Gun Control and Civil Disobedience

[bogie]

The second amendment was not put there for duck hunting, nor was it put there for defense from muggers. The simple fact is that the founders of this country wanted an armed population, able to take up arms when the government oversteps its bounds. We're just one more portion of the system of checks and balances.

Or do you think it just refers to the National Guard?

 

[soccergod04]

National Guard. Yup, just the National Guard. They're clearly a militia completely separate from the State.

(This message has been brought to you by A.S.S - The Association of Sarcastic Shooters, thank you)

 

[sachmo]

Its not just the 2nd amendment we have to worry about. Freedom of speech is is going down the tubes as well. The liberal fascist PC crowd has already put a major damper on free speech in this country. Hillary and the boys do not like the way so called right wing talk radio distorts the facts according to them and is trying silence the Rush Limbaugh's of the world with the fairness in broadcasting act or some such. Basically for every hour you listen to Rush you have to listen to an hour of Randy Rhodes and Air America. We now have so many laws in this country you cannot break wind without looking over your shoulder with more on the way. Free speech is already becoming a thing of the past, how much longer before we are told what books we can read. We are warned by well meaning forum members to be careful what you say BB is listening. Go back and reread Orwell's 1984 to see how far we have come. The EU is a good 10-15 years ahead of us in all this.
It saddens me when we have an upcoming general election and nothing changes We still keep voting for more of the same. Someone like Ron Paul who really has some different ideas such as abolishing many useless Federal agencies starting with the IRS doesn't stand a chance and is laughed out of the arena. The English have a saying " we keep going to the Polls and voting but the government keeps getting in,whats the use?" What does this have to do with our 2nd amendment you might ask? We, all of us who care need to become politically attuned to the process in general and start demanding results from our elected officials on all levels or the country we turn over to our children and grandchildren wont be worth living in and the great sacrifices by Americans in far off places over the years will have been in vain.

 

[BigBadJohn]

Suddenly at an intersection a .50 BMG bullet blows through his helmet and turns his head into pink mist. Now, to find the shooter and confiscate the weapon they have too search through four skyscrapers, roof to ceiling, and check every inhabitant for gunpowder residue. How do you do that?

Call in an airstrike, Sheesh! I have deal on Super Deluxe Tinfoil Hats any takers?

This has gotten waaaay out of control.

 

[sprithitler]

-bigbadjohn,
Call in an airstrike, against 10 000 of your own subjects? I dont think so.

 

[sprithitler]

As far as i understand the US voting systerm each region yields one representative, and (s)he is the one who gets most votes in that region.
This seems to me to be a somewhat flawed system, since this means that if 20% of the people in the districts vote for person A, 39% vote for person B and 41% votes for person C, only 41% of the voters will be represented.
This system leads to the perception that it is no use to vote for anything other than one of the two dominating parties, since no other party has any chance of making it to parlament anyway. This becomes a problem when the two domiating parties gets so alike that you, if we are to continue with orwell analogies, no longer can see the difference between the pigs and the humans. Your choice are repucrats or demoblicans. As some people feel that your vote may be quite as wasted no matter wich of these parties you vote for, they dont vote at all. In my opinion that is the most vasted vote of all. If you cant in good faith vote for any of the big parties, register and vvote anyway, but for one of the small and chanceless parties. You may not be able to get the representative into the senate, but the statistics will show that one more active voter wasnt satisfied with the big parties.

Over here in sweden we have an proportional voting system with a 4% hedge to the parliament. This means that in each district we have a number of seats in the parliament, and they are awarded in proportion to how many votes each party got in that district. The party must get at least 4% of the votes in the country, or at least (if my memory serves) 12% in any one district to reach the parliament. This still means that some people feels that a vote on a small party is wasted siince they wont get into parliament anyway.
Still, the result is that we have 7 parties in our parliament with an eigth partie knocking on the door. Our current cabinet is a coalition of four parties who are not entirely harmonious in their cooperation.
Ideally this system gives slow government with broad agreements, but in practice of course we too have 7 parties of similar flavour. And to make things worse, we have loud voices calling for an american or british type of election system, so as to get more efficient government. Me, i want an as inefficient government as possible, that way i may have a chance to try and talk our representatives out of their worst stupidities.

