Revisiting John R. Lott, Jr., Hick Fascism, and Newtown Conspiracy Theory

While the NRA still appears to be in lockdown in the wake of the Newtown horror, John R. Lott has been making the rounds of talk shows, bravely arguing against gun laws (here he is on CNN, with Soledad O'Brien).Media Matters has a better fact sheet on Lott's many failings (his conclusions are based on surveys, not police records; some of the surveys appear to have not been conducted at all; his most enthusiastic reviewer turns out to be a person of his own invention) than I could ever put together--you can see it here. I posted about him in the wake of the Giffords shooting almost two years ago; you can see my earlier post here.A long piece by Mark Ames, From 'Operation Wetback' to Newtown: Tracing the Hick Fascism of the NRA is a must-read for the light it shines on the NRA's roots in American fascism. I didn't write about Harlon Carter and the Minute Men's Merwin K. Hart in The New Hate, but I easily could have. Here's a quick taste:

Robert Jackson — the Nuremberg Trials prosecutor and Supreme Court Justice — singled out Merwin K. Hart as one of America’s most dangerous fascists on the eve of World War Two. After the war, Hart became a leading Holocaust denier. He also helped engineer Joe McCarthy’s election victory, and helped spearhead relentless attacks on "collectivism" (in which act together in politics and the workplace, rather than "individually" which is how the bosses prefer it), and against democracy, which Hart claimed was an alien Communist idea subverting American liberty. He proposed "that every person who accepted any form of government help should be denied the right to vote." He also called for impeaching the entire Supreme Court, accusing the justices of being "dedicated to socialism."In place of democracy and "collectivism" and community activism, Merwin K. Hart promoted "individualism" and fear.And that naturally led Merwin K Hart into promoting the sort of fanatical gun-politics that shocked the public in his time, but today is accepted as part of the mainstream discourse, as if NRA gun-fanaticism was always in the air, rather than a political project with political ends in mind.In a 1948 newsletter to his followers later read aloud to shocked House committee members, Hart made a "concrete suggestion" to his members, calling on the head of every American home to "possess himself of one or more guns, making sure they are in good condition, that he and other members of his family know how to use them, and that he has a reasonable supply of ammunition."And just before he died in 1962, Merwin Hart organized fringe gun groups like the Minutemen -- a Southern California gun-cult that claimed to possess hundreds of automatic weapons and had "information" of an impending invasion by Chinese troops massing on the Mexican border. Together, they successfully killed a bill that would require handgun registration. Hart used language too extreme for that era’s NRA: "Any congressman or senator who votes for the Anfoso [gun] bill knowing its real purpose would disqualify himself from ever again expecting to be called an American."

And finally, there's the inevitable conspiracy theory. Here's an article that's gotten a lot of attention. To put it in a nutshell, the fact that Lanza's mother was a survivalist and a gun collector is not ironic at all--rather, it's proof that the government set the whole thing up to discredit survivalists and gun collectors. The fact that Lanza was reported to be mentally disturbed explains how the NWO turned this innocent son of a survivalist into a Manchurian candidate--by mind-controlling him with Prozac.

Here’s the capper: Newtown USA is the perfect town. Everybody is happy there. It’s the best place to live. People are friendly. There is virtually no serious crime. It’s so safe. It’s Christmas season. Decorations have already been hung in the streets. It’s the wonderful holiday in the wonderful community. Everybody likes everybody.What’s the takeaway?If this horrible, horrible thing happened in Newtown, no one is safe in America, anywhere.Who wants to promote that message?The same people who promote the imminent threat of terrorism, in order to wipe out freedom, to install wall to wall surveillance of everything we do and say and write, 24/7, to remove guns from citizens, to increase dependence on government for life and survival.

Another "obvious" piece of proof is that the author of The Hunger Games lives in Newtown. Children killing children--get it? Evil conspirators always leave coded clues behind that explain who they are and how they work--otherwise no one would know about them.Talking Points Memo runs down the stories that purport to connect Aurora's Holmes and Lanza via their fathers to the Libor scandal.