This is what "You're either with us or you're against us" leads to

Wingnuts at Frei Republik and other sites have been throwing around words like "sedition" and "traitorous" to describe everyone who isn't marching in lockstep with the Bush Administration.

Here's what such black-and-white thinking leads to:

A quarrel between two firearms vendors at a Floyd County flea market on Thursday allegedly led both men -- described as "good friends" -- to draw guns. Douglas Moore, 65, of Martin, who supports the war, shot and killed Harold Wayne Smith, 56, of Manchester, who opposed it, investigators said.

Moore was questioned at the Floyd County Jail, but he was released without being charged after Kentucky State Police said it appears he acted in self-defense.

Evidence in the case will be presented to a Floyd County grand jury, said Commonwealth's Attorney Brent Turner, who said the episode might mark the first death in the United States resulting from a dispute over the war.

Both Smith and Moore maintained gun-trading tables at the Bull Creek Trade Center near Prestonsburg, and witnesses said they began arguing over the war early Thursday morning.

One witness, Sam Hamman of Prestonsburg, told The Floyd County Times that the two men always carried guns and bickered frequently about the quality of guns, knives and the war.

"Harold was talking about the 14 people that were killed in Iraq the other day and Doug said that just as many people were killed on the highways here," Hamman told the paper.

Another witness, Chuck Newsome, said yesterday the Sept. 11 attacks also were included in the argument, which quickly escalated into an altercation and then to a kind of showdown in front of the market's snack stand.

After a scuffle, Newsome said he saw Smith stand beside the snack shed, pull a small pistol out of his pocket, cock the hammer and say, "I'm going to blow your ... brains out."

Witnesses said Moore pulled a .38-caliber pistol from his pocket.

"Doug was just quicker," Harold Hannah of Salyersville said.

So that's what you get when you combine simplistic thinking with easy access to guns. Heartland values indeed.