Tell Me How This Is Not Terrorism

Of all the things that are Not Good about our present situation, what’s going on in Michigan is right up there with the Not-Goodest. From Bloomberg:

The shutdown was done with little fanfare at the end of Wednesday’s State Senate session. About 4:30 p.m., lawmakers in the Republican-majority chamber simply adjourned until Tuesday rather than call the next previously scheduled meeting for Thursday morning at 10 a.m. The Michigan State Police are closing the buildings due to the coronavirus, said spokesman Lieutenant Brian Oleksyk. For the past week, lawmakers have been debating how to safely enable lawmakers to work and vote in session while the state’s laws allow people to bring firearms into the capitol building. The debate grew more tense in recent days as some lawmakers read about threats to the governor’s life on social media, which were published in the Detroit Metro Times.

People with firearms forced the civil government of the state of Michigan to shut itself down. Tell me in what sense is this not terrorism. Tell me in what sense is this not something we would mock if it happened overseas in another failed state. Tell me these things like I came from outer space.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued an opinion on May 11 saying that the State Capitol Commission -- a body of six lawmakers who oversee the building and its grounds -- could ban firearms. The commission voted to study a ban this week, but took no action. Thursday’s protest, billed as “Judgment Day,” was organized by the right-wing group Michigan United for Liberty, which is protesting the state’s extended stay-at-home order. Whitmer pushed the order to the end of May while giving automakers, their suppliers and other manufacturers the green light to go back to work. On its Facebook page, the group posted a memo asking that protesters remain peaceful.

While it is certainly admirable that the State Capitol Commission is “studying” the possibility of banning weapons of war from the chambers of the state legislature, it is perfectly acceptable for the rest of us to conclude that the whole idea of armed civilians obstructing the processes of government as an acceptable exercise of Second Amendment freedoms is completely insane. I’ve seen protestors hauled out of the Wisconsin legislature for singing, for the love of god. But in Michigan, you can dress in Fallujah cosplay, locked and loaded, until the legislators say fck all this noise and call it a day. Michigan is a failed state within a failed state.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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