Originally Posted by The_Dunedan

I will say only this:

Having sold a -lot- of those guns and ammo everyone's so worried about, I think I have a pretty good notion of the motives informing this rush to arm.

Nobody is preparing, from what I can see, for a Revolution. Certainly nobody I've seen intends to start a fight.

People are preparing to defend themselves from a threat they perceive, realistically or not, as an assault on their entire culture and way of life. They are preparing to fight to their deaths in defense of their homes, families, and culture. They are drawing lines in the sand. And if even 1% of the gunowning American public decides to resist whatever-it-is through force of arms...this is gonna be one HELLUVA gunfight. These people have been pushed around, demonized, harassed, and browbeaten by the past three Administrations. They are well aware of their tormentors; bankers, industrial Mercantilists, the Military-industrial Complex, etc. They see these interests acting in concert with the current Leftist control of the Legislative and Executive branches (always to their detriment), and they are sick of it. They have mostly given up on such niceties as voting and protest and petition-signing, since nobody pays them any heed anyway (Bailouts, wars, etc come immediately to mind) and are "hunkering down," hoping to avoid notice if possible...and preparing to fight like cornered rats if not.

If Revolution comes, it will because somebody was forced (in his mind) to defend himself/herself, and their friends came a-runnin'. Misguided and misinformed though they may sometimes be, these folks will not -start- a fight. Most are fatalistically aware that they cannot realistically hope to -win- such a fight in concrete, numerical terms. But fight they will, at least some percentage, until they are killed in the doing.

"Progressive" and Leftist cultural imperialists would do well to meditate upon this at length, especially upon the fact that if even 1% of the gunowning public resists, they will have to kill somewhere north of 850,000 people. They will have to kill men, women, and babes in arms. They will have to be willing to join the ranks of Pol Pot and Idi Amin. And that's not counting any of their perceived aggressors whom the insurgents manage to take with them.

Leave them alone, and they will leave you alone. Poke them with a stick and, to paraphrase General Giap, they will kill all you send...or die trying.

4,500,000 firearms were sold in the last 3 months of 2008, along with over 1,300,000,000 rounds of ammunition. If nothing else the sheer numbers bear consideration.

As I said; meditation at length.

Edited To Add:

An equally large number of people, many quite inexperienced with firearms, are also arming-up in anticipation of a rise in violent crime during what many worry will be a generational economic depression. Last time around,, they think to themselves, we got John Dillinger and Clyde Barrows and Al Capone. And that was in the '20s and '30s, when 50% of the population still lived on farms and could at least feed themselves...these days it's less than 5%! These days we have the Bloods, Crips, Aryan Nations, National Alliance MS-13, Latin Kings, Folk Nation, not to mention freelance thugs and sneak-thieves, and an almost entirely urban population. Oh HELL. "Hot" home invasions have been on a slow increase nationwide for years, and this disturbing trend combined with the sure prospect of severe recession or depression bringing on a rise in poverty (and therefore crime), has a lot of people very worried.