“Demilitarized” Ted Nugent To Attend State Of The Union Address

by Ann Werner

Everyone’s favorite NRA Board member, Ted Nugent, has been invited to be the guest of Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) and will attend the upcoming State of the Union Address. He will be seated in the House gallery.

Talk about getting some bang for your buck. Stockman is the Texas Republican who recently made the news by threatening to introduce articles of impeachment against President Obama if he issued executive orders to strengthen gun control laws. And then there’s Ted, the loud-mouthed, draft dodging pedophile who issued not so thinly veiled threats against the president’s life.

Ted tells us he’ll be on his best behavior.

“I will be there with a deep, abiding respect for the office of the presidency,” he said. “I’m not here to represent any specific cause other than freedom and independence and ‘we the people.”

He stated he will not be packing, as if it were up to him to make the decision.

“I will go in at least 20 pounds lighter than I normally walk,” he said. “I will be going in sans the hardware store on my belt. I live a well-armed life, and I’ve got to demilitarize before I go.”

Rep. Stockman’s office released a statement saying that Ted “speaks for millions of Americans who understand how the Second Amendment protects freedom and stops crime.” The irony of his statement seems to be lost on Mr. Stockman, who, if he took a nanosecond to research gun violence, would find that the USA leads the developed world in gun deaths. To be fair, there are other countries that exceed the number of homicides by gun. According to the U.N. figures, the U.S. had 9,146 homicides by firearm in 2009. That year, Colombia and Venezuela both exceeded the U.S. total, with 12,808 and 11,115 firearm deaths, respectively. Three other nations topped the U.S. amount in the most recent year for which data is available: Brazil (34,678 in 2008), Mexico (11,309 in 2010) and Thailand (20,032 in 2000). And that’s just homicides. There are plenty of statistics out there regarding accidental shootings, suicides and intentional shootings that resulted in injury rather than death. The numbers are staggering. But it is safe to say that guns in the hands of civilians are not the crime stoppers Mr. Stockman asserts they are.

Ted won’t be alone in the gallery. He will be sitting among people who have been affected by the gun violence he is so intent on protecting. Taking a cue from Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), about 20 members of Congress have given their tickets to the speech to relatives and friends of people who have died as a result of gun violence. One can only wonder how those people will feel with someone like Ted sitting among them.

A spokesman for the Capitol Police said Ted won’t be turned away. “It is at the member of Congress or senator’s discretion who receives a ticket from their respective office,” said the spokesman, Shennell Antrobus. “Invited ticketholders with proper photo identification will be allowed into the event.”

Will Ted be as good as his word and listen respectfully to the president he has threatened? Will the other guests in the gallery put up with having Ted Nugent in their midst without comment? Stay tuned.

Ann Werner is a blogger and the author of CRAZY and Dreams and Nightmares. You can view her work at ARK Stories

Visit her on Twitter @MsWerner and Facebook