I like this thought. So, the cue to act is violence from the government against protest of the government. We’ve certainly seen some erosion of the right to protest. The so-called “Freedom Zones”. And while not common in the USA, it certainly isn’t underheard of for the police to crack down violently on protestors (Occupy movement, for example, had some unnecessary use of violence against some of the protestors).
I need to think about this some more. If this is accurate, then what does that mean with respect to the central question of civilian firearm ownership and preservation of other rights and freedoms.
NB that refers to active support; moral support will naturally be much higher. Also NB that non-violent campaigns are statistically twice as likely to succeed as violent uprisings.
I don’t think assassinations can be viewed as a political issue in American history. Most of our political assassinations can be traced back to mental health problems. We’re a country where lone nuts commit assassinations not extremist groups.
There are a few exceptions; Abraham Lincoln and William Seward, James Hinds, William Goebel, Marcus Foster, the attempted assassination of Harry Truman, and the Galleanists. But most American assassins do not belong to any group. We haven’t generally had equivalents of Direct Action, the Black Hand, the Black September, the Red Army Faction, or the People’s Will.
You’re not doing a great job of selling the idea that you’re not obsessed with the idea that guns can’t kill people and thus can’t be used in modern times to affect change, and that we should discuss something else other than that.
If that is what you want to discuss, I would say that it is better to start a thread about scenarios that would allow an armed group to succeed and see if no one can write a single potentiality.
Those exact words? Maybe not. But I saw somebody post just this week that if we didn’t have the Second Amendment, we’d also lose the First Amendment. That seems to be the same position; it’s saying that personally owned forearms are what prevents the government from taking away our other freedoms.
I’ll grant you it’s not the usual argument among pro-gun people. I feel that most pro-gun people give priority to the self-defense against crime argument.
Also that was never ever their plan, ever ; and it’s aggressively silly to talk about it.
The whole Japanese plan was “we’ll get them to fuck off their colonies, and then they’ll just say “oh, well” if we growl hard enough”.
Blind and stupid, sure. But that’s really as far as their most fevered ambitions ever got. Not a single soul in Japan dreamt of an invasion of the US. If anything, they wouldn’t have seen the point.
No, I’m absolutely 100% willing to concede that given a certain critical number (I don’t know what that it is, and it isn’t important. It is greater than 1 and less than 300,000,000) that a group of true American patriots can win the day against the USA military and police forces! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
I am saying that they won’t act, because they haven’t acted. The freedoms cherished by Americans are under attack right now and have been for at least 20ish years. So, where are they?
Furthermore, even if there were some critical level of erosion of rights that might spur some to action then how do you get such a violent uprising to start in the first place. Every individual clearly has their own level of enough is enough (and the absence of revolutionaries suggest that we’ve not reached that level). So, it is far more likely that if things continue to get worse, you might see individuals acting out. As with what happened in Moncton, NB. Thinking that they’re going to spark the revolt. Only to be arrested or gunned down. They will be branded a conspiracy theorist lone wolf or a terrorist. The government is already very capable of stopping a small group of terrorists. So in some sense, the gun owners have already missed their cue to strike. If this is accurate, then civilian firearm ownership didn’t do anything to prevent the erosion of rights past the point of no return. Freedom has already been traded for security, and civilian gun owners didn’t even flinch.
Like, I recognize that Part II is very speculative. I mainly find it odd that despite the attack on America’s freedoms, the civilian gun owners are inactive. Certainly, there must be a couple of hundred patriots who think the government has gone too far right? Where are they? Why haven’t they banded together and attacked?
Overall, there doesn’t seem to be any compelling evidence that civilian gun owners would rise up. There’s no compelling evidence that there would be a critical point at which they would collectively rise up in large numbers (and small groups and individuals will fail). Thus, civilian gun ownership doesn’t prevent the erosion of other rights and freedoms.
Although I’m still thinking about if there were government violence against protestors… it is an interesting thought.
As has been said, the majority of guns are owned by people who don’t cherish those freedoms. At all.
About the only threat-to-freedom I think has a credible chance of getting the majority of gun owners to revolt would be a threat to the freedom to own guns themselves. Suggestions that that freedom might be a threatened have been an effective marketing ploy for the sale of the supposed rebellion instruments.
Of course, the type of rebellion this would instigate would be wholly ineffective at toppling the government - the outraged gun owners would be dispersed and disorganized. And, lacking supply lines, having fifty tons of gun and ammunition in your barn is only useful if you want to mount a very violent defense of that barn.
If there is an armed insurrection by gun owners, ideologically it’ll be the same movement as was behind the civil war. An effort to promote white supremacy. I don’t see that group getting huge support from the public in their war efforts. If there is an armed insurrection in the US, it won’t be in defense of freedom, it’ll be to promote white nationalism and christian fascism. People who want to undermine democracy and multiculturalism to create a white ethnostate. Because of that, I’m not sure how much support they’ll have from the public. Probably 10-25%, but even with that a lot of people will be willing to turn them in.
But more importantly, in the civil war the south has generals and other military officers, institutions, military hardware, etc and they still couldn’t win. The southern military was 1 million soldiers strong while the north was 2 million solders strong. The north had a bigger economy, more people and international support.
Also I think if white nationalists tried to overthrow democracy, there would be a heavy pushback from people who believe in democracy and multiculturalism. This idea that non-whites, non-christians, liberals, etc would all just cower in fear while 55 year old white men armed with pistols tried to overthrow democracy isn’t true. A lot of those white nationalists would be beaten to death in the street.
Best case scenario, the insurgents cause enough chaos that the US government gives them a plot of land to live in that is free from federal law if they agree to stop their domestic terrorism.
Sadly that doesn’t seem to be working in Hong Kong. Then again, I don’t know how you measure it.
Is 1/3 of the public rebelling in Hong Kong, or do you combine the population of Hong Kong and China together? If the latter, its barely 1% of the public rebelling.
Also sadly it doesn’t seem to be working in Venezuela either.
Given that you seem to have no respect for your own rule, I am going to give up being bound by it or trying to convince you to hold to it.
But so, yes, I will concede that if one day the military, the FBI, state and city police, and US government all turned on a dime against the people of the United States of America, and the people all lined up on one side of a very large field and the US military lined up on the opposite side, and the government decided that they didn’t mind nuking their own land and killing the people that they hoped to rule over, that the US military would win that battle.
I would suggest to you that this is not the most likely avenue by which things would unfold and that it is bizarre to put forward that sort of scenario.
As just one of several million scenarios, let’s say that General Mattis decides that he will not be part of ending the Constitution. General Esper decides to go along with the President. Esper and Mattis start duking it out with their halves of the military, all around the planet. Here in the US it’s the people of the country versus the combined military might of the Coast Guard.
That’s not what would happen? No? How did you determine that this scenario is less plausible than the one where the US military and the citizens run across a field, into a pitched battle?
The revolution has already occurred. We’re living in the New World Order right now and it’s the best we’ll see in our lifetimes. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
