Guns (Yawn)

[JackRiddler]

Theses submitted for discussion:

1) By the time any new federal laws in the follow-up to Sandy Hook are on the books, it will be laughable to say the federal government is coming to confiscate legally owned firearms. A few machine-gun models, maybe.
1a) Nevertheless, that is what Alex Jones and the NRA will continue to claim.

2) With the exception of the American War for Independence, the circumstances of which will never again be relevant, the group of Americans who own guns legally as individuals are not, have never been, and will never be a first, last, or intermediate bulwark against tyranny by government or other institutions of power in this country.
2a) This is not mainly because they could not win militarily (see 3), although that is also self-evidently true, and the imagined uprising-against-tyranny by Americans-who-own-guns-legally-as-individuals would be a short and poorly supported affair that would be labeled as terrorism and serve to strengthen the tyranny of the real-existing institutions.
2a) Said uprising, which will never happen, is the self-aggrandizing fantasy of a mostly right-wing set whose most widespread ideas of tyranny are that the Mexicans Are Coming, The Blacks Are On the Loose, and (for the more intellectual among them) The Liberals Are Preparing the NWO.

3) The main reason for #2, however, is that the vast majority of Americans who own guns legally as individuals have and will continue to support actual tyranny by government or other institutions of power in this country. In this they are much like the plurality (if not the vast majority) of US citizens, period. In their law-and-order politics and belief in the dominant ideologies of the state, the set of all legal gun-owners on average does not differ that dramatically from the whole.

4) It's predictable that a political hysteria should arise out of the Newtown massacre, and it's predictable that it should be used by politicians for political gain.

5) By master plan or not, said hysteria is mainly serving to distract from issues that are much more difficult and matter infinitely more than whether a minority of the current legal gun-owners might have to give up whatever exotic machine guns they imagine are essential to their self-defense and/or their ability to stop tyranny.

Guns bore me.

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[Sounder]

http://blog.wilsoncombat.com/paul-howe/ ... paul-howe/

History of “Gun-Free Zones”

Our nation’s history is filled with examples of “gun-free” zones failed.

The Aurora Colorado movie massacre and the recent Connecticut shooting are two that come to mind. Also, remember the Fort Hood massacre where an Islamic extremist Major Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 soldiers because our military bases are gun free zones. Combat trained soldiers had to be rescued by a security guard. That is embarrassing.

Evil came to all of these places and everyone was disarmed and not ready to fight back because they were gun free zones.

Think what would happen at a national level if the American people were disarmed. Another evil would come along either from inside our country or outside of it and resulting in our downfall.

How about others in recent history:

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.

Do the math people.

[brainpanhandler]

If you believe as I do that our relatively fragile civilization, food networks, medical care, electricity, clean water, police control, in short everything modern that we rely on to support ourselves, could one day in the not so distant future cease to function well enough to preclude massive civil unrest, dislocation, rioting... then guns become a fairly important survival tool. I don't want guns to storm DC. I want them to hunt and for self defense because I think it's possible that in my lifetime I'll need them for that. If I think that then the second amendment tards your referencing might also think that.

[Sounder]

Yes BPH that is pretty much how I come at it also. But I don't think the 'tards' are as far away from that as you think.


This is for Jack, it tries to address issues similar to what you are bringing up.

As you so ably danced away from my assertion (on another thread), I get to try and make it another way.

Since HSBC got fined 1.9 billion with no personal prosecutions for laundering drug and terrorist money for decades, law has become moot, meaningless.

The drug war-meaningless.

Millions of Americans know this sub-consciously and the many that have their lives upended from vicious drug prosecutions will be sure to help bring it to more common recognition.

Empire fails when belief and then confidence in the legitimacy of authority takes a dive.

I don’t know, but it sounds to me like you are playing a bit of a bear baiting game.

I would advise against it.

[MacCruiskeen]

Jack, not to disagree with anything in your admirably succinct post (which should be a well-remunerated and much-commented-on op-ed in the NYT), but:

The first duty of a government is to protect its own citizens. When a government fails to do that, but instead does the near-opposite -- presiding breezily over their increasing impoverishment, misinforming them routinely, and subjecting them to non-stop hi-tech surveillance -- then it becomes practically inevitable that people will want to [believe they will be able to] defend themselves, or at least go down fighting, when things get even worse.

