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Not long ago, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Times expressing the sense of Montanans from all points on the political spectrum that the Second Amendment guarantees our individual right to keep and bear arms.

I’m an optimist at heart, so I thought it was simple: Montanans believe wholeheartedly in our Second Amendment rights. We oppose gun control. Democrat legislators had signed onto the argument that gave rise to the letter, and so had Republican lawmakers. Even the Constitution Party representative signed on. People of all ideological stripes were reaching across partisan lines to get the job done for Montana. How could I say no when everyone else was setting aside political differences to serve the people in a cause we all shared?

Well, OK, not quite everyone, apparently.

It turns out the Montana Human Rights Network, in the person of their research director, Travis McAdam, objected to the letter. Why? Because someone, somewhere on the Internet, had the idea of seceding from the Union.

Not because I had the idea. Not because I wrote about the idea. Not because anyone asked me about the idea.

Because someone in an online posting had the idea.

Well, they read it on the Internet, so it must be true.

With their menacing talk of online extremism, the Montana Human Rights Network makes a lot of allegations. If I weren’t such an optimist, MHRN’s guilty-until-proven-innocent style of accusation would give me fear for the state of political dialogue in this country.

The Democrats and Republicans who supported that argument about the Second Amendment love their right to own guns, and they also love their country. We love it even more because this country protects the right to own guns, and we love it more still because, despite the wild-eyed paranoia of the Montana Human Rights Network, this country encourages people to speak out about protecting our right to own guns. Which is why I will never stop doing so, no matter what falsehoods they throw at me.

The Montana Human Rights Network tries to connect me with people from the far ends of the political spectrum. I’m accused of believing things they believe, just because ... because they read my letter, I guess.

There was a time when advocates for human rights would have abhorred guilt by association. There was a time in America when the freedom-loving forebearers of men like Travis McAdam would have bravely stood up and condemned as “McCarthyism” the idea of blaming a man for the beliefs of others who tried to associate with him.

Maybe that time has passed. But I am, after all, an optimist. I choose instead to believe that this time of smear-tactic politics will soon pass, and with it the silly and harmful mudslinging of the Montana Human Rights Network.

What will never pass? Our right to own guns, our right to speak out, and to write letters to the editor, and to band together n Democrats, Republicans, and more n to do what’s right for the people we serve.

For that, I truly am an optimist.

Brad Johnson is Montana’s secretary of state.

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