You, the NRA, have been telling us for years that we the people should own guns so that we can protect ourselves from a variety of threats, the biggest of which governmental overreach. You tell us that the only way we can prevent the police state is by having a well armed citizenry.

Now, however, we are starting to see your bleakest predictions come true. People who feel they are under threat of the government have started shooting back. In two separate incidents, former military veterans have opened fire on government officials who had, in their opinion, overstepped their bounds. I am speaking of two military veterans who opened fire and killed several police officers. As you know, there have been quite a few black men have been killed by the police recently. It would appear that these veterans decided to exercise their Second Amendment rights and fight back against the same government agencies that were killing their fellow citizens.

Isn’t this exactly the scenario you’ve been telling us we should be preparing for? The very government agencies who you have warned us about have gotten reckless and overbearing in their exercise of power. It seems like a tyrannical government is set on forcing unwilling citizens to comply with their arbitrary rules. Yet now that people are doing exactly as you’ve been priming us for so long, you remain silent, rather than stand in solidarity with two men who did exactly what you suggested, by fighting back against oppressive government efforts.

I do not condone their actions, but I wonder why, after all this rhetoric from you about standing fast against tyranny within our own government, you are suddenly silent when it occurs. Isn’t this exactly what you wanted? Armed citizens defending themselves and their communities from harm is everything you have been preaching.

Personally, I grieve for every person murdered this way, whether it is a young boy with a toy gun who is gunned down by police officers, or a sniper who ambushes police on the job. Both end up with someone dying, just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You have egged this on for so long in an attempt to stoke people’s fears, so that you could sell your brand. Now it has come home to roost. If you truly believe the propaganda you’ve been spouting, then you should stand up and defend the people who fought back. Otherwise, you should admit that what you’ve been telling people for so long was just a lie.

Tad Beaty

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The NRA nor the 2nd amendment have anything to do with the lawless killings of police officers you mention. Those two military veterans who took the lives of police officers where not acting in defense of their or anyone else’s rights. Those two acted outside of the law and took matters into their own hands after being disgruntled. Those two along with the liberal media and the Obama administration took the deaths of two black men and turned it into something it was not.

You cannot compare these two people with what the NRA nor the 2nd amendment stand for. You will not find anywhere in the NRA’s creed that they advocate violence outside of the law and your accusation that they do is ridiculous.

The rhetoric spouted by by you and the liberal left when convicting police officers in the court of opinion and social media before facts are known are the cause of many more deaths than those caused by law abiding, weapons owning citizens.

I stand firmly behind the 2nd amendment, the NRA and law enforcement.

Mike Cox



