We’re not likely to read many pro-liberty opinion pieces in the New York Times or the Daily News, the Washington Post, or the Chicago Tribune. They’ve made their fealty to concept of an all-powerful central government all too clear in recent decades. But while the voices on the editorial pages are pleasing among the reliably statist echo chambers in geographically small pockets of the nation, they hardly speak for the rest of the nation, and those of us who reside in what they refer to as “flyover country.”

I strongly suspect that Damon Cline of the Augusta Chronicle more nearly represents the voices of a new breed of gun owner in this nation, who have been stocking up on tens of millions of firearms, and tens of billions of rounds of ammunition, untold accouterments, and millions of man-hours in arms and tactics training in recent years. We are a society preparing to defend itself from its own government:

Tyranny.

I’ve heard that word used so much during the past couple of years. It’s in the news, on the Internet, in slightly hushed conversations among friends.

It’s because people are worried about the future.

They worry their government is intruding into their lives more each day. They worry about privacy, and the ability to go about one’s daily business unmolested. They worry about unsustainable national debt. They worry about total economic collapse.

They worry their country – a republic founded on democratic principles – is becoming something else.

AND RIGHT NOW, because they can see tyranny on the horizon, they worry most about their guns.

Signs are everywhere. “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. T-shirts daring you to “Come and Take It.” TV shows about “preppers” getting ready for martial law. Ammunition-hoarding. Bumper stickers declaring “Our Forefathers Would Be Shooting By Now.”

Cline’s op-ed is far from radical in its statements. It is only radical in the fact that is is being published in one of the oldest newspapers in the nation, and that it has taken so long to come to fruition.

Civilians are not stockpiling firearms and ammunition, body armor and shelf-stable bulk foods because they feel this Republic is on the correct path. Our federal government and many state governments are targeting our freedoms at every turn. Is it really any surprise, then, that when states such as New York and Connecticut demand that citizens register their guns for future confiscation, that citizens refuse to comply?

Sadly, neither the national media nor their regional echos actually know their constituencies as people, and so they fail to understand the situation or their own tenuous positions.  They call for the citizenry to “face the consequences” for refusing to comply with blatantly unconstitutional laws.

They may find themselves unsatisfied at how the citizenry decides to respond to any attempt to aggressively enforce such laws.

As I seem to recall, We, the People, tend to react poorly to such demands.