Almost 900 people are RSVPed for a July 4th march on Washington, D.C. where protesters plan to carry loaded rifles. In D.C., openly carrying guns is against the law. But the organizer of the event, libertarian radio host Adam Kokesh, says the march is an act of “civil disobedience” that attempts to prove gun advocates’ point in the “SUBTLEST way possible.”

The event’s Facebook invitation describes the march as a nonviolent demonstration, “unless the government chooses to make it violent”:

This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.

There’s a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting. We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

There’s nothing I can write that would make this sound more ridiculous than what the wingnuts have already written, so I present it without further comment.

HT: Matt Langdon.

We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us [know] that we are serious. The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line.

— From the April newsletter of the Benton County, Arkansas Republican Party.

The National Rifle Association’s top lobbyist Chris Cox issued an approving statement immediately after the failure of Senate legislation to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales:

Today, the misguided Manchin-Toomey-Schumer proposal failed in the U.S. Senate. This amendment would have criminalized certain private transfers of firearms between honest citizens, requiring lifelong friends, neighbors and some family members to get federal government permission to exercise a fundamental right or face prosecution.  As we have noted previously, expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools.

Three things:

1. The notion that there’s a fundamental right to privately transfer the weapon you own to someone else without telling anyone about it is amazingly silly. I can’t privately transfer the house I own to a lifelong friend or a neighbor without informing the government. And my house is probably the least dangerous thing I own.

2. If the NRA’s esteemed lobbyist intended to say that expanding background checks would somehow limit a citizen’s right to own a gun, he is obviously wrong. It might take a couple of days or even a week … but that doesn’t infringe upon the right. That citizen can still own the gun, though he has to submit to a simple background check … just as he would if he wasn’t getting the gun via private transfer. Anyhow, I’m sure a law-abiding citizen isn’t so desperate for a gun that he absolutely must have it right this very moment without anyone knowing he has it except the person who slipped it to him quietly while no one was looking, nor are most law-abiding citizens so concerned that someone might discover they’re actually felons.

3. Finally, it is stunning that the NRA is able to regularly get away with pushing the idea that they’ve somehow demonstrated that nothing we do — apart from buying more guns, of course — will reduce gun violence. I’d love for someone to send me the research on how background checks do nothing to curb gun violence. Saying it doesn’t make it so. Here’s what I learned, from a quick Google search:

The FBI denied 72,659 attempted gun buys in 2010, based on red flags raised by the background check system, according to the most recent data available from the Department of Justice. That’s just 1.2 percent of the more than 6 million applications. The most common reasons: nearly half were felony indictment or conviction; 19 percent were fugitives; and 11 percent were those who had violated state laws. The rejection rate has been essentially unchanged over the years.

So … that might not be very many people who couldn’t buy the gun they wanted under our current system of background checks. But I’ll go out on a limb and argue it’s probably better, all things being equal, that a bunch of these 70,000+ gun buys were denied.

Would I be sad if this number went up because felons couldn’t buy guns at gun shows or from their neighbors? I would not be.

Braden Kling, an eight-year-old from Middletown, Ohio, knows what to do. His school has prepared him for the moment of reckoning. “We have this big board and we hide behind that. If he comes in, we start throwing stuff,” he explains. “Pencils, chairs, boxes, books, markers. And then we escape.”

The chief executive of the National Rifle Association said Sunday that his organization would lead a national campaign against efforts by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to persuade Congress to adopt stricter gun controls.

The mayor and the rifle association executive, Wayne LaPierre, appeared separately on the NBC News program “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire and a registered independent, said he was spending $12 million on advertising in support of pending federal legislation to curb gun violence. In reply, Mr. LaPierre, said, “He can’t buy America.’’