Telluride

It depends on what you mean by "win".

Will I survive? Maybe not.

But will the gun confiscations continue if even half the gun owners in America take the same course of action? Maybe so.

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

Derwood

Everyone thinks they're fucking Rambo around here

timalkin

..

__________________
Trinity: "What do you need?"

Neo: "Guns. Lots of guns."

-The Matrix

roachboy

what confiscation of guns are you talking about exactly?
does this have something to do with black helicopters?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Derwood

you haven't answered the question of why you haven't taken up arms against the government for all the OTHER freedoms they've taken away

Plan9

...I was kinda pissed when they started putting parental warning labels on gangsta rap CDs. Thought I was gonna have to grief-grip the gat and pop a cap in some cracker mofo with my chrome-like-my-spinners point-five-oh Deagle.
-----Added 7/1/2009 at 08 : 21 : 24-----
And why does it have to be black, huh?

...

Ya know... most military helicopters are black. Even... get this... even the UH60 Blackhawk. Maybe the military is out to get people. Oh snap, THEY DO!

/pointless contribution to constipated thread
-----Added 7/1/2009 at 08 : 32 : 53-----
Holy smokes!

Timalkin, take a second and think about this: You come across like a blithering paranoid jackass to all these illuminated never-seen-a-gun types who assume meat comes from a magical wormhole in the back of the grocery store and that this country was somehow peacefully founded on sunshine, rainbows, and equality. They figure the police will protect them from bad guys and that self-sufficiency means being able to afford a BMW.

I can play devil's advocate with the best of them in the pro-gun circle, but doing the played-out Red Dawn "Wolverines!" war cry in a very clearly anti-gun dominated politics thread is a great way to get pigeon-holed as a nutjob with a lukewarm IQ. Hell, you can still go spend $400 on a shitty Beta-C mag.

That and it makes more... verbally conservative... gun owners look bad. I'd lay down last month's MGIB payment that I own and have used more firearms and firearm-related accessories than most goofballs here at the TFP (outside of those who play with guns for a living) and ya don't see me waving the Turner Diaries and donning my pro-mask. They're a hobby most of the time and let's not forget that. I believe that guns are not a way of life unless you're in the military... or... live in Israel. Part of the responsibility of being a good gun owner is showing the enjoyment they provide as a hobby, how they can be used for good (self defense for women, for example), and that they're inanimate objects that are no more dangerous than ice cream cones or beige Victoria's Secret panties when there isn't a human there to operate them. The "...the Man out to get me!" argument is a total turd and needs to be flushed from the minds of pro-gun people who wish to be accepted by a society that has largely given up on freedom in exchange for a feeling of safety.

Point: Relax.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

KirStang

If the ATF comes and takes your gun. Get a good lawyer, fight it like Heller did. Who knows, you'd probably get your guns back *AND* also win some sort of tort settlement.

Didn't the Federal Courts thrash the New Orleans BATFE for violating the people's 2nd Amedment rights?

timalkin

..

__________________
Trinity: "What do you need?"

Neo: "Guns. Lots of guns."

-The Matrix

shakran

So then you and your friends should go to court to get your guns back, and you should tell those in this thread who are on your side to stop grandstanding about how they're gonna shoot the cops. You guys sound like lunatics when you talk like Rambo. We know you can't back it up against your "enemy."

dc_dux

Only those having experience with guns are qualified to discuss gun policy? WTF!

Are persons who have engaged in political protests the only ones qualified to speak about freedom of assembly?

Are women who had abortions the only ones qualified to speak about the issue of abortion rights

Are reporters the only people quailfied to speak about government restrictions on the press?

Misinformation? It was pointed out early in this thread (post #4) how the NRA engaged in the spreading of misinformation about Obama's past record and position.

Lets not forget that the NRA and other gun rights advocacy groups outspend gun control advocacy groups by more than 20-1 to spread their message and influence legislators.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Telluride

Hypothetical situation:

The government confiscates citizens' guns.

Gun owners go to court. They lose.

What then? Fight back with spit-wads?

