To make the “logic” of gun bans a little more obvious, I’d like to use the analogy of cars as more familiar to everyone. Imagine a situation in which some tiny number of vehicles are used for criminal purposes, such as transporting drugs, kidnapping and drive-by shootings. By the logic currently applied to guns, the hypothetical car-banners can try several approaches:
- Ban everyone from using the same kind of cars as used by the majority of criminals. If the most popular “crime car” is a Ford Escort, ban those. Or all compact sedans. As everyone, including criminals, switches to other types, ban the most popular of those.
- Ban the most high-performance vehicles (or those with largest number of seats, greatest cargo capacity or some other useful feature) on the theory that they are most suitable for criminal use and evading police. Next year, ban the next to the most high performing types and so on.
- Prohibit ownership to specific people, defining the “specific” people broadly enough to include everyone besides specifically exempted politicians and their, so called “public”, servants.
Neither of these approaches is reasonable but anti-gun people push for them anyway. They are ok with victimizing the blameless. That tells us that their real goal isn’t disarming the criminals but disarming everyone they view as potential political opposition.
Some segments of gun control are aimed at producing a local electoral majority, the prime example being the Colorado bills that would cause enough pro-gun people to move out of the state to ensure a long-term Democrat majority. Others are aimed at disarming the “most probably enemy” population groups, and both political parties are guilty of that to some extent, though Democratic party does it far more.
Years ago I was arguing online with a gun banner and made a car analogy: who needs a 300+ horsepower Porsche to commute to work when a Honda Civic will do the job?
They thought it was a GREAT idea for more government intervention.
I have been accused over the years of using RKBA as a litmus test. I always respond if they don’t respect that right then they aren’t likely to properly respect any other.
Finally found a quote I was looking for:
“How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.” Dr. Suzanne Gratia-Hupp
http://www.lneilsmith.org/banabook.html and http://www.lneilsmith.org/whyguns.html are two excellent articles on this topic.
“That tells us that their real goal isn’t disarming the criminals but disarming everyone they view as potential political opposition.” — exactly. It dawned on me the other day that this must be true. Consider: the recent anti-gun push has far, FAR more energy behind it than ANY “anti-crime” effort ever. So it can’t possibly be true that it’s an anti-crime effort. And the people running it aren’t interested in the slightest in any discussion of cost and benefits.
So the only possible conclusion is: they want us all to be disarmed victims.
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“And besides, you don’t really need a car. You can depend on goverment to provide public transportaton anywhere you really need to go.”
Am I the only one who noticed that the slung Mauser appears to be a sporter version?
Good picture anyhow.
It’s actually a G43 semi-auto rifle.
“What? But that was WWII! Wasn’t the M-16 the first semiauto rifle?”
No, Grasshopper. That would be the Mannlicher Model of 1885.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Mannlicher
Not sure I buy that theory.
First, are the people campaigning for gun bans the same people who would be doing the oppressing? I’m not sure they are. For instance, I’ve heard nary a peep from the ATF regarding any sort of gun ban, ditto basically every other branch of law enforcement. Sure, I’ve seen some local police chiefs in the Sandy Hook area call for gun bans, but that probably has more to do with their grief and political affiliation than them rubbing their hands behind closed doors and contemplating all the delicious oppressing they’re gonna do. For this theory to hold any water, you have to connect the people who are advocating gun bans with would-be oppressors. Does Brady give money to law enforcement agencies? I’m no expert, but I’d be surprised if they did.
Second, what’s the incentive for these people to want to oppress the American population, or to want for the American population to be oppressed? Americans refusing to pay taxes? Not a whole lot of that going on. Right wingers acting violent and rebellious? Nope, not too much of that. So what, then? In order for there to be a conspiracy to oppress, you need a reason for that oppression. Sure, there’s a low-level left wing sentiment that all right-wingers are uncouth and should just be sent off to labor camps or something somewhere (mostly so they don’t have to interact with them), but that does not a conspiracy make.
