of their opponents’ intellectual bankruptcy. Somebody’s having violent fantasies about murdering his political opponents here, and it’s not the guys who insist the Second Amendment means what it says.

And his opinion of the U.S. military is deeply insulting, if he thinks they would follow illegal orders to brutally murder political dissidents. (He also apparently has no idea how Hellfire missiles and F-22 Raptors work – he probably just heard the terms while watching TV.) “We are not a tin pot banana republic where machine gun toting rebel groups storm the palace and depose the dictator?” No, but apparently Swindell thinks we are the sort of tin pot banana republic where the dictator can send out death squads to obliterate people who criticize his regime with too much vigor.

I certainly hope some deranged left-winger like Floyd Lee Corkins doesn’t take Swindell’s garbage as inspiration to show up at a National Rifle Association office with murder weapons and a bag of Chick-fil-A sandwiches.

The folly and mendacity of this screed are as damning as Swindell’s daydream of violent oppression. And he’s supposed to be training the next generation of journalists? There is no justification for allowing the author of something this weak and offensive anywhere near students.