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

roachboy

hypothetical situation, early 90s version: the united states in invaded by the united nations who wants to take away your guns and reduce us to slavery. the united nations has been ferrying missles about on flatbed rail cars and shutting troops around on black helicopters. no-one else seems to see them, but we know. it's important to be prepared to defend our militia way of life and resist this united nations tyranny.


this agitation amongst the far right is the same narrative. all that's missing is stuff about zog.


get a grip.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Telluride

The government has confiscated guns in the past. There is no reason to believe that it won't attempt to do so in the future.

When was the last time the UN launched an invasion of the USA?

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

roachboy

i used to listen alot of world wide christian radio, brought to you by viking international (buy gold now because fiat currency is about to collapse) back in the day---there were black helicopter sighting call-in shows and kurt saxon would give militia folk survivalist tips on how to survive the long war against the united nations. other shows would feature exchanges of information about the giant rockets. in the period before the oklahoma city bombing, the militia movement had lots of programming on this silly shortwave outlet--i used to listen because i thought it was funny. they also had anglo-israelite preachers who would deliverd thinly veiled anti-semetic sermons to their cars and dogs in the garage---which was of a piece with the then-fashionable way of referring to the us government as the "zionist occupation government".

this new business is just an update. "zog" has been dropped because, well, it's kinda racist. but otherwise, it's the same line.

you know, turner diaries stuff.

it's just a colorful part of the history of the militia movement.

if you're going to repeat that line, you should know whereof you speak.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Telluride

The government HAS confiscated guns from American citizens. This is fact and has nothing to do with militias, conspiracy theories or Neo-Nazis.

Nice try, though.

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

roachboy

and the united nations has used helicopters.

the point is that this line about guns is a fringe perspective. it doesn't represent the viewpoint of most gun owners, and it fundamentally misstates the politics that enframe the question. but read crompsin's post above---he makes this point better than i can.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

shakran

Well, you're first off assuming that the government can get all of the guns. Good luck with that. They don't have the manpower to do it, especially not all at once, and so when you see them start taking guns away from Maine, you can get the Texans to start shooting.


Second, what will you do? Same thing you would have done with your guns. Be subjugated. To date no one has managed to explain how having a revolver or a deer rifle is going to help them. Tell me, right now, what that's gonna do against a tank. I don't care if you get 20,000 people on your side (good luck with that, too). A few tanks and a small platoon would be enough to stop it. I keep hearing "We need our guns to fight an oppressive government!" but I never hear how the guns are going to stop that government. It makes about as much sense as "I need a 10x10 section of drywall to stop the hurricane."



The next revolution isn't gonna be decided with firepower, because the government has it and we by comparison have cap guns. It's going to be an issue where either the majority of the populace revolts and refuses to do what the government says (because the government can't kill the whole country for disobedience, else there will no longer be a country to govern) or the military will become convinced that the government is broken, effect a military coup, and we'll join the ranks of Argentina.

roachboy

revolutions are political.
guns are commodities.
there's a difference.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

rendered stupid? I believe Dunedan made a very effective argument that caused the thought processes in alot of peoples brain come to a stuttering halt and go backwards for a bit.

Also, HAD a bunch of us gotten together and decided to fire back over "Warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, waterboarding, no-fly lists, unwarranted search and seizures if you're within 2 hours of a border, and "free speech zones", where would you have been? my guess is that you woudn't have been grabbing gun and ammo to join us, particularly since you think it's stupid to attempt to become a 'branch davidian'.
-----Added 8/1/2009 at 02 : 05 : 49-----
and whos fault would THAT be on?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dc_dux

Before taking up arms against the government and resorting to violence and bloodshed that is hardly likely to succeed....

I prefer to acknowledge the efforts of organziations like the ACLU that stand up for the constitutional rights of individuals and fire back w/o a weapon against warrantless wiretaps, extraordinary rendition, water boarding, no fly zones, unwarranted search and seizure, free speech zones, etc.

