With just nine days left till the inauguration of Donald Trump as President, the current President has less than nine days to take away our guns! He needs to get those black helicopters revved up really soon if he is going to complete the campaign promise that he never said, but "everyone" knows. By everyone, I of course mean the listeners of Alex Jones and Breitbart News. Also Glenn Beck in 2009 and the always reliable rumor monger and current lover of Russia Sean Hannity. Fox News did not come out and say it, but......
Eight years ago, I was getting ready to go to Iraq. The inauguration of Barack Obama was just days away and many of the soldiers I would deploy to Iraq with at the end of January 2009 were quite sure "Obama's gonna take away our guns while we are in Iraq."
Those soldiers still have their guns, but they did not leave their conspiracy theories behind when they returned to America. Every few months on training weekend or during annual training in the summer, I would hear an intense conversation about how the confiscation would actually happen. Sadly, one occasion was the days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Another was the re-election of the President in 2012.
Part of my military experience from January 1972 to May 2013 has been rumors and conspiracy theories. I was in the Air Force testing missiles, including the Minuteman missile, during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War when there were rumors that the war would go nuclear while the Israelis were losing. I was in the military when President Nixon stepped down and when Saigon fell. I had just left the military when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan which was supposed to be cover for a Soviet invasion of Europe.
Crazy rumors are just part of the atmosphere of the military. But the "Obama taking our guns" rumor has hung stuck like a barnacle on a battleship. Part of the persistence was the Birther lie pushed by the TEA Party and then by the President Elect. Alex Jones could already be telling his gullible minions that President Obama will still carry out the confiscation somehow even after leaving office. Maybe a cabal of Kenyan socialists is waiting and ready in black helicopters......