I propose an alternative theory: Gun control is one of those well-meaning but completely stupid “social welfare” policies, and, therefore, it is an act of piety for a Democrat to advocate for it. How it got this way is unimportant, just like how eating organic got to be its own act of piety is unimportant. Basically, advocating for gun control is the equivalent of singing a hymn. It’s important, then, for high level progressive politicians to publicly endorse gun control, just as it’s important for the President to say “God bless America” at the end of all his speeches.
Dogma for Democrats/liberals differs across the country, of course, so gun control isn’t in all the hymnals, and, in fact, the national Democratic church has considered dropping it from the official books entirely several times.
Gun control as “act of piety” is probably as far as it goes for many on the Left, especially as it allows them to cloak their cultural antipathy as an act of public good (as they see it). Contempt from the Left I can shrug off — even laugh at, when it’s so transparently ill will wrapping itself in self-righteousness.
On the other hand, there’s a core on the Left that wants to disarm the public because every gun owner is piece of grit in the gears, slowing the glorious advance of the state machine.
I think we do need to worry a lot about those who see gun control as a way to disarm potentially rebellious subjects of the state. The fact that no Liberal can ever tell you what their end goal is should be a big tipoff. Go ahead. Ask the next one you get in a discussion with just what parts of human life are forever outside the reach of government. You’ll never hear a thoughtfully described limit. Instead you’ll get gales of emotion flung back at you.
You see, they envision the proper role of the state is to even out life’s bumps, make things better when they go off the rails, smooth the rough patches especially for the poor. Sounds great — until you start asking practical questions about implementation. That’s where their lack of declared limits puts all of society on a greased slope to tyranny.
While it may not matter much when gun grabbers act out their little psychodramas, we have to keep a close eye on the others who have vary bad intentions indeed. The biggest hurdle in the public seeing this for what it is, is that the villains inconveniently don’t wear feldgrau.
The part I don’t buy about this is that right-wingers have proven docile since the 19th century, by and large. The left has been in more or less complete control since at least 1933 (and I’d certainly argue before them), and the right’s not giving them any real trouble, so why expend all this effort to remove a group that’s not a problem for their agenda?
One possible reason: drastic escalation of control. Precedent: Germany of 1870-1932 had some gun control, largely centered on caliber and barrel length limitations. After 1933, they switched to controlling eligibility more than gun types, and really cracked down on the “undesirables and enemies of the state” having arms…and those people eventually went up smokestacks.
The anti-gun faithful might not be thinking that far ahead, but their political backers are.
Yes, but the German gov’t in 1933 was new and had to establish their power base. The USG is old, and unthreatened.
The hard left is relatively new, at least the Ayers/Dorn bombing professor type, and their entry into national leadership is still wet. They have much to fear from Americans who are not completely domesticated, who have “seen the elephant” and will resist effectively. These combat vet’s will rapidly train those around them to be good-enough and highly motivated to stay alive and free.
The hard left thinks in terms of decades and centuries, not 2/4 year cycles.
First, are the people campaigning for gun bans the same people who would be doing the oppressing?
Well, a couple of them are the same ones who want to mandate that you pay for everyone’s comprehensive universal health insurance, and therefore want to prohibit you from buying 32 oz soft drinks.
I’ve heard nary a peep from the ATF regarding any sort of gun ban, ditto basically every other branch of law enforcement.
The USAG is the chief law enforcement officer of the US, and oversees the Justice Department, including BATFE. When questioned about weapons regulations during a news conference to announce the arrest of Mexican drug cartel members, Eric Holder stated that the Obama administration would seek to re-institute the expired Assault Weapons Ban, which he strongly supports. That was February 26, 2009, less than a month after he was confirmed by the Senate (February 6) and before he was installed (March 27). He’s been talking about it pretty much ever since then.
