Republicans: Americans have the right to own nukes

Last week MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow facetiously said that if the real purpose of the second amendment is to allow U.S. citizens the ability to overthrow the U.S. government, as some lawmakers have suggested, then every citizen should have the right to own nuclear weapons. Today in Washington a group of congressional Republicans agreed, crafting a bill that would do just that.

Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) introduced a bill that would give American citizens the right to buy and/or develop their own nuclear weapons.

“Rachel Maddow was right,” said Broun. “The Second Amendment is not about my right to hunt, which I love to do. It’s not about my right to protect my family from criminals, which I also love to do. Hell, the other day I shot the mailman. Mistook him for a criminal. But that’s not what this is about. This is about Americans’ right to keep and bear arms so that we can overthrow a tyrannical government of the United States. That’s what the founding fathers put it in there for. But back then, the government didn’t have much more than some muskets and a few old rusty cannons. Now, Barack Obama, he’s got the army, the navy and the air force at his disposal. And an arsenal of 9,600 fully-armed nuclear weapons. Now I ask you, how in hell are we supposed to fight nukes with a pistol or a deer rifle? Even a bazooka. Ain’t gonna happen. We need nukes! And hell, it’s our right to have ‘em. It’s right there in the 2nd Amendment.
If you and I are to be able to overthrow the U.S. government, like the founding fathers wanted, that means we need to be able to defeat the President in battle. This bill we are introducing will allow American citizens to buy not only anti-tank guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and bombs, but private nuclear weapons. Hell, I’m on my way to Niger as soon as I finish this speech to buy some of that yellowcake uranium they sold to Saddam. Gonna enrich me up some WMD in my garage. And when this bill passes, it will be absolutely 100 percent legal under the Constitution of the United States of America. Let’s see Comrade Obama try to put his hands on my health care now.”

The bill’s cosponsor, Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said, “This bill will also help the economy. Once we make it legal for law-abiding citizens to own nuclear material, uranium shops will open up in every town in America. There’ll be target ranges where average citizens can go and practice their aim, like the government did in the Marshall Islands back in the ‘50s. This means jobs. I mean, somebody’s gotta sell goggles and set up the mannequins in those empty houses, right? We’ll have A-Bomb shows where law abiding citizens can go and buy or trade for nukes, just like there are gun shows now. Personally, I’d like to get my hands on a nuclear submarine. I hear you can pick one up pretty cheap from the Russians.”

Speaking from the parking lot of a Walmart in Plantation, Fla., where his aides wheeled anti-aircraft rounds the size of washing machines out of the store and loaded them onto a trailer, Tea Party Republican Allen West of Florida said:
“I’ve already got an air defense bunker in my backyard and a machine gun nest on my roof. Come and get me, you Socialist sonsabitches!”

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner said he plans to support the bill, and thinks he can get enough votes to pass it.
“The next nuclear arms treaty won’t be between the United States of America and Russia,” said Boehner. “It’ll be between the U.S. government and Joe the Plumber.”

While Boehner agrees that the bill is more about ensuring that citizens have the right to overthrow the U.S. government, he argued that having a personal nuclear stockpile would allow citizens protection against common crimnals, too.
“Imagine an America where every single law-abiding citizen is packing atomic heat,” said Boehner. “You think some lowlife’s gonna try and rob you with a Saturday night special? I don’t think so. You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight and you don’t bring a six shooter to a nuclear war.”

When asked about the possibility of such weapons setting off a nuclear winter that could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, Bachmann scoffed. “It’s a hoax!” she said. “I don’t believe it for a second. That’s just those east-coast lame street scientists trying to scare us again. If you go back and look at the facts, the day after we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the temperature was 86 degrees. That doesn’t sound like a nuclear winter to me. I mean, the liberals need to make up their minds. Is it global warming or nuclear winter? You can’t have it both ways.”

Broun, however, did go so far as to urge caution among his fellow nuke-packers. “We have to use common sense with these weapons,” he said. “For instance, while I plan on having the nuclear briefcase handcuffed to my wrist, my wife will have the launch codes. That way, I won’t be tempted to go to Defcon Four every time someone cuts me off in traffic.”