About six months ago, Bob Owens offered up his thoughts on the direction of our country. In particular, answering the question of whether we’re heading toward a civil war.

A lot has happened in the last six months, so why not take a look at Bob’s thoughts and add what we know now.

Lemon notes in his article the 1979 Greensboro massacre, in which the KKK and American Nazi Party shot up a march of the Communist Workers Party. I personally don’t think it will go down like that.

Instead, we’ll possibly see a bunch of left wing clowns and a bunch of right wing clowns square off and get into a shouting match, and then someone hiding in the back is going to crank off a round, just as they did on April 19, 1775 on Lexington Green. That’s going to trigger a panic, and then it’s probably going to devolve into a free-for-all, in which police officers trying to keep the peace between the groups will be caught in the crossfire.

I suspect we’d see a dozen people wounded by gunfire in such a scenario, with probably twice that number trampled or otherwise injured trying to flee the area.

At this time, I think it will likely be an isolated incident, not a modern “shot heard ’round the world.” It takes a lot to trigger a civil war. I don’t think we’re there yet, and hope we will never be.

In hindsight, Bob looks pretty prescient here. While not a perfect match, the scenario described over six months sounds awfully similar to Charlottesville. No, there are distinct differences such as no gunfight, which means we dodged a bullet there (no pun intended).

Since the original post, Charlottesville has been just one of many places where things have gotten particularly ugly, and I think those situations change things a bit. Primarily, the attack on congressional Republicans’ baseball practice in June.

Bob notes that it takes a lot to trigger a civil war, and he’s right, but it also depends on what you’re thinking of when you think “civil war.”

The one civil war in our history was a relatively civilized affair with both sides putting together formal armies that met each other according to the rules of war. However, a “dirty war” between police and irregular forces seems far more likely at this point and it won’t take much to spark it off. A case could be made that the attack in Alexandria noted above was merely the first step in a dirty war.

Personally, I hope I’m being paranoid. While I’m not particularly concerned about what we’ve seen from leftist militias at this point, they’re learning.

Some might mock what we see here, remember that everyone has to start somewhere. All those tactical training classes you and I swoon over and hope to attend? They can go too. That means they can acquire the skills to make this ugly. If they’re smart, they’ll learn how to play along so they don’t get removed from the class for being a commie schmuck.

That doesn’t mean we’re on the precipice, however.

Again, it takes a lot to spark off a civil war. Instead, we’re likely to get a lot of “lone wolf” attacks by leftist tools who are going to stick it to the man. We may also get an armed confrontation at a protest like Bob noted six months ago. However, I will say that unless some people can back off on trying to politicize everything, I’m not optimistic about our long-term prospects as a peaceful nation

What about you? What are your thoughts?