Larry, to be perfectly clear, I am not asking about whether they’re the same people who are going to be writing mounds of dogmatic regulations (of course they are), I am asking if they’re the same people who will be kicking down your door to enforce them (of course they’re not), or even a few tiers above that. What we have, really, is a series of preachers in various bureaucratic/administrative positions in the USG, none of whom have much power at all, and none of whom would be responsible for or benefit from the oppression that they write into speeches, proposals, or laws. Why, then, do they do it? Because their faith tells them to.
What’s important about this model is that it doesn’t propose some conspiracy that’s difficult to justify.
Answer below, where the computer thought it belonged.
When they start kicking in doors, or even appearing in mass at doors to collect the guns by force, that’s when it’s time for the people to take the battle to the leaders who give the orders to do that.
They need to know that they are not immune and that there will be blowback.
The problem with the “well meaning liberal foolishness” theory is the level of vehemence involved. This thing is being pushed much harder than conventional liberal foolishness. It seems to be pushed even harder than Obamacare — which was and is a big step in converting the USA into another euro-style socialist country under rigid central control.
“a big step in converting the USA into another euro-style socialist country under rigid central control.”
What, have you never heard of FDR?
Bud, the US isn’t just a euro-style socialist country, it’s the Original Gangsta of euro-style socialist countries.
Yes I have heard of FDR, the proto-Madoff. And I heard Mr. O say that he tries to emulate FDR, which certainly explains why we’re in a second depression right now. And FDR certainly had a vast level of state control. Fortunately, some of that has since been ratcheted back, in spite of Nixon’s attempts to resurrect it.
Note, though, that FDR’s USA wasn’t the first socialist country in the world; arguably, Prussia gets that “honor”. As I recall, social security, public schools, and minimum wages all were invented there — all time honored people control schemes.
(For those who want to dig deeper: find Ludwig von Mises’s “Human Action” — free download at mises.org. Fantastic book. Probably the only book written about economics in the past 100 years that isn’t utter nonsense.)
It was a jab, I wasn’t being condescending.
I’m not at all convinced that the office of the President is a seat of real power anymore. I think FDR clearly had power, and I think Nixon tried to have power (and Americans hate a conservative with real power), but besides those two, I don’t think we’ve had a president with real meaningful power in the last 70 years. The bureaucracy is who writes the bills, and who enforces the bills, so you’ve got to ask, why do they want to take your guns? The answer is, I can’t think of why, besides the dogma of their religion.
I would also argue that the first socialist country was founded in 1775, well before the Prussians (I also think characterizing the Prussians as “socialist” is focusing on policy, not cladistics) though perhaps it’s best described as proto-socialist.
your question has a very simple ansswer…”Second, what’s the incentive for these people to want to oppress the American population, or to want for the American population to be oppressed?” POWER! the only reason or incentive for disarming a population is the accendency to complete and total power. that is why when you look back into history every dictator and petty despot has disarmed the people they choose to rule, and everytime it was pushed on them to protect them and there is plenty of that coming from both parties today.
When do ordinary, good people conclude that the reach for control has gone too far to be absorbed, forgiven, or ignored? Will the reach continue to encroach with the thousand small cuts from myriad directions, rules and bureaucracies and never stomp and trumpet an affront to decency and civility that enrages outright – more than to date? When does the iron blood of courage course and cut through timidity and apathy and self-aggrandizing comfort-seeking and the Minutemen muster spontaneously? The breath is drawn and lips ten thousand fold form an embouchure to resound!
I pray the Left backs down.
Unfortunately it is not likely that prayer will cure the left from its drive to power. What may help, given that we still have elections, is to practice zero tolerance: never again vote for any politician of any party who votes for any form of gun control, no matter what the excuse, no matter what good things that politician may have done in the meantime. If you try to take my guns, that trumps everything else, you’re out, no forgiveness, no excuses.
We have *way* too many gun owners who are willing to forgive gun control. We need to teach them why they should stop doing that.
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I believe you’re familiar with author Michael Z Williamson? Have you seen his article, “WE NEED TO REGULATE CARS THE WAY WE REGULATE GUNS” ?
