Ironic Gun Safety Lesson or Subversive Recruiting Technique?

Superintendent accidentally discharges muzzleloader in class

Dwain Haggard’s high school history lesson on Friday backfired.

Haggard, who used to be a Civil War reenactor, was showing the five students in Reed Point High’s American history class his replica antique black powder muzzleloader when the gun fired and lodged a ball in the front wall of the classroom.

“I can’t explain how it was loaded,” Haggard said.

Haggard has been district superintendent since 2007, and each year he’s visited the high school’s American history class to show off his Civil War-era equipment. When he shows the muzzleloader, he finishes the demonstration by firing a cap, which makes a small “pop” when he pulls the trigger, he said.

But this time, “when I dropped the hammer on it, to all of our surprise, it went off,” he said.

Jake Bare, a junior at Reed Point High, was in the class when the gun fired. He said it caught everybody off guard.

When Haggard pulled the trigger, there was a loud bang,and the room filled with smoke, Bare said.

“Holy criminy, you just shot the map,” he said.

Indeed, the ball shot through the “o” in the word “North” at the top of the map and lodged in the wall, Haggard said.

[...]

He described the incident as “bitter irony.” As superintendent, Haggard has worked with the school to increase safety at the school, updating its drills and the training staff receives.

Just one of those things that makes for a funny news story, right?

The thing is, the Freemen are making a comeback here in Montana.  Talk about being on the bleeding edge of '90s nostalgia; and perfectly timed with the growing torches and pitchforks anger and outrage the teabaggers are directing at the federal government and banksters. They haven't forgotten their roots.  In addition to starting petitions to recall elected officials...

Paul Stramer now heads a small group called Lincoln County Watch, where leaders of the unsuccessful petition drive attend meetings.

The group gathers in Eureka to talk about the "banksters" at the Federal Reserve, the judges "bought and paid for," the conspiracy that took America off the gold standard, and the need to "prepare for the worst."

Stramer has set his van up as a high-tech mobile communication base, he said, and is collecting silver against the collapse of the dollar.

"There may come a time," Stramer said at a recent Eureka meeting, one of many posted by the group on YouTube, "when the precious metal of choice is lead, because at least you can make some bullets out of it and shoot something to eat, and defend your family."

Participants at Lincoln County Watch meetings have told of Black Hawk helicopters landing in the rural area, and mysterious SUV's with dark windows and no plates, men in black, and C-130 planes flying low over the remote border town, the YouTube videos show.

Stramer, in turn, recommends that citizens carry radios and cameras to track covert government activity - creating a "local patriot network."

One take-no-prisoners issue the Freeman and Tea Party have is 2nd Amendment absolutism.  If the 2nd Amendment doesn't afford enough protection, Montana has added the 10th.  The Montana Firearms Freedom Act states that any gun and any ammunition manufactured and sold in Montana is exempt from federal regulation under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the US Constitution.  It doesn't state which state agency, if any, would be responsible for regulating made-in-Montana guns.

You can buy a left-handed 6mm Varminter now.  But what if you can't afford it now?  And by the time you can the ATF has a problem with it?  Who is going to protect the citizens of Montana from ATF interference in our God-given right to own hand-made, small-caliber, single-shot rifles?  Or muskets?

County sheriffs.  "Constitutional" county sheriffs have always been on the front lines of protecting our civil rights, albeit hypothetically:

While many of [former Utah sheriff Richard] Mack's backers are gun owners who believe the country is taking away their Second Amendment rights, Mack said true "constitutional" sheriffs will protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans on any front.

"What would a constitutional sheriff have done in 1959?" Mack asked the crowd.

When the call came in to the Montgomery County, Ala., sheriff's office that a black woman was refusing to move to the back of the bus - as required by law - the sheriff would have arrived on the scene and talked to Rosa Parks.

"Ma'am, what's the problem," a constitutional sheriff would have asked her, Mack said. Told she had taken an empty seat and just wanted to be left alone, the constitutional sheriff would have sat down next to her, ridden with her to her stop - and, once off, for good measure taken her into a whites-only restaurant so she could buy sandwiches for her and her husband.

He'd have then escorted her home, Mack said - asked if her husband was armed and could defend his family if anyone upset by what had happened came around and threatened them - and ordered extra patrols of the house.

"Remember, segregation wasn't a tradition, it was the law of the land," Mack said. "Rosa Parks taught us what you do with stupid laws."

Which brings us back to superintendent Haggard and his one-man Civil War reenactment.  He shoots at the North, literally, as an act of rebellion against the Federal Government.  He reminds the students how far the government will go to enforce its dominion over the states and citizenry.  True patriots must be willing to stand up and defend themselves.  With muskets and varminters.

This bit of pseudo-paranoia is brought to you by:

 Batshit Crazy shirts.