The Left likes to pretend they’re the sensible, peaceful, and restrained ones. They routinely call the right reactionary and extremist, all buzzwords to try and stigmatize their opposition.

Yet the last couple of years has done a great deal to shatter that carefully crafted image.

Oh, Democrats still cling to it like some of us cling to guns and religion (and are proud to do so, I might add), but the illusion is gone thanks to Antifa. It’s hard to argue that you’re peaceful while Antifa is attacking people and beating them with bicycle locks.

Yesterday, a couple of Marine Corps reservists who were attacked by Antifa testified against two of their alleged attackers.

The marines, Alejandro Godinez and Luis Torres, both testified in uniform about the incident, while three marine officers, including their commanding officer, stood in the gallery. The suspects, Thomas Massey and Tom Keenan, who have been linked to antifa on websites and social media, sat together with their individual lawyers and did not speak.

…

According to the marines’ testimony, they were touring historical landmarks near Front and Chestnut streets when suspect Thomas Keenan approached them. Godinez testified that Keenan asked them “Are you proud?,” to which Godinez remembers responding “We are Marines.” Torres said that he remembers Keenan asking “Are you Proud Boys?,” an allusion to one of the alt-right groups behind the rally, and one that Torres said he didn’t understand. “I didn’t know what Proud Boys meant,” he said.

The marines, who are not from the Philadelphia area, said that they had traveled to the city with other members of their helicopter unit, headquartered at Fort Dix, to attend a Marine event that night at a local hotel ballroom. They said that they had no knowledge of the nearby rally, which drew members of the alt-right as well as a large number of counter-protestors, Keenan and Massey reportedly among them.

Whatever Keenan said, both marines testified that Keenan, Massey, and approximately ten other people — men and women, some masked and some unmasked — then began attacking them with mace, punches, and kicks, and calling them “nazis” and “white supremacists.”

On the stand, Godinez said that he was “bewildered” by being called a white supremacist and immediately cried out, “I’m Mexican!” After that, as the attack continued, both men said that members of the group, including Keenan, repeatedly used ethnic slurs, including “spic” and “wetback,” against the marines. (There was no testimony that Massey used any such language).

Make no mistake. Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization, even if there’s no organization to speak of. They routinely attack people they think oppose them. They pummel and beat and will eventually kill someone, make no mistake.

When that happens, it will be interesting to see if Democrats put forth any effort to distance themselves from these extremists. Oh, there have been a few attempts here and there, but there’s also been praise from ranking Democrats. It’s clear that, at best, Democrats as a group are ambivalent about Antifa.

At least two of them are facing the ramifications of their actions. They’ll probably go to prison and remain there for a little while.

Unfortunately, it seems some other members of the group got away, which means they may attack other innocent parties later.

Such is the world we live in.

And the anti-gun Left wonders why we want our Second Amendment rights. I can’t imagine why any of us would want to carry a firearm, can you?