It’s excellent in its analogous detail, even as it is horrifying.
Because their faith tells them to.
I’ll buy that. They know the One True Right Way To Live A Life, and they want to “help” me live mine that way. I suppose when they cooperate to implement that goal it’s not quite a “conspiracy.”
FWIW I doubt they’ll send BATFE to kick down doors. They aren’t quite that stupid. They’ll grandfather existing guns and let attrition implement their utopia.
Unfortunately (for them) “grandfather” is a loaded word for me. I am one. I’m not going to end up explaining to my grandkids that, yes, the government permits me to have a right to keep and bear arms, but since I didn’t fight they will have to ride in the back of the bus.
I guess my bigger point in all this is that the talk of a liberal conspiracy to take our guns isn’t helpful, nor are comparisons to the Nazis, if your goal is the preservation and extension of legal privilege to own, carry, and use firearms. Spooking your allies and alienating your adversaries in this case just backs you into the same corner you were in from about 1968-1989.
What’s helpful is fighting the dogma. The best among gun owners for this task are those who live in liberal areas, because they can evangelize to liberals by taking them to the range and familiarizing them with guns. In local parishes, if a critical mass is reached, then the dogma will change. If enough parishes convert to this idea that lax gun law is good dogma, you’ll have either a reformation or a schism, either of which is good for you.
“What’s helpful is fighting the dogma. The best among gun owners for this task are those who live in liberal areas, because they can evangelize to liberals by taking them to the range and familiarizing them with guns. ”
And while they’re there, be sure to have somebody surreptitiously taking pictures of them, with the guns in their hands. Later, during confiscation raids, the conversation would go something like this:
“Do you think they’re going to believe you when you tell them that’s not your gun? That you only borrowed it for the day? That you have never gone shooting before or since that day? That you don’t have any? Do you think they won’t tear your house apart, right after they’re done with mine?”
(There’s a few things wrong with this scenario, but I’m fighting the flu. Feel free to tear it apart.)
Damnit there IS a liberal conspiracy to take our guns, and they ARE just like the NAZIs! Stop being a apologist for tyrants!
To quote a few of their heroes, with explanatory comments in ( ):
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” – Mao
(They revere Mao and the way he ruthlessly grabbed power in China. The fact that he murdered about 100 million Chinese to do it is, to them, a “FEATURE,” not a “bug.”)
“If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves. … The only real power comes out of a long rifle. … Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. … We don’t let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns? … The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” — Joseph Stalin
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.” — Adolf Hitler
(These psychopathic sociopaths in our government – and THEY ARE PRECISELY THAT, never make the mistake of doubting it – believe that they are anointed to be our rulers and that we are the equivalent of Hitler’s “subject races.” And we know what they did to “them.”)
Don’t tell me, “It can’t happen here in America.” To borrow a quote from Mike Vanderboegh,
“Anyone who tells you that ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no ‘house rule’ that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos.”
Hitler disarmed the Jews and others, then murdered millions
Stalin disarmed the Russians, them murdered millions
Mao disarmed the Chinese peasants, then murdered nearly 100 million.
The Turks disarmed the Armenians, then murdered 1.5-2 million.
Pol Pot disarmed the Cambodians and murdered millions.
Rwanda disarmed its ethnic groups, then murdered millions.
The list goes on … about 262 MILLION people murdered BY THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS in the 20th century – AFTER they allowed those governments to disarm them. See: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
They ALL thought “It can’t happen here” – until they were disarmed and it started, then it was too late. Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t EVER let your government disarm you.
