Tennessee Weapons Instructor Eases Up, Sort Of

James Yeager, the furious tactical weapons trainer who yesterday threatened to “start killing people” if gun control advances, today put up a second video in which he said he had “probably allowed my mouth to overrun my logic” — but then immediately added that he did not retract any of his statements.

Yeager, who is CEO of Tactical Response and Tactical Response Gear Inc., said in his second video that he had been “overwhelmed” with sympathetic responses from alumni of his training programs and others. But he wasn’t too nice to them, either.

“People are saying stuff like, ‘Well, it needed to be said but you shouldn’t have said it.’ Well, look around. Who else is going to say it? Who else is going to say it?” Yeager demanded in another enraged rant. “And all you f------ fair-weather Second Amendment people that are telling me I’m doing a f------ disservice by saying that I’m not going to stand for the tyranny, f--- you. Our country wasn’t founded by a bunch of fair-weather p------. Either you’re in or you’re out, and if you’re out, don’t call yourself a f------ Second Amendment advocate.”

He then softened up, ever so slightly. “Now, uh, I don’t condone anybody committing any kind of felonies, up to and including aggravated assaults and murders. Unless it’s necessary. Right now, it’s not necessary.”

Then he boasted again about the response he’d gotten. “You have no idea how quickly I accidentally assembled an army. I assure you, quite a formidable army.”

Yeager is a former police chief of Big Sandy, Tenn., and also was a deputy sheriff in the Benton County, Tenn., Sheriff’s Office. He says he has provided training and weapons to law enforcement and the military for years, since leaving police work and going into the private sector with his Camden, Tenn.-based businesses in 2002.

Yeager ended his latest rant by essentially repeating what he’d first said yesterday, although without the line about killing people. “I don’t really know what to say to do next,” he said. “I have a wait-and-see attitude about the whole thing. But I stand  fast with my message. I have drawn my line in the sand. Not one more inch.”