‘When do we get to use the guns?’ Good question, says Nampa Republican Rep. Ben Adams

A man at a Charlie Kirk rally in Nampa recently asked when he could begin employing terrorism.

“When do we get to use the guns?” he asked to applause from the far-right audience.

Some people recognized those words for what they are.

Rep. Greg Chaney, R-Caldwell, is someone I disagree with about many matters of state policy. But, especially in the last few years, he has been a clear moral voice for conservatives in matters like these.

Chaney took to social media to denounce what the man said. “This kind of rhetoric has no place in our republic,” he wrote on Twitter. “It should be decried by everyone in public service.”

Chaney was joined in that sentiment by Rep. Linda Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, and Sen. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise.

But Rep. Ben Adams, R-Nampa, expressed another point of view.

“Our Republic probably would not exist without this kind of rhetoric,” he said. “The question is fair, but Charlie Kirk probably isn’t the person to ask.”

This is not the first time Adams has supported the rhetoric of killing. He’s used it himself.

Adams was prominent for two things last session, his first in the Legislature.

The first was advancing a bill, admirable in intent if legally flawed, to require a formal declaration of war from Congress before Idaho National Guard troops would be deployed overseas.

The second was a fiery speech that seemed to come out of left field as the Legislature reconvened, following a recess due to COVID-19 spread in the Capitol. Adams invoked the prospect of war at home.

Citing vaccine passports (illegal in Idaho), dam breaching (a federal affair concerning dams located in Washington), student indoctrination (pure fiction) and corporations being “woke,” he declared: “I am confident that if it takes, as Jefferson said, a watering of the tree of liberty with the blood of every tyrant from sea to shining sea, then so be it.”

The immediate question was: Who are these “tyrants” whose blood he is prepared to spill? Businesses owners that require vaccines? Advocates for salmon? Teachers? CEOs that require diversity training?

These supposed tyrants have one thing in common: None is pursuing their interests with violence or the threat of violence.

So when Adams uses the rhetoric of violence, he is not fighting tyranny. He is calling for the use of tyranny.

These words come at a time when the threat of political violence in the United States is at a high point.

The attempted insurrection on Jan. 6 was one highly visible example. It could have been much worse. It had a huge number of participants, but it was not a well-organized effort.

Smaller but highly organized — and more deadly — efforts have surged in recent years, as well.

According to a Washington Post analysis, 2020 was the worst year in at least a quarter-century for incidents of domestic terrorism. Since 2015, 267 attacks were launched by far-right extremists and white supremacists. Attacks motivated by far-left ideologies have increased as well, but total only 66 incidents.

It is not yet clear whether the shooting at Boise Towne Square will be counted as an incident of political violence. The shooter, Jacob Bergquist, was a far-right gun rights activist who espoused white supremacist views. We will have to wait for the police investigation to finish before we learn definitively whether those views drove him to his shooting spree.

Here’s what’s frightening: Within hours of Bergquist’s shooting, a man was asking when he could start murdering political opponents. And soon after, a member of the Legislature’s far-right wing said that’s a good question to ask, rather than rebuking him.

Voters in Nampa should expect much better from their elected leaders, regardless of their views on policy, particularly at a time like this.