The Founders knew that government, if not constrained at every step, will continue to accumulate power and control until it becomes tyranny. That’s why they feared standing armies and insisted that the “right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
“A tyrannical rule cannot in any reasonable construction be accounted lawful, and therefore the disturbance of such a government cannot be esteemed seditious, much less traitorous.” – Thomas Aquinas
When Injustice becomes Law, Resistance becomes Duty – Thomas Jefferson
Take the pledge:
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2012/12/19/my-personal-pledge-of-resistance-against-any-attemp-to-disarm-us-by-means-of-an-assault-weapons-ban/
DHS and other alphabet agencies have recently purchased over 1.8 BILLION rounds of hollow point ammo – enough to shoot every man, woman, and child in the country 5 times or more – enough for over 20 years of warfare here in the homeland at the intensity of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict – ammo that’s illegal for military use under international law, and have just ordered more and an additional 7,000 FULLY AUTOMATIC “personal defense” weapons. They have also recently purchased almost 3,000 armored fighting vehicles for use on the streets of America, in addition to the many already obtained from DoD. How does anyone with the capability of rational thought escape the conclusion that our government is preparing for a war on its own citizens?
The tyrants are getting ready for the collapse that they’ve deliberately created as an excuse to try to grab total control. It won’t work. The growing push towards resistance is not constrained to the fringes – the first mistake the tyrants in DC make is to assume that.
Practically every militarily significant weapon made in the last 100 years has sold. 4.6 million weapon sales in 30 days and empty ammo shelves is not a panic – it’s battlespace preparation.
The second mistake they make is to try to assert that this trend is about racism because Obama is half-black. That’s a cop-out used to demonize – It’s an easy excuse to ignore another person’s points, and justify doing bad things to them; it’s an attempt to convince people that those who oppose the regime’s policies and actions are evil or deranged.
Their final mistake is to assume that the military and law enforcement agencies will follow orders to disarm their fellow Americans. The military and police are a sub-section of the total population, and will break along the same ideological lines.
Some police and military members will follow orders. Many, probably most, will disobey, desert, and rebel against orders to attack, imprison, or murder their families, neighbors, and fellow patriots to prop up a corrupt and tyrannical regime.
This has been played out time and time again in human history.
Statist politicians should not assume an insurrection will end easily, nor that those they’ve demonized will go quietly into the dark night, nor that they personally will not suffer if it blows up.
Never let your government disarm you and render you defenseless against their excesses.
Actually, what the PTB will do is to deputize the military arm of the Mormon Church. They are known as the ‘Danites’, and when given the orders to do so, they will murder us like they did the Francher Party at Mountain Meadows, 9-11-1859.
(what is it about 9-11 that brings out demonic forces?)
Buck,
I hope you were joking. I must have missed the /sarc tag at the end of your post.
I am a Mormon, living in the heart of Mormon country, Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Dannites”. Really? Really? Those went out (if there were any) with Brigham Young.
As for the Mountain Medows Massacre, there’s still
a lot of confusion on that bit of history, both critical and apologetic. And besides, that’s like trying to say that because I’m white, I should feel guilty for slavery, even though none of my ancestors ever owned slaves. So just because I’m Mormon, I should feel guilty for axlong
axlot
(to continue. . andriod tablets are not long-reply friendly)
So just beacuse I’m Mormon, I should feel guilty because of a long-ago massacre that happened before I or any or any of my family joined?
B Woodman
III-PER
Not to mention the fact that the Mormons had been violently driven from state to state and even were the subject of an official extermination order issued by the governor of Missouri …
I don’t know the circumstances of the incident mentioned, but it seems to me to be well within the plausible that it was an act of self defense that was papered over by the historians of the “mainstream” who hated Mormons because … well, because they were Mormons just as the NAZIs hated the Jews simply because they were Jews. Imagine how the story of the holocaust would have been recorded for history if Hitler and the NAZIs had won … Of course we’d be reading it in German (those of us whose ancestors hadn’t been exterminated …)
What is this “legal privilege” you speak of? Rights are not privileges, and to speak and think of them as such is to lose sight of what this is all about.
As far as a conspiracy, you don’t have to have everyone involved actually know the facts, of the movers and shakers of it, for it to exist. To claim there is no such thing is stretching the bounds of credulity.
