I am now a terrorist. At least according to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Because I just sent my $45 membership fee to the National Rifle Association (NRA), which the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has officially declared by unanimous vote to be a terrorist organization.
Which means, according to their logic, and given the membership of the NRA (now including, for the first time, yours truly), there are suddenly nearly five million more terrorists living and working among us, most of them presumably heavily armed and bent on death and destruction, as terrorists tend to be. They are probably even more dangerous than other terrorists because they're impersonating so effectively law-abiding citizens going about their daily affairs.
In our wildest, post-9/11 fears, who could have predicted the terrorist threat would have metastasized to that level?
I joined up even though I don't have any guns or intend to acquire any and have the same healthy feelings of revulsion toward terrorists and terrorism as other Americans.
For that matter, I probably don't even agree with many of the NRA's positions when it comes to guns and gun control.
But I'm now a member anyway, and thus, according to the strange folks who govern the city by the bay, no different than the heinous minions of al-Qaida and ISIS.
The resolution passed by the San Fran board also contained a directive to city employees to "take every reasonable step to limit" their business with the NRA and "entities" doing business in any way with the NRA, thereby quickly provoking a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds which the alleged terrorist organization to which I now belong will almost certainly win. Hopefully it will be at steep financial cost to the residents of San Francisco who were so dimwitted as to elect such dimwits to govern them (the courts generally looking askance at efforts by governmental authorities to punish organizations and people because of their political views).
Terrorism has always been difficult to define, although not quite so difficult as the saying "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" suggests. The definition I've come to rely upon in teaching the subject in my classes (which occurs more frequently than it used to, because terrorist attacks do) reads, "A synthesis of war and theater, a dramatization of the most proscribed kind of violence - that which is perpetrated on innocent victims - played before an audience in the hope of creating a mood of fear, for political purposes."
Not perfect, by any means, but generally helpful for distinguishing terrorism from other forms of violence in an age when it has become all too common to call anyone we dislike a terrorist (as San Francisco has the NRA). It also doesn't take bulbs all that much brighter than San Francisco supervisors to realize the NRA doesn't remotely match such a definition, or any other that I've come across.
But then the purpose of the resolution coming out of the woke warriors of San Francisco wasn't to enhance our understanding of what constitutes terrorism, or to strike a blow against mass shootings or guns; rather, it was to engage in symbolic virtue signaling by attacking an easy-to-attack target for the like-minded.
And therein lies the dangers flowing from such declarations - that it will not only blur the distinction between terrorists and non-terrorists in a way that makes more difficult the struggle against the latter but further divide Americans into warring tribes who see their fellow citizens as enemies. When you call people who disagree with you terrorists, you poison the well and abruptly shut down any constructive discourse over what to do about mass shootings (or anything else).
As Jim Geraghty asked, "Can anyone in San Francisco grasp the danger in letting politicians declare by proclamation that those who have committed no crimes but who have differing views are terrorists? Can anyone over there imagine how this mentality could turn out badly for someone they like?"
Government punishing people for having the "wrong" views hmmm what could possibly go wrong with that?
There are not only nearly five million formal NRA members but also their families and friends, and millions of other Americans who might not belong but who own guns or simply, as in my case, recognize the Second Amendment guarantees (a qualified) right to own guns.
When you use the word "terrorist" to describe those tens of millions of fellow citizens, you are effectively saying that, like real terrorists, they have no place among us; actually, no place anywhere. And since killing terrorists has generally (and appropriately) been our national policy since a certain dark day in September 18 years ago, the implications flowing from such a label are as difficult to avoid as they are ominous.
When you label anyone who disagrees with you over a political issue a terrorist, you are inciting violence against millions of your fellow citizens - your neighbors even. You are also demonstrating precisely the kind of blind hatred of others real terrorists demonstrate.
Having now joined the NRA, maybe I'll also pony up for one of their hats and wear it during my next trip to San Francisco.
Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, Arkansas, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.