Last week, the annual SHOT Show was held in Las Vegas. The NRA had not one but three different booths and Bushmaster, the manufacturer of the assault rifle used by the Sandy Hook shooter, had two different booths. So it comes as no surprise that aging rocker, secessionist and draft dodger Ted Nugent was there, too. It was the largest gun show in the world so, naturally, the rogues gallery of gun fetishists were on hand.
And the Secret Service should probably have another chat with Nugent after what he said from the floor of the SHOT Show.
Yes, Nugent not only threatened the president again, but he implied that he and his "buddies" would stage some sort of geriatric armed revolt if the president continues to push for new gun safety laws. I used the phrase "another chat" because this is the second time in less than a year that Nugent has popped off with some sort of not-so-subtle threat against the president. Rewind back to April, 2012 when Nugent said at the annual NRA Convention, "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year." The Secret Service responded to that one by paying a visit to Nugent's compound. Oh, and you might recall how, at a concert back in 2007, Nugent said that Barack Obama can "suck on my machine gun."
Yes, one of the gun culture's A-list spokesmen -- and a Republican campaign prop.
So here's what he said at the SHOT Show last week via a Guns.com video attained by Media Matters:
I'm part of a very great experiment in self-government where we the people determine our own pursuit of happiness and our own individual freedom and liberty not to be confused with the Barack Obama gang who believes in we the sheeple and actually is attempting to re-implement the tyranny of King George that we escaped from in 1776. And if you want another Concord Bridge, I got some buddies.
Do we have to go over this again? Nugent and his buddies would be utterly wiped out. Full stop. Actually, they might as well be threatening to ride velociraptors into the White House, armed with magic wands and accompanied by Space Monkey Gleek. It's just that ridiculous. The whole notion of an armed revolt and secession from the United States failed miserably in 1865, and the revolutionaries at that time were headed by skilled West Point commanders like J.E.B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee who directed massive armies. These gun nutjobs today have -- who? -- octogenarian D-list electric guitar player Ted Nugent and a gaggle of his redneck disciples. Good luck, boys.
In fact, you know what? Bring it on. Seriously. I'd like to see Nugent try his hand at something like this -- to actually follow through on one of his kneejerk treasonous threats. But considering how he chickened out of the Vietnam draft, we can safely assume that Nugent prefers to only shoot at things that don't fire back.
And he didn't stop there. Here's his latest threat against the president:
But here is what is wrong with America today. We have a president, and everybody better write this down, and memorize this. The president of the United States goes to the Vietnam Memorial Wall and pretends to honor 58,000 American heroes who died fighting communism and then he hires, appoints and associates with communists. He pretends to pay honor to men who died fighting communism, and then he hangs out with, hires and appoints communists. He is an evil dangerous man who hates America and hates freedom. And we need to fix this as soon as possible.
The election's over so the only fixing he could expect to achieve would have to come in some other form, and he doesn't have the power to impeach the president. By the way, you know who else hates freedom? The owners of the venue where Nugent and his fellow over-compensators held their big gun show last week, that's who. One of the regulations emphasized by the SHOT Show organizers was that attendees couldn't bring their own firearms into the convention hall. No conceal carry at the world's largest gun show.
But that's incidental. Nugent has, for the third time (that I'm aware of), threatened to assassinate the president. Did he mean it?
Chances are he isn't very serious, and he's just popping off for attention, but who really knows? He's a board member for the NRA, and the NRA insists that video games and the media can somehow incite a man to walk into a school and kill 20 children. Well then, by that same logic, influential pop icon Ted Nugent's constant outbursts about violent insurrections and assassinating the president could just as easily influence a man to take a shot at Obama or drive a car bomb into an army base (another Concord Bridge would ostensibly involve Nugent and his buddies attacking American military forces somewhere).
So perhaps the authorities should take him a little more seriously, since he clearly has no self-censor or self-control. And the gun lobby would do well to take Nugent a lot less seriously. But they won't.
Adding... Looking over some of the words I used in this blog post, it occurred to me that this URL could easily be red-flagged by the hyper-sensitive national security infrastructure that Nugent supported throughout the Bush years. You know, because he's all about freedom. Also, yes, I know. Nugent isn't really an octogenarian.
Cross-posted at The Daily Banter.
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