Yeah, I know it’s not really news anymore when a Republican running for election puts his or her foot in their mouth. The latest gaffe comes from Florida Senate candidate Mike McCalister, who obviously didn’t learn from Sharron Angle’s failed Senate run last year, when he opened his big mouth. McCalister, speaking at the Palms West Republican Club, stated:
“I get asked sometimes where do I stand on the Second and 10th Amendment, and I have a little saying,” he declared. “We need a sign at every harbor, every airport and every road entering our state: ‘You’re entering a 10th Amendment-owned and -operated state, and justice will be served with the Second Amendment.'”
Can you just see the Tea Party audience cheering at the thought of someone violating their interpretation of state rights being shot in the head? On Veterans Day, where we honor people who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the United States shouldn’t we be even more hesitant about resorting to violence? Didn’t that cowboy mentality get us stuck in two wars that have cost us trillions of dollars and more importantly thousands of lives?
To insinuate that someone is infringing on states rights and therefore needs to be “taken care of”, is to encourage domestic terrorism like what was recently being planned by militia members in Georgia. That type of “leadership” won’t save America, it will bring this country to ruin.
This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters’ mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program. The fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.