And urge more Americans to support such non-violent efforts of redress.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

dksuddeth

no doubt. except for the most extremist of people, even us 3%ers would love to avoid any violence over the issues, preferring to be able to get them righted either through new legislatures or the courts. Barring that working though, and submission or violence is the only alternatives, I know which one i'm choosing.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Derwood

People, the government is not going to come take your guns. They just aren't.

But congratulations on falling for the "Culture of Fear" that the right wing has cooked up the past 20 years. I'm sure they're thrilled.

scout

No they won't come get them. They will do exactly what they are doing now by teaching young kids in school guns are bad and continuing this left wing liberal indoctrination throughout college all the while hammering it time and time again with attempts at new laws making them illegal to buy certain ones. They outlaw a few here and there because they are so "scary looking". Soon that list will grow one by one to include them all. It's easier to take the cowardly approach to divide and conquer a God given right to freedom than to take the direct approach and knock on your door and ask you to hand that freedom over. The liberals on here are somewhat right, not every gun owner is going to give their life to protect the Second Amendment but even if a small percentage of gun owners do it will be a bloodbath and the government knows this.The die has already been cast and it may not be in my lifetime but I doubt my great-great grand children get to enjoy a day at the range or an afternoon sitting in the woods, its just a matter of time. The amount of time is the only question left.

__________________
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
Thomas Jefferson

dc_dux

Can you point me to a source that confirms this school "anti-gun agenda"...is it in the lesson plans, the textbooks or just word of mouth?

Or can you point to any recent attempts at new federal laws that stood any chance of passage?

I can point you to the NRA's $40 million misinformation campaign about Obama's position. Its done wonders for their fund raising...a common tactic...scare enough people and they will contribute.

The NRA and GOA outspend the gun control advocacy organizations by more than 20 to 1 in political contributions, lobbying, communications, etc.

-----Added 8/1/2009 at 06 : 37 : 31-----
I can also point you (for the third time - I must be using an invisible font!) to the Firearm Confiscation Prohibition Amendment and Obama's vote with the Republican majority....

To prohibit the confiscation of a firearm during an emergency or major disaster if the possession of such firearm is not prohibited under Federal or State law.
U.S. Senate: Legislation & Records Home > Votes > Roll Call Vote

....and not the 16 Democrats (Boxer, Clinton, Durbin, Feiinstein, Kennedy, Shumer.....) who voted against it.

But some of you guys just wont accept it.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

scout

H.R. 1022 by New York Democrat Carolyn McCarthy and 67 co-sponsors.

__________________
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
Thomas Jefferson

asaris

Wait, so owning a handgun is a God given right? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not kill, and thou shalt own a pistol?

I grew up in Michigan, so I have some familiarity with guns and people who own and use guns, but I cannot understand this gun fetishism. A gun is nice to have. It can protect you and your family from people who want to hurt you. A rifle is good to have for hunting. I can understand all of this, and I've thought about purchasing a gun myself. But the idea that the right to own a gun is the most important right, which is what the rhetoric of the NRA and its supporters suggest, is not something I get.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

timalkin

..

__________________
Trinity: "What do you need?"

Neo: "Guns. Lots of guns."

-The Matrix

filtherton

I think that a lot of people find the 2nd amendment appealing because owning a gun allows them some respite from feeling helpless. It doesn't necessarily make them any less helpless, but it's useful at providing the illusion of power.

dc_dux

Never even got to Committee in the House and no companion bill in the Senate.

I asked for a bill that had a chance of passage. This was DOA right from the start....despite the fact that a renewal of an assualt weapons ban has overwhelming public support and even widepsread support among many gun owners.

I'm still waiting for the school "anti-gun agenda" that is poisoning the minds of America's youth against of gun ownership.
-----Added 8/1/2009 at 11 : 23 : 06-----
The question that begs to be asked is who is really spreading the propaganda?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Plan9

Didn't you hear? Guns... they're magical safety badges!

Much in the way having a cell phone will save you when you're mugged because you can call the cops. Much in the way that we'll always have plenty of food in grocery stores as long as you have a credit card. Much in the way that traveling to work is possible as long as you have a car, gasoline, and insurance.

...

I concur. We're all helpless.

...

