Bill O'Reibermann Debuts On Fox News

Last night, Bill O'Reilly interviewed a gentleman named Stewart Rhodes, the founder of a group called The Oath Keepers. I don't know much about the group, other than that they describe themselves as current and former members of either the military, police or firefighter forces. The premise of their organization, is that they will keep the oaths that they have taken, and not obey illegal or unconstitutional orders, should they ever be given one. You can decide your feelings on them yourselves, but it was actually O'Reilly that said some things that almost made me throw a hammer through the television.

What has so raised my ire, is a sequence that occurred when they were discussing the group's position that its members will not obey orders to disarm law-abiding citizens. O'Reilly incredulously asked when that had ever happened in American history, and Rhodes replied, almost disbelievingly, with the obvious answer; Katrina!, O'Reilley made the outlandish statement that government has the right to seize firearms in a "state of emergency". Excuse me? Come again? That is the kind of statement I'd expect from Olbermann or Matthews - not the normally level-headed O'Reilly, who then went on to claim that in Louisiana, the police confiscated all firearms, both from of law-abiding citizens, and from not so law-abiding citizens (as if that somehow made it alright).

For God's sake, emergencies are the times that people need the ability to protect themselves the most! In post-Katrina Louisiana, the government did not seize "everyone's guns" as he claimed. They seized the guns of law-abiding citizens, because those are the people who bought and registered their guns legally - that's how the government knew where to look! The criminals and thugs who bought and kept guns illegally, still had them, and law-abiding citizens were left defenseless in a lawless environment!

Unbelievably, he followed that up with an even more outrageous statement. When Rhodes explained that the group's philosophy is that disarming law-abiding citizens, even in an "emergency", is a blatant violation of Americans' second amendment civil rights, O'Reilly claimed that the group's premise was "an extreme position". I almost fell out of my chair. What part of "The people's right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" makes not infringing on the people's right to keep and bear arms an "extreme position"!

These are the types of beliefs and statements that make gun-owners so fearful, sometimes to the point of paranoia, about any firearms legislation. If someone like Bill O'Reilly believes that in some circumstances, the government can arbitrarily ignore the constitution, imagine what people like George Soros, Al Franken, Eric Holder, and of course, the members of the Axis of Socialism have in mind for our second amendment rights.

I have often disagreed with O'Reilly in the past, but always respected him, because he is fair and his views are generally both constitutional, and logical. Last night, I lost a lot of respect for him, because his position was both indefensible and illogical. Another statement or two like this, and not only will I lose all respect from him, he will lose me as a viewer.


Bob

Ceterum , exsisto quietis Iggy!