Second Amendment remedies

Charles P. Pierce at Esquire has a little observation about the symbolic significance of the “Battle of Athens”, in which recently returned WWII GIs broke a corrupt small town political machine through force of arms.

The events in question have become iconic on the fringe of the gun movement wherein resides Larry Pratt and, indeed, the veterans of McMinn County, fresh off battlefields in Europe and the Pacific theater, were disinclined to get pushed around by political bosses who'd stayed safely at home and gotten fat off the political spoils. It's important to remember, however, that these same arguments are largely denied in history to, say, the coal miners at Matewan, or to the Black Panthers, whose arguments from the 1960s are indistinguishable from those made by Pratt to Matthews last night. Both groups were equally powerless against a political machine deaf to their pleas.