Oh, I'd say that would be the media. Remember, according to your local nightly news: AK-47s eat children who stay up late and Glocks will instantly kneecap you if you don't wash behind your ears, cheat on your wife, or forget to pay the mortgage.

As you educated types know, the media is all about scaring us. First it was people with dark skin, then it was people who might be commies... throw in some of those job-stealing south-of-the-border terrorists... include how your minivan will explode and decapitate your toddler... and make sure to capitalize on the tools that moronic humans use to commit crimes.

GUNS: They're like cold steel zombies, but more dangerous. Single-minded sentient murder machines! They'll sodomize your siblings! Film at 11.

Turns out I'm a stereotypical college student right this minute and lemme tell ya... I believe that the anti-gun thing stems from the fear-mongering Mediazilla and rich whitebread yuppie types (such as college kid parents) who equate firearms with manual labor tools like shovels and pitchforks: things their fancy-pants kids should never touch. Perhaps it is because only heathens own guns... and because guns, like manual labor, can kill people.

Then again, my major promotes the use of responsible firearm ownership. I may be biased like everyone else in this thread.

...

Gun control is a lousy way to get at the real cause of crime. Hell, that's kinda like taking the penises away from every kid born in 2003 because one of them still wets the bed.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

roachboy

i think the class war element of this is really interesting, crompsin--thanks for saying that.

this seems to cut to the heart of the matter.
for the gun fetishist set---which is a subset of gun onwers, a small, terrified subset---and this distinction is important to maintain---having a weapon is of a piece with a general sense of petit bourgeois precariousness--it's a way of responding to the sense of tenuousness of one's material existence.

opposed as much to the left--mostly a phantom left---as to the state, which is framed as it's material extension, these folk seem to channel their anxiety into a fantasy of return to a lost state of national purity. if you think about it that way, the militia-specific political worldview--a hodgepodge of libertarianism, strict construction in legal terms, and radical nationalism---fits together---and guns operate as a signifier which helps maintain the possibility of bringing this lost purity back into existence.

the sense of alienation from capitalism filtered through a panic at the idea of the left which is embodied in the state...the absence of a sense of viable political alternatives, including organization of opposition itself...the only way to maintain an imaginary trajectory leading to redress or more is holding onto the gun.

and as political reality changes and the far right finds itself drifting back into the margins, the need to maintain this imaginary alternate possibility becomes more and more hysterical.

this is not new--it happens alot, has happened alot, from the militia movement in the states to poujadisme in france in the 50s to fascism in the 20s and 30s.

to be blunt, i don't particularly oppose guns. this is not an issue that occupies me. but i do oppose fascism. that's what i see militia groups as being--american-style fascists.

think about it---if guns are a condition of possibility for violently opposing the state, and if the state is coded as a material expression of the political left--if people from the militia set were to come to power, it is pretty obvious that people like me would be in serious serious trouble.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Plan9

I concur. Most (tempted to say all, somebody tell me what type of upstanding, educated citizen joins such an organization?) militia-types seem to be fascist-echoing blue collar Nazi wankers. They don't just fear the government, they fear skin pigmentation, social equality (all dem homuhseckuhls gonna burn in hell!) and a world that isn't down on its knees for (white) Jesus. Guns are their security blanket much in the way the dorky goth kids in the late '90s used to wear a lot of spiked jewelry: "I'm a pussy, but I'm a spiked pussy who aspires to look dangerous to others (but mostly just myself - boohoo)."

I get your point. I suppose my follow-up to that would be: I hope there are more decent people with guns at that point than nutjobs.

Fear not. If the militia-types were to come to power... I'd be in a slit trench crumpled up next to your bearded self with my gun taken from my "cold dead hands." Just because I own firearms doesn't mean I'm "in the club" with a bunch of GI Bubbas. I'm more of a threat to the fascists because I own guns (and because I don't believe their bullshit party line). The ideology is the same regardless of who is in "power" at the time: people with guns are dangerous to us and we should stop them, ya know, protect society from 'em. Even the "good" guys do it and it's perfectly understandable: you can't "push" a man with a gun as far as a man without one. Guns are magical talismans of rights... people feel like they have more rights when they have them even though Molotov cocktails and lead pipes are often just as effective (see: Africa vs. any invading force in the 1900s). Gun solutions are for people who missed MacGyver.

