The attempted assassination of any politician in this country is going to send ripples out across the political landscape, like an earthquake shaking the very foundations of what has been. Even if it’s unsuccessful, there’s going to be an aftermath.

This one involves a lot of people blaming guns because they don’t know how to blame literally anyone else.

We’ve seen the countless stories talking about gun control, AR-15 bans, and Republicans not wanting any of it time and time again following the shooting, which has surprised no one. It’s pathetic. It was also inevitable.

But from time to time, you find something that is truly unhinged, and that’s special.

This particular piece was written by a man named Frank Smyth, who wrote a book called “The NRA: The Unauthorized History.” Now, that’s not necessarily damning, but he also says stupid stuff like this:

The attempt on Trump’s life could yet spike a fever on the armed right for a path of revenge, in line with Trump’s violent rhetoric. A struggle for power if he is pronounced the loser on Nov. 5 would be brutal and unpredictable. Extrajudicial detentions and attacks on his perceived enemies if he wins would take us to the razor’s edge of democracy as we know it.

The ideology of gun rights revolves around a single belief: that regulating guns is a slippery slope to tyranny and subjugation, if not genocide, and that any new regulations — from more thorough background checks to tougher laws to stop the trafficking of guns — must be stopped, if not rolled back, lest our freedoms be taken away. For decades, this thinking has fueled anti-government grievances, and its adherents have promoted carrying arms as a legitimate form of protest.

The gun rights movement has hardened on Trump’s watch, and he has benefited from that hardening, despite his own public vacillations over gun regulations as late as 2019. Groups from neo-Nazis to the National Rifle Association (NRA) have radicalized gun owners by spreading myths that demonize gun control. Not unlike the way authoritarians across the world have rewritten history to advance their agenda, pro-gun ideologues and leaders in the U.S. have invented their own gospel of gun rights.

Of course, gun rights are one of the first things destroyed by would-be authoritarians, assuming their predecessors hadn’t done so already. Smyth, however, is the epitome of the term “anti-gun zealot.”

Look at the first quoted paragraph, for a moment. Trump was, in fact, declared the loser just under four years ago. There was no struggle for power despite a large number of people, including Trump, believing the election results were due to widespread voter fraud. If that didn’t happen then, why would anyone believe it would happen now?

As for “extrajudicial detentions and attacks on his perceived enemies,” well, I can’t say Trump won’t. He strikes me as the vengeful sort, to be honest. However, look at the prosecution of not just Donald Trump but those accused of wrongdoing on January 6th. People have been held without bond for months or years before standing trial for crimes that boil down to trespassing. It’s absolutely insane.

What we see in just this small snippet, and even more in the piece as a whole, is someone who is completely and totally unhinged.

Yet Smyth isn’t just now becoming an anti-gun zealot, of course. He’s also been part of an attack against the NRA over Stand Your Ground laws. Shocking, I know.

The reality is that Smyth doesn’t respect your rights. He wants to take them away, all so he can pretend he cares so much for people he likely doesn’t give a damn about, and then shrug when you’re unable to defend yourself because of it. He hates the NRA and other gun rights groups and supporters because we won’t let him get away with it.

And when that happens enough, it seems one’s psyche can break and you write stuff like this.

Unless, of course, he doesn’t believe it, in which case he’s even worse of a person than I gave him credit for.