And you thought it could never happen here:

National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.

Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.”

Read the rest here.

And remember, these extremist fringe TEA Party wackobird Hobbits — whom many on the left now identify as perhaps the greatest terrorist threat to the country, and whom many on the “right” consider unhelpful and an embarrassment to the collegial compromise of bipartisan, expansive legislative power brokerage — might just overplay their hands and ruin the country for everyone.

Which, we can’t have that.

So while I deplore the tactics — and will vociferously denounce them — I can kinda sorta understand them, much in the same way I can kinda sorta understand the actions of the IRS, and the GOP establishment’s resistance to using a special prosecutor or really digging into the allegations on a meaningful scale.  Because sure, people need to be free.

But it also helps if they know their place.

(h/t Guido)