violate the United States Constitution

In an online statement, Stewart Rhodes, founder and president of Oathkeepers, a “patriot” group of current and former military and law enforcement officers pledging not to obey orders which they believe violate the United States Constitution, wrote:

We cannot force ourselves or our protection on people who do not want it. Dwight and Steven Hammond have made it clear, through their attorney, that they just want to turn themselves in and serve out their sentence. And that clear statement of their intent should be the end of the discussion on this. No patriot group or individual has the right or the authority to force an armed stand off on this family, or around them, against their wishes. You cannot help someone who does not want your help, and who are not willing and ready to take a hard stand themselves.”

Stewart Rhodes

Rhodes went on to explain:

We went to Bundy Ranch after the Bundy family directly asked for help in their strong stand, and we went there specifically to prevent them from being “Waco’d” after we saw clear preparation and intent by the Feds to use military trained snipers and Special Forces veteran mercenaries against cowboys and their families.

Likewise, the miners in the Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon, and the miners in Lincoln, Montana asked for our help and we went there after seeing a pattern of behavior by the BLM of intentionally burning occupied cabins, drawing guns on miners, etc. that caused us to be concerned for the miners’ physical safety, along with evidence that BLM agents intended to use force to remove the miners from their claims without due process.

And in Ferguson, Missouri, we asked shop owners and residents if they wanted our protection, and only after they said “yes” did we deploy, rifles in hand, to guard them against deadly arsonists and violent looters. Without their consent, we would have had no right to go onto their rooftops.

And just this year, in Idaho, our Idaho Oath Keepers joined with Idaho Three Percenters and other patriots to stand on the front lawn of a veteran who the VA had decreed “unfit to handle his own affairs” and therefore prohibited from owning firearms. …

All indicators were that the Bundy’s were at risk of being killed in a Ruby Ridge or Waco type incident. And that is why we went (along with many other groups and individuals) after the Bundy family directly asked for help. And because the whole Bundy family, and many of their cowboy friends and neighbors were willing to take a hard stand, with the support of veterans and patriots, they prevailed, the Feds blinked, and backed off.

That was a clear win for Team Liberty, while maintaining the moral high ground in the eyes of the great majority of patriotic Americans – which is exactly why the Feds backed off. They knew they had overstepped, that the “optics” were bad, and they had severely underestimated the resolve and resistance, and could not win without using overwhelming military force, and they knew that if they tried to use that military force – as many leftists were screaming for them to do – the military would split at least in half, and many or most of the current serving trigger pullers in the Marine Corps and Army infantry would have sided with the resistance – joining all of us pissed off veterans – in the resulting civil war.

In the Hammond case, there is no clear and present danger of the family being mass murdered, there is no stand off, and the family has no intent of starting one…We must respect that choice. …

Those who intend to try to force this into some form of modern “Lexington Green” or “Concord Bridge” against the wishes of the Hammonds and their neighbors need to take a hard look at the Founders’ example and their wisdom. The Founders, even after the Boston Massacre, did not immediately take up arms and fight. They gave the Crown and Parliament plenty of rope to hang themselves and show their true face to the colonists, and drive more Americans over to the Patriot cause.

The patriots did not fire on the King’s troops until General Gage ordered his men to march on Lexington and Concord to seize Hancock and Adams, and to confiscate guns, cannon, powder, and food supplies. In other words, the patriot leadership had the discipline and wisdom to maneuver Gage into attempting wholesale gun confiscation. And that was the spark that fully justified armed resistance in they eyes of the greatest number of Americans at the time.

By doing so, they retained the moral high ground, while also engaging the King’s troops out in patriot dominated territory, where they were strong, well organized, and vastly outnumbered the Red Coats, and thus they kicked their ass all the way back to Boston. They poked Gage into vastly overstepping (and “stepping on his dick” as we would say today) and by doing so, they started the Revolution off with a win on all fronts – a military victory, a moral victory, and a morale victory. THAT is how you kick off a fight. … And that is how you start off a Revolution.

All of you who are impatient and itching for a fight, put your thinking caps on, and use your heads. Keep your cool, and don’t worry, the fight will come to you soon enough. Obama, and the other anti-gun idiot politicians, such as the Governor of CT, will not be able to resist the temptation to attempt to violate our right to bear arms by executive decree, such as barring anyone put on no-fly list and other “government watch lists” from owning guns – which would include me…

Clearly, their intent is to eventually put all of you “dangerous” veterans, patriots, and constitutionalists on such watch lists, designate you as someone who is barred from owning guns, and then use that to disarm you, one at a time. And they actually think we will just roll over and let them do that. …

Let Obama and the other hoplophobes [an invented term to describe those who fear guns] step on their dicks, with both feet, with cleats on. And organize local resistance, to help gun owners, like the old vet in Idaho, who are willing to take a hard stand, and put your muscle behind that hard stand, on the critical issue of guns, IN YOUR OWN COMMUNITY (the three most important questions you have to answer are “who’s on your buddy team, who’s on your fire-team, who’s on your squad”).