I know that the past few years have been crazy. As in “ripped from the pages of an end-times novel typed single-spaced in a double-wide, self-published, then sold only at gunshows” kind of crazy. But I think we’re not quite so jaded, gaslit, or stunned by learned helplessness like beagles tortured by Fauci that we wouldn’t react if the following happened.

Visualize 135 GOP members of Congress apostatizing from America on CSPAN. Standing up in the Capitol and renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Then swearing allegiance to the imams of the Taliban. Or to the Republic of North Korea. Or (egads!) Vladimir Putin.

We’d notice something like that. We’d stir from our couches, hit “pause” on our football games, and furrow our brows. Some of us might text our friends. If we noticed people on that list whom we had supported, we’d resolve now to oppose them. Don’t you think?

The Bill of Rights in the Shredder

Well, that just happened. What happened might be worse. Because that’s the number of Republican congressmen who just voted to tear up Americans’ fundamental rights. If the new bill that gang of apostates backed makes it through the Senate, a new system takes root in our country.

Instead of the rule of law, fair trials, and the presumption of innocence, Americans will face the kangaroo courts, guilt-by-suspicion, and arbitrary “cancelling,” that prevail on social media. Instead of rights we’ll have privileges, revocable at the whim of unelected strangers. Life will be one big Facebook, governed by “community standards” that shift with popular hysteria.

A Fundamental Right, Reduced to a Privilege

I’m warning about the “Red Flag” bill that Democrats (of course) supported en masse, which passed overwhelmingly thanks to Republican cowardice. The Supreme Court has rightly ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right — to bear arms in self-defense.

It is not a “second-class” right (as Clarence Thomas noted during the Heller case), nor a privilege like driving a car on public roads. It’s not a license, like the one to practice law or medicine. It is a fundamental right, like freely exercising one’s religion, speaking freely, or getting speedy justice. If Americans don’t believe that, they’re free to amend the Constitution, and repeal the Second Amendment. But we haven’t, and won’t.

Jim Crow, Part 2

Since we won’t, our elites — who want only their own private security guards bearing arms — have poured money into corrupting our legislators and brainwashing the public, to pass laws that strip away this basic right. In much the same way, Southern legislators who couldn’t repeal the 14^th and 15^th Amendments made them effectively null and void via Jim Crow workarounds.

That’s what Red Flag laws are. Currently, federal firearms laws correctly ban convicted felons and the mentally defective (those who’ve been committed against their will) from purchasing firearms. No supporter of gun rights has any problem with such laws. We support them, and wish to see them enforced even-handedly — by which we mean, even against Hunter Biden.

Any Karen Can Call in a SWAT Team on You

Red Flag laws are a sleazy, insidious, lawless attempt to treat every American gun-owner like a felon or mental defective. Don’t take it from me. Read what the Biden White House says about such legislation: “Red flag laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.”

In fact, such laws are not restricted to family members — any neighbor, disgruntled ex-spouse or employee, or political enemy can phone in a “red flag” warning to police. The same people who get Americans banned from social media for making them “feel unsafe” by disagreeing with them? They will now be able to call in police raids on our homes. Got a Trump sign in your yard? A neighbor who hates Trump now has a weapon to use against you. Did you speak up at a school board meeting against Critical Race Theory? Expect the cops to knock on your door, guns drawn, demanding yours.

The Burden of Proof Is on the Defendant

That’s right. Under Red Flag laws, based on a single unsubstantiated accusation, police can raid an American’s home, and seize his weapons. The police hold those weapons until the accused can convince a judge that he is “safe” to own them. The burden of proof? It’s on the accused. Keep in mind that a high percentage of judges oppose all private firearms, and think that nobody ought to have them. You’ll have to hire a lawyer and fight for months, if you even win. Imagine having to do that to reclaim your right to attend your church, or express your political views. Of course, the left has attacked those freedoms too, both via COVID panic orders and social media censorship.

Do you think the people who want you fired, and banned from shopping or traveling for refusing the Dead Baby vaccine, will balk at making phony “crisis” calls to the cops? Red Flag laws effectively privatize the destruction of our Second Amendment rights, subcontracting that process out to America’s Karens, evicted tenants, and nosy, intolerant neighbors.

The GOP Caves Again

The Democrats cleverly set up Republicans for surrender, by putting the Red Flag provision in the defense authorization act. That’s no excuse. Better our troops guarding Germany miss a paycheck while we fight this, than come home to a country transformed, where fundamental rights are temporary privileges. Here are just a few of the Republicans who sold out the Bill of Rights:

• Matt Gaetz.
• Madison Cawthorn.
• Elise Stefanik.
• Devin Nunes.
• Ronny Jackson.
• Greg Pence.
• Kevin McCarthy.

For a complete list click here. Then get in touch with these people who claim to represent us. Let them know what you think of them. Tell them that fundamental rights, and the presumption of innocence, are not negotiable.

If this un-American bill should actually pass the Senate, and be signed by the Secret Committee Formerly Known As Joe Biden, the Supreme Court ought to take up the first legal challenge that arises, and toss it on the trash heap of history alongside the Dred Scott decision and the Chinese Exclusion Act.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”