Editor’s note: This is an opinion piece by Bradley K. Morrow, a Marine Corps veteran whose interests include security theory, gym culture, online patriotism, and constitutional law.
Since the shooting of Alex Pretti, I’ve been getting lots of questions about the “Come and Take Them” tattoo on my forearm, and I want to make something very clear: that tattoo is about my rights, not my guns. And though my font choice and the Spartan helmet next to it may seem intimidating, “come and take them” is meant in more of a flirty, consensual, “I bet you won’t, you big strong government” kind of way.
Even the ancient Spartans would agree. In fact, the quote “Molon Labe” was famously said by Gerard Butler in the historically accurate documentary 300, which was about fighting to keep immigrants out of your country. Not a rifle in sight.
Have I posted stuff on social media about guns before? Yeah, but that’s unrelated. Is my Instagram profile pic of me open-carrying an AR-15 in a Subway restaurant in 2021? Sure. But I was only doing that to show respect for law enforcement and my fellow citizens. In fact, if instead of turkey subs those sandwich artists had been serving up constitutionally protected dissent, I would’ve fully expected the cops to shoot me, and frankly I’d have understood.
It’s obvious we have too many rights in this country, and I’m not even talking about the dumb ones like allowing women to vote. Just skim the Bill of Rights sometime. Sure, freedom of speech sounds good — and I’m enjoying being able to call people gay retards at work again — but what if someone uses their freedom of speech to say mean things about law enforcement? You’re telling me someone can call ICE officers the Gestapo without being violently arrested?
That doesn’t sound like freedom to me, pal. That sounds like woke.
People aren’t even familiar with what their actual rights are anymore. The Second Amendment literally says you have the right to bear arms unless you are interfering with law enforcement doing their jobs. And by “their jobs” I mean pushing around random women and pepper-spraying them for saying the word ‘fascist.’
ICE officers have an incredibly hard job. All they hear is how no one respects them. Add on top of that, they’re in constant danger arresting the worst of the worst criminals, plus anyone else they feel like at the time. Minneapolis is basically Fallujah right now. Do you know how many ICE officers have been killed? I assume it’s not zero, because that would be awkward for my argument.