...

Much like the class war element, I want to dispel the "good guy" and "bad guy" thing from guns. I can say it a million times but it doesn't seem to come across just right. Guns don't do anything. Heroes and idiots do things. When a hero uses a gun... they make a John Wayne movie about it. When an idiot uses a gun? We get nervous legislation. In both cases: the gun didn't do anything. Silly people use guns are "bad things happened" scapegoats.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

scout

To paint all gun owners as the poor illiterates and militia types is wrong. There's literally millions of "educated" gun owners and the militia types are but a very tiny subset and percentage. Most gun owners just enjoy a day at the range or a day in the woods and mainly just want to be left alone and just want to let it be there is plenty of regulations and hoops to jump through now as it is. I believe Crompsin to be correct in stating the media plays into both sides fears simply for headlines and ratings. RB I don't think you have anything to fear as most gun owners are quite embarrassed by and really don't want anything to do with the skinhead or militia types.

__________________
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
Thomas Jefferson

Plan9

This doesn't help our case. That and most (all) of the stuff posted by Telluride, Timalkin and my homeboy, DK.

Telling someone you have fists and will punch them in the face if they do "X" is a great way to be labeled a douchebag.

...

Yeah... we have guns. That doesn't mean a god damn thing. Stop posturing like a yappy chihuahua.

I'm not afraid of someone who yaks all the time... I'm afraid of the person who says nothing at all.

...

This thread is arma virumque cano and all that.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

dc_dux

To paint schools as having some undefined anti-gun agenda is also wrong and makes your case much less legitimate and reasoned.


Guns as a phallic symbol?.......my gun is bigger than yours?
-----Added 9/1/2009 at 08 : 50 : 46-----
You sound like a responsible gun owner.

I cant say the same for some of your colleagues here who appear to be on a “noble” (disillusioned) crusade, based on fear and propaganda (starting with the OP and "If you go by Obama's voting record, he is as anti-gun as they come...") , to save America from itself by arming the populace.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Plan9

Pfft... your gun might be bigger than mine, but my scrotum holds 75 shots.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

roachboy

scout---i tried to make the distinction clear, but to head off trouble, i'll say it again:

and i'm not exactly concerned by the possibility of these folk actually getting into power---but i oppose the politics behind most militia outfits nonetheless, both in principle and in detail.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

shakran

This thread is moving fast. Sorry this is late.

I fail to see where his argument was effective. It illustrated an impossible situation (untrained people with tiny guns prevailing against the best-trained military in the world with big guns) and then put forward a "we gotta do it in case the government gets oppressive" argument, which might be valid if it weren't for the fact that the government is already oppressive to an Orwellian degree, and no one's shooting.


That's irrelevant since I'm not going around spewing Rambotalk about how I'm gonna shoot the cops.

Are you seriously suggesting the public should have all along been acquiring tanks and RPGs? Where did you think we were going to get the money for it? Or are you suggesting that we shouldn't have given the government the money for weaponry, in which case we'd currently be under Soviet control .. .

Telluride

Regarding militias, my observation has been that there are two types of people who join them:

1) Libertarian types who simply want the government to leave them alone. These are basically the "Founding Father"-ideology militias.

2) Fascist types who like big government...just not the big government advocated by their political foes. This is where you get the Neo-Nazis and that sort.

If fascists came into power, I'd be in the trenches with you and the bearded person you were talking about.

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

dksuddeth

His argument wasn't one of the peoples uprising success, it was one of how many people are you willing to kill. Some people here might be quite comfortable if 800,000 people have to die to promote a totalitarian state of a big government nanny state. Lots of others are not.


What I was specifically referring to was the NFA of 34, then later the GCA of 68, and even later, the post 86 machine gun ban. This applies credibility to the anti argument of 'who needs a machine gun or assault rifle', simply by reciting a discredited theory that the 2nd Amendment applied only to the military, police, and national guard.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."