Democratic candidate in local election jokes about killing gun owners.

Democratic candidate for Sheriff of Buncombe County R. Daryl Fisher , North Carolina. The Federalist. 

A Democratic candidate for Sheriff in Boncombe County, North Carolina made a joke about killing gun owners. The Federalist. Daryl Fisher made the joke at a campaign event to laughter and applause. After listing several proposed regulations, including banning all "military style" weapons and magazine limits, Fisher made a reference to the popular "from my cold dead hands" statement. He shrugged and said "ok" suggesting he supports killing gun owners if they don't go along with gun control. The video clip can be seen below. 

Suggests killing people to take their guns... Daryl Fisher candidate for sheriff in Buncombe County... pic.twitter.com/pKyPATLx1h

— The Red Elephants 🐘 (@RealRedElephant) March 24, 2018

My Comment:
This is pretty obviously outrage porn for the outlets covering it, including me, as this is a fairly minor race in a solidly Democratic county. North Carolina as a state is very unlikely to pass any of the draconian laws that Fisher wants and if he were to start killing gun owners he would be removed quickly. And it seems pretty clear that this was a joke, though an offensive and poorly timed one, so there is little chance of him actually doing anything.

Still, this story is disgusting to me. I am not saying that there are things that you shouldn't joke about because he does have a 1st amendment right to say whatever stupid thing he wants. But to joke about killing people over gun laws? That would not ever fly in the other direction. President Trump got eviscerated in the media for saying that "2nd amendment people" could stop Hillary Clinton, without even suggesting violence.

The double standard is pretty obvious and is my main problem with this. This case, along with the inexplicable case of a Democratic Congressman saying that the 2nd amendment should be used to stop Trump, and the lack of outrage in mainstream media for both cases is very telling. Apparently advocating or joking about violence is a mortal sin on the right but excusable on the left. I tend to advocate for tolerance for bad jokes but I also don't mind calling out people when they break their own rules.

 Of course this will likely backfire on the Democrats. Fisher is in a safe Democratic stronghold so he has little to fear but it could have an effect nationally. The problem is that he's pretty much confirming the fears of gun owners everywhere. And that fear is that Democrats want to kill us over gun rights and other things.

 Is that fear justified? In some cases yes. We all remember Antifa, the Black Lives Matter terror attacks and the attack on the congressional baseball game. But I don't know how widespread those views are. The few liberals/Democrats I know in real life don't support violence but I do think there is an undercurrent of people that would love to use force to impose their will on their political enemies. And given how high tensions are right now it's probably a bad idea to inflame them by saying something like this.

I do have to say that the dumbest thing about this is the idea that such a scenario would play out the way the sheriff seems to think it would. Not everyone would resist a gun confiscation scheme but I am pretty sure a shooting war would break out very quickly if local authorities started out and out killing people for owning guns. I'm about 99% sure that it won't happen but the idea that it would be an easy or smart thing to do is just insane and should be something that both sides of the debate should be trying to avoid.