According to an English folk tale, "Henny Penny" (aka Chicken Licken or Chicken Little) one day while feeding on corn gets hit in the head with an acorn and says, "Goodness gracious me! The sky is falling, I must go and tell the king!"
On her journey to the king, Henny Penny convinces Cocky-locky, Ducky-daddles, Goosey-poosey and Turkey-turkey the sky is falling and disaster is imminent. Eventually, they meet up with Foxy-woxy who convinces them to take a short cut which is a route to his cave where he disposes of everyone except Henny-penny who manages to escape.
In a more modern version of this fairy tale, large objects fall from the sky and destroy the twin towers in the land of "Nod." Henny Penny says "Goodness gracious me - the sky is falling!" and on her way to tell the king she convinces Sassy-senator and Roger-representative the end is near. Eventually, they meet with King Bushy-wushy and he says "I shall protect you from these nasty ole terrorists, but I must be able to listen in on phone conversations and other-wise invade the privacy of others without first obtaining a search warrant and naturally, I should be allowed to arrest and imprison, without charge, certain individuals who are thought to be terrorists; and take them to a foreign land where they may be interrogated and tortured in order to find other evil-doers."
And a terrible hysteria prevailed in the land such that Henny Penny, Sassy-senator and Roger-representative hastened to agree to Bushy-wushy's demands and so it was that the sacred laws of the land: the fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth Amendments were torn asunder.
Lo-and-behold, it came to pass some horrible assassin armed with weapons of unspeakable power trespassed into a school filled with children and proceeded to lay waste to all around him and once again Henny Penny says "goodness gracious me, the sky is falling! I must go and tell the king!"
Fear, panic and anger spread across the land. King Bama-lama, Sassy-senators and Roger-representatives proudly proclaimed efforts to outlaw and restrict ownership of designated types of guns. "Surely," they declared, "the Second Amendment (the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed) cannot possible include assault type weapons and ammunition clips of ten or more bullets!"
Most people are aware "Henny Penny" is a cautionary tale concerning a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. And others may argue a mere acorn to the head does not compare to the nightmare of the twin towers nor the massacre of innocent children.
Accordingly, it is not unreasonable to ask: "Can there be a disaster so big and a fear so great that would justify the chipping away of the very foundation of American democracy? "