 

[MiddleAgedKen]

It may be inevitable, but it is still worth delaying.
If you manage to stop the next administration from Pi****g on the constitution, and then manage to stop the next and so on, you will only delay the "inevitable" by a couple of years each time, but that is all it takes. Good men (and women) standing up for whats right, every single time a wrongdoer wants to take their liberty away. This time it is your responisbility, in 20 years, your sons and daughters will stand by your side in the fight, in 50 years your grandchildren will join you in the fight, and in 100 years futher new generations will be waging this same war. We can never reach a lasting victory, but as long as we avoid a lasting defeat, we have won.

+1. The revolution in human nature not being imminent (short of the Second Coming), eternal vigilance is required.

Also +1 to rachen's endorsement of Mike Vanderboegh. He is a patriot and a brilliant essayist--I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to call him the Thomas Paine of this day, if there are enough left who will listen. He'd probably demur at that, but I think it's so.

 

[MarcusWendt]

Delete

 

[MarcusWendt]

I'm truly sickened by some of the pessimistic responses.

The enemy of our freedom exists within this forum, in the RKBA community.

+1000

It's no small wonder we are in the position we are in now with so many of our own displaying these defeatist attitudes and ideas. It won;t work so let's not even try right? Sad indeed

 

[sonyhoppes]

Facts is facts. I'd LOVE to see how well you'd stand up to a military assault on your house. I really would.

 

[bogie]

All the more reason to avoid that sort of thing.

So, talk to friends, and get them to talk to friends. Write/call folks. Organize protests, like the empty holster ones.

Organize a day where EVERY one of your friends who supports CCW on a campus shows up at the president's office, 10 minutes apart, to ask about campus security.

Not all at once. 10 minutes apart. Heh, heh, heh...

 

[RoadkingLarry]

if 20% of the people in the districts vote for person A, 39% vote for person B and 41% votes for person C, only 41% of the voters will be represented.

Flawed logic. While your choice may not have won the vote that person is still your elected representative. If you choose to not communicate with that person because you are miffed your guy didn't win then you are part of the problem.

 

[phoglund]

Just curious Sonyhoppes, if you were still flying in that armed Navy helicopter...would you follow orders to open fire on fellow citizens protesting against the government in the streets of an American city?

Remember the original title of this thread "Gun Control and Civil Disobedience".

 

[sonyhoppes]

Nope, I hung up the SH-60B Seahawk years ago. You don't provide enough information to give a definitive answer. What is the political climate? What is the nature of the civil disobedience? What would be the repercussions for not following orders? Are they armed? Are they using lethal force? If they were firing on me, and I were authorized, I'd return fire just the same as I would in a self-defense scenario today.

 

[antsi]

Facts is facts. I'd LOVE to see how well you'd stand up to a military assault on your house. I really would.

Of course; nobody could. That does not mean that a low-tech insurgency can't be effective in the end. It just means that on those occasions when the modern military opponent does land a blow that connects, a bunch of insurgents will die. Whenever it's force against force, the insurgents will lose.

That's how revolutions go. The low tech side is going to take a lot more casualties. Most of their troops' MOS is "martyr." Accepting this fact, tweaking it for propaganda, and making a cult of martyrdom, are some of the basic tactics of asymmetric warfare.

As for the guy who said that the Vietnamese didn't win because we pulled out, he's missing the point of warfare. Sometimes it is about fighting to the point where your enemy is unable to continue fighting, like Nazi Germany. Much more often, it is about fighting to the point where your enemy is unwilling to continue fighting, like Vietnam. This is what the Iraqi insurgents are fighting for now. They know they can't militarily defeat the US on the battlefield, so they're not trying to. They're trying to defeat our willingness to fight. If they can dispirit us as a country to the point where we leave, they are still getting what they wanted. In terms of their agenda, it's still a win.

