Threat Assessment

By Bill Maher

What do we do when there's no evidence that someone is actually planning to do something dangerous, but there are clearly warning signs? For example, the FBI confirmed it investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev a couple of years ago due to a request from Russia, but didn't find "derogatory" information that would require proceeding.

And then there's the Benton County, Arkansas Republican Party. Here's an excerpt from one of their recent newsletters, which, of course, I receive every month because I'm one of their biggest donors:

"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."

Do we have to wait for them to do "something costly," or is there anything we can do right now? Because this goes right up to the line on the First Amendment, and when you're this paranoid and openly violent about the government taking away your guns, maybe the government needs to take away your guns.