By no means unrelated:

BBC, 24 January 2013
Joseph Stiglitz attacks US 'inequality'

The richest 1% of Americans now hold 25% of the country's wealth and more needs to be done to boost equality, Nobel Prize winning US economist Joseph Stiglitz has said.

Mr Stiglitz, speaking in Davos, said this was a result of the top 1% seeing their wealth double since 1980

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21183987

The late lamented Joe Bageant wrote well about all this. He called himself a redneck, he knew his rednecks well, he never remotely romanticised them (he often lambasted them very funnily), and yet he knew why they were so pissed-off at liberals, because by god he was pissed-off at liberals too. For he was no liberal, but a socialist.

[JackRiddler]

I meant what I said: Guns bore me.

Meaningful gun control is both impossible and irrelevant. I care little about this secondary issue but it's clear the greater threat of being shot for me or the average citizen comes from the independent gun-toters, not the government-appointed gun-toters (against whom I'd be defenseless if caught, even if I had some pistol or rifle to fumble with as I died, in their minds providing the justification after the fact for their having killed me). If the US government ever geared up for an in-person domestic genocide by shooting people, it's likely the majority of independent gun-toters would be serving as deputies in the struggle against whatever Other group is chosen as the target. Sort of like already happened with the Indians or with antebellum slave uprisings.

But the OP is not an anti-gun post, it is an anti-bullshit post.

The Second Amendment is actually a clear, near-absolute statement that made sense for its time and place and I don't particularly want to fuck with it since that encourages (further) fucking with the rest of our (already thoroughly fucked) constitutional rights. But American gun fetishists suffer from Dirty Harry fabulism and their ignorance and cherrypicked factoid history (as in the supposed examples Sounder foists above) is an appalling distortion of how democides actually happen. As if gun control caused the democides, as if gun ownership would have made a difference in them, as if those peoples would have had guns whether or not ownership was legal, as if they would have necessarily prevailed and survived if they had had guns, or perhaps even suffered worse casualties as a result. These are unknowns.

Let's remember that history is full of equipped armies that nevertheless lose to other armies (sometimes more poorly-equipped ones) for a great many complicated reasons, and that genocides have sometimes followed in the regions or countries of the defeated armies. A central tenet of the gun fetishists' Dirty Harry fabulism is that once armed the good guys win. The real history of the gun says that once a conflict is a war, victory is determined by military factors and happenstance and has little to do with right or wrong or who should win (except insofar as these are often also military factors boosting the appeal, cohesion and morale of one side or another).

I suppose BPH's post makes a reasonable enough case for keeping a store of firearms ready in case of apocalypse. If society breaks down to that extent, the key to survival for those who care to survive will be in personal networks and tight-knit clusters of the like-minded. Guns obviously would be useful and necessary to such bands as they murdered each other for whatever scraps they imagined would represent survival.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Meaningful gun control is both impossible and irrelevant.

Just sales hype.

2012 Gun Salesman of the Year: Barack Obama.

I think he won every year before that, too.

Cerberus plows profits back into DNC coffers.

[JackRiddler]

Meaningful gun control is both impossible and irrelevant.

Just sales hype.

2012 Gun Salesman of the Year: Barack Obama.

I think he won every year before that, too.

Cerberus plows profits back into DNC coffers.

Really, for the admin it's a winner from every angle. I saw this liberal show on cable yesterday asking people on the NYC street if Obama should go first for gun control or immigration reform, and they were all for gun control first, since there is an opportunity in the wake of the tragedy, etc. And half of'em were immigrants. Also now in the background is the "fiscal crisis" - the Republicans helpfully put a three-month delay on it. So they can pretend the only issue that currently matters is whether Toothless McMethhead can keep his machine gun while preparing for the right moment to suddenly roll out the Simpson-Bowles program as a near fait accompli. Two months of the legislative calendar is wasted in a politically productive manner for the two parties as the Republicans water it down or kill the measure despite the noble effort from the bleeding heart of the urban liberals. The respective bases get off, everybody's a winner!

Btw, sorry I heavily revised the above since you quoted it. For coherence and all. Hate to miss a high-value reader.