 

[phoglund]

Thanks Sonyhoppes, you answered my question.

 

[sonyhoppes]

No, I didn't. Not definitively. As I said before, it depends on the situation. I wouldn't want to fire on my countrymen any more than you do, but if they're firing at me? Then it's a self-defense issue. Doesn't matter who's doing the shooting. Also, if the ROE states that I would be faced with a firing squad, hanging, etc for committing treason or whatever by not following orders, I would fire to prevent my own assured death. Again, it's another self-defense issue.

 

[antsi]

if the ROE states that I would be faced with a firing squad, hanging, etc for committing treason or whatever by not following orders

Be careful. This is the same "Nurenburg Defense" used by the you-know-whos. "I was following orders, and disobeying them would have resulted in punishment to me and my family."

 

[sonyhoppes]

Well, thankfully, I'll never have to cross that bridge as I am no longer in any component of the military.

 

[doc2rn]

Sony you would be correct in not following an unlawful order. Every Tribunal I went to someone got the axe for acting, never vice versa. Firing on non-combatants will get you a quick tribunal and a lengthy term in Leavenworth.

 

[bogie]

Campers, there is a bit of a difference between "civil disobedience" and "downright warfare."

If you're able to organize a "walk in, and sit down in the college president's office and make them have to carry you out" sort of thing, that's civil disobedience. Hopefully it'll make the papers, because hopefully you will have enough people participating that the cops get tired of carrying you. Problem is that "gun people" have a phobia about getting arrested, and gun people have a phobia about getting organized. Hell, you can't even have a competition or a bleepin' gun show without someone getting bent out of shape over some of the rules.

If you have to blow up the office, that's warfare.

 

[bogie]

Hey, Doc... Just noticed... You're in Kansas... I didn't know they had internet in there... (grin)

 

[bluestarlizzard]

bogie, the definition of civil disobiandance was much needed. thank you.
folks were talking gandi and MLK jr. type protest. not ww3. jeez.

 

[sonyhoppes]

But what about when the crazy laws finally DO get passed? History shows that they will. Are we going to play sheep like the UK and line up to turn in our guns?

Maybe not WWIII, bluestarlizzard, but this is from the original posts and eludes to other options than to take the sheeple route. SHTF and armed resistance naturally comes to mind.

 

[KBintheSLC]

What is it that's so hard for you to understand that these are not ancient revolutionary times? Back then the disparity of force wasn't as great. Go back and read my posts about how we're supposed to fight modern mechanized infantry, armed aircraft, armored vehicles, etc. How many grenades, rocket launchers, select fire weapons, etc do you own? Back "in the day", as you're referring to, both sides had similar weapons. Muskets, flintlocks, cannons, ships, bayonets, cavalry and not much else... Go back and read post #7.

It is all relative. The underdog/insurgency is always out-gunned, out-funded, out-manned, etc... However, they have one thing that the big modern invading military is lacking... raw determination. That is after all what wins wars.

I believe that if the war ever came to the streets of America, the government fighting force (police, military, nat guard) would be scared senseless to show their faces on the streets. They are already struggling with 25 million, poorly trained, poorly armed Iraqis. How will they deal with 300 million pissed off, well armed, well practiced Americans?.. on our own streets nonetheless. Hell, there are neighborhoods in LA and NY where cops won't even go because they fear for their lives. What will they do when every neighborhood from coast to coast is like that???

I guess they could nuke us all... but they would just be nuking themselves. And lets not mention all of the countries that would lend a hand to such an insurgency... Iran, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. Considering how many enemies the US government has these days who knows, such an insurgency may very well have tanks, planes, rockets, and nukes, of their own.