We are much better off with the perspective that there are some* people out there with the express intent of herding us into the cattle cars for eventual disposal. Much safer, in the long run. When you KNOW there is an enemy out there who wants you dead, you pay more attention. You can be pro-active, and perhaps change their plans before people start dying in wholesale numbers. Waiting until you see the train, before you decide that maybe they really mean to harm you, is a bit foolish. Many, many, millions of people have died because they waited until they could “see the cattle cars”, or even later, before finally acknowledging reality. For some reason, too many citizens here have the belief that “it can’t happen here”. That sort of thinking guarantees that it CAN.
Our focus should be on making sure that it WON’T.
*I think a lot of people would be surprised at how many of the liberals would be fine with the idea of all conservatives being rounded up and sent off to camps for “re-education”. And if some/most/all never came back, no big deal.
Maybe some of you are not old enough to know where we were, to appreciate where we are, to have a pretty good idea of where we will be.
But then again, most AmeriKans have the attention span of a sun baked worm.
The writing is on the wall. They are even advertising it. Right – in – your – face.
You are right …
With respect to gun grabbers like Obama, Biden, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Cuomo, and the other control freak citizen disarmament/government monopoly on violence tyrants, their problem is our hands — they’e not cold and dead yet. But the Obama regime is working on it.
DHS and other alphabet agencies have recently purchased over 1.8 BILLION rounds of ammo – enough to shoot every man, woman, and child in the country 5 times or more – enough for over 20 years of warfare here in the homeland at the intensity of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict – most of it hollow point ammo that’s illegal for military use under international law, and have just ordered more and an additional 7,000 FULLY AUTOMATIC “personal defense” weapons. They have also recently purchased almost 3,000 armored fighting vehicles for use on the streets of America, in addition to the many already obtained from DoD. How does anyone with the capability of rational thought escape the conclusion that our government is preparing for a war on its own citizens?
They’re just waiting for an opportunity — most likely one of their own manufacture — to play with their new toys. Ever seen the Bruce WIllis movie “The Siege” ??? Their dream world will make that look like a good day in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
A “conspiracy theorist” is someone who notices things without official permission — and a “terrorist” is anybody who challenges the government’s monopoly on violence.
Just remember … When the government has all the ammunition, the government will be the only place to get ammunition. Logistics, logistics, logistics!
“The hard left thinks in terms of decades and centuries, not 2/4 year cycles.”
EXACTLY —–>
The Pledge of Allegiance was even written by a chest beating lefty – circa 1892 (Important Note: “Under God” wasn’t added until 1952). “They” have been massaging America with Nationalism for a long time. National/Global socialism via the destruction of State and Individual rights has been their end game. Ask yourself “why wasn’t the pledge about protecting the Constitution and The Bill of Rights?” ANSWER: Because – Francis Bellamy – a freedom hating self professed socialist with a dream wrote it. For more insight see a book by his cousin, Edward Bellamy, called “Looking Backwards 2000-1887”. And then research the over 165 “Looking Backwards” inspired National Socialist clubs that sprung up all over the US after reading Bellamy’s international best seller. This book was a collectivists dream and specifically one of Hitlers. —
We’ve been in their sights for a LONG LONG Time but we just never knew it.
Mike
Actually, I would be far more certain that the FEDGOV will use racial intimidation to bring out guns. Low level “seizers” can be minimally trained units of the domestic terrorism force that the “O” has been wanting to draw from the street “Militia”. (*) Gang members would serve fanatically. When one black “officer” gets blown away, the TV will go orgasmic about how the former street thug was “turning his life around” and just trying to make the world a safer place” by helping “our President” get control of guns. Whole “specials” will be made on his life and how he just wanted to do good to “the Community”. His prison record will be buried or edited for content. Reprisals against Whites will be ignored.
A few scenes like that on network TV will cause more than a few “patriots” to back down and give them up. Don’t believe it, ask Zimmerman today if he would want to carry a gun again now that his whole family is a target.
(*) Any gang that has a membership of well into the 10’s of thousands like the Bloods or the Crips or La Raza or MS-13 is no longer a gang, but a Militia.