[JackRiddler]

MacC, shout out. I get it. You're right about that. (Since liberal is routinely conflated with "left" around here when I talk about liberals people often concluded I'm right-wing.)

[Wombaticus Rex]

Meanwhile... http://zenpundit.com/?p=18958

[Belligerent Savant]

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[wintler2]

If guns make/keep you free, why are USians the most imprisoned, most executed (exc. China) and least emancipated (in terms of voting, min.pay & conditions)?

[Iamwhomiam]

I am becoming ill finding attitudes towards guns more important to some than the lost lives of very many young children.

Trying as I've been to keep folks on topic and factual in a blog hosted by a nurse who cared for Reagan after he had been shot, who is all for controlling access to guns, and a NRA board member, who has yet to post anything beside his brief and incomplete bio, I've become nauseated. Honest to god sick to my stomach.

It's really astounding for me to learn how little many pro-gunners actually know about firearms and long guns. That pro gun-control advocates know not as much is unsurprising. And reading the comments from both sides is not in any way comforting. The insanely wild statements some are making demonstrates very well and unfortunately that many adults do not possess the maturity to responsibly own any firearm at all, including BB guns.

If you're interested, a bit of history for your enjoyment:

THE FIREARMS OWNERS' PROTECTION ACT: A HISTORICAL AND LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

By all means, protect teh irresponsible gun owner.

I know I owe some direct responses, and will asap, (later this pm.)

[Sounder]

Guns obviously would be useful and necessary to such bands as they murdered each other for whatever scraps they imagined would represent survival.

Now you are the fabulist Jack.

As I indicated above with;

‘Since HSBC got fined 1.9 billion with no personal prosecutions for laundering drug and terrorist money for decades, law has become moot, meaningless.

The drug war-meaningless’.

Events like these serve to fracture the pillar of power based on belief. The second pillar, money; may come under threat any day. This leaves the third pillar that maintains the monopoly of power, which of course is violence or threat of violence.

The people that you-all so thoughtlessly call ‘tards’ are for the most part good folk who have respect for values of individual self-determination. Certainly their ways chosen for expressing this individualism can be quite misguided, comical sometimes, and quite hateful at other times. They are bred to be dysfunctional, but of course so are the people of the left.

Lefties have a better idea about how other people should live their lives. In our debt money system all these imposed obligations become new free money for bankers. It was no accident that Col. House, Wilsons ‘advisor’ was such a pet of the bankers.

Lefties enable bankers while Righties enable corporations. And the whole lot of you is misguided even if you do have the best of intentions. Ideology poisons the mind.

cherrypicked factoid history (as in the supposed examples Sounder foists above) is an appalling distortion of how democides actually happen.

Do you dispute any particular ‘fact’ involved? No, instead you use cherry picked, foist and appalling distortion as weasel words in an attempt to mitigate any connection between gun control and govt. murder of its own citizens. Are those two things only connected coincidentally? The one had no impact or relevance to the other?

I cannot help but make a connection between the casual disgust expressed toward so called ‘tards’ and the dehumanization required to starve 10 million Ukrainian peasants.

Marxists are bankers whore-boys that wage war on the poor while calling it a war on the rich.

http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/politi ... s-gun-grab

A December 21 article for the Daily Kos is one of the candid admissions against interest by the Left that the real end goal is a total monopoly of gun ownership by the government. Entitled, “How to Ban Guns: A step by step, long term process,” the regular Daily Kos writer “Sporks” says:

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.


Raises hand eagerly. I know other things we can possibly do to both keep our kids safe and a lot happier.

Oh never mind, we have soma for that, and that doesn't cause violence at all.

Anyway usin tards are stupid an all, but we're not that stupid. So in the name of social cohesion en all you might try to stop callin us tards.

[Canadian_watcher]

here's my take:
(as a Canadian, where we have low, but climbing, gun crime)

1. Guns suck ass, however; other people have them, most of whom are bad and shouldn't be trusted with guns.
2. Guns in the hands of the people ARE indeed, a threat to the government.
3. Guns still suck ass, and if I could go back in time and prevent their being invented, I would.
4. The government can and does and will outgun the people. I mean they've got space weapons and directed energy weapons and robot dog things that scare the shit out of every living human, ffs.
5. I've considered getting a gun. A rifle. It might be a good idea.
6. Guns suck ass.