The Coming Struggle, Why Your Guns Won’t Save You

The Coming Struggle, Why Your Guns Won’t Save You
By David Glenn Cox





First let me say that I have owned guns most of my adult life. I’m not a gun nut or a fanatic with high-powered rifles and semiautomatic handguns, or a bunker under the house. I owned a shotgun for home protection and a pistol for personal protection because I worked in a rough area and had to make cash bank deposits.

I never had to use either gun but felt safer for knowing that I had them just in case of emergency. During my divorce my wife told sheriff’s deputies that she had no knowledge as to where my shotgun was, but quickly handed over my pistol to them. Yes, the police confiscated my firearms without any proven charges against me. Six months after the divorce I was able to go to the police department and reclaim my pistol. My ex was able to keep possession of her pistol the entire length of our divorce, because only men are violent.

The sheriff who returned my pistol was quite affable and friendly throughout the procedure. I guess he had seen his share of the angry having their guns removed by police power through court order without charge or conviction. But the important thing to remember here is that if they are coming to take your guns, they will take them; end of story.

The right, the far right, the NRA, white supremacists, neo-nazis, skin heads, the whole bunch cling to this macho fantasy of freedom-robbing politicians versus the patriotic Minute Men with the Chuck Heston’s quote ringing in their ears. “As we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: From my cold, dead hands!” The simple truth is, if that’s the way you want it, that’s the way they’ll give it to you.

This lunatic mentality believes that somehow the government is afraid of you because you own a pump shotgun and a revolver. Maybe you own a lot of guns and have them buried in a secret location, waiting for the uprising, but no matter how many guns you have they’ll always have more. The police and military are just like you. They like playing army on the weekend, too, and some recalcitrant gun nut just makes for good sport!

Little Powder Springs, where I once made my home, had one main street and used boys from the high school law enforcement club to direct traffic at car club meets and festivals on Marietta Street. But down at the city garage was a black, armored personnel carrier for use by the town's black-stocking-masked SWAT Team. Yes, a town averaging less than one murder a year needed an armored personnel carrier. The possibility of some gun nut holed up in his house with a personal arsenal justified the public expense. They feed on your paranoia and you feed on theirs.

Every time that there is some citizen movement, be it militia groups or border patrol groups, their leaders always end up in jail on charges real or fabricated. The famous cases of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge and the Branch Dividians in Waco prove the Japanese proverb: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Their guns didn’t empower them, they condemned them. Their guns legitimized government murder; there will be no S.A. in the United States, not now, not ever. If you wish to start up a well-armed band of mercenaries you must work inside the government, like Eric Prince of Blackwater, Inc.

These efforts are expensive and there must be a way to defray the large costs and as long as the government knows that you are on their side there will always be plenty of work. All political movements must, first and foremost, have the sympathies of the public. The race riots of the 1960’s changed no minds; it was the dogs and firehoses of Birmingham and bombs in the churches by the white supremacists that changed minds. The police riot in Chicago in 1968 made middle America question what was going on in Vietnam. To see riots in the street outside of the Democratic National Convention with the mayor of Chicago screaming obscenities inside the convention totally undermined the American body politic.

The Kent State massacre in 1970, where National Guardsmen fired into a crowd sixty-seven times in thirteen seconds killing four and wounding nine, changed the mood of the nation. But what if one shot had been returned by the crowd? What if one national guardsman had been so much as grazed? Then any and all government actions become appropriate.

Our economy is shedding over half a million workers a month; for most the unemployment check will not keep their heads above water. Unemployment checks will not be forwarded when they lose their homes to foreclosure. They must reapply, that is, if they still have a verifiable new address. The children must find new schools, that is if, like their parents, they have a verifiable address. The parents must maintain their children’s immunization records and how can parents without income or address do so? Schools will be obligated to turn children away from their doors, mandated by government regulations.

We have lost four million jobs in the first five months by government statistics, which no one believes are accurate. We are on track for another three million home foreclosures this year, and more ominously, retail sales in groceries stores are beginning to fall. This is a clear sign that dark days are upon us. It is a statistic that cannot be spun or manipulated; the American people are running out of money to buy food.

That is why it is important to remember that your gun will not save you; it can only paint a target on your back. Your mere presence, in place of firearms, can change the world far more than a band of armed vigilantes. More than ever before our industries and services depend on “on demand inventory.” A day or two of blocked highways or deliveries will bring the economy to its knees. A few thousand protesters blocking key highways in half a dozen major cities holds more power than an armed division.

That would be a peaceful and non-violent demand for redress of grievances. The government would respond with national guardsman and mass jailings, but to the millions of unemployed out there I ask, what else better do you have to do? As I’ve said before, this isn’t your father’s recession; this is the permanent deindustrialization of America. Your jobs are not coming back unless you make it clear to the powers that be that you are willing to put your body on the line.

Yesterday President Obama again maintained that that the federal government wouldn’t try to micro-manage the new GM. “We won’t try to tell them where or when to open their factories.” Got that? They’re going to China and you and I are going to hell; we can go alone or we can take them with us. But guns? Sell your guns and buy your family food; the food will make you stronger and your guns will make you weaker.

As for me, I gave my pistol away. I have no more need of it; I have no home or property to protect anymore. In the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

“Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you -- you do not even suspect that the day has already dawned outside.”

It's the only part of my financial portfolio that is worth more now than it was in 2007.

:nuke:

That's good for you but who benefits from the amount of ammo and guns being sold and hoarded right now? Who benefits from the frightened people joining NRA and buying guns and ammo to the point that the prices are through the roof and the availability is non existent, ammunition, holy crap you can't even buy .22 ammo at wal mart for christ sake where do these people get their ideas from? I do agree with the idea that having guns in the hands of people who are willing to die for their beliefs and are willing to stand up for what is right but the idea that a bunch of guys with AR's and AKS's and a few thousand rounds of ammo can stand up to the amount of firepower available to a trained army is ridiculous in the extreme. They have been watching Red Dawn to much. You can't hole up in a house and expect to last very long against a howitzer, anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded... The post mentions Randy Weaver, when I asked him why he didn't fight back he said he didn't want the rest of them to die, and he knew that would be the result. Civil disobedience has (in recent times) accomplished more than armed insurrection every time.
Having said all that I am a gun owner, I do have more than one, and if it came down to it I would fight to protect our constitution, but I would not attempt to fight the US Army, can't win and dying for nothing is stupid.

The market tends to correct itself over time.

I do agree with the idea that having guns in the hands of people who are willing to die for their beliefs and are willing to stand up for what is right but the idea that a bunch of guys with AR's and AKS's and a few thousand rounds of ammo can stand up to the amount of firepower available to a trained army is ridiculous in the extreme.

I'm not clear on who you are referring to here. I don't personally know anyone who buys into that delusion.

in particular, just the idea of the hoarding. I truly believe that the NRA along with the firearms and ammunition manufacturing group are the main ones behind this, they are making a fortune in down times by fostering the idea that the government is going to take our guns and we will be capable of stopping that from happening through armed rebellion. I have been and will always be a second amendment champion.BUT the things I am hearing in gun shops and on a few gun sites that I am a member of has gone to some pretty serious extremes in blaming the government for what is happening and I don't believe this is the case. And I do know some who buy into this delusion and they are scary in their beliefs believe me.

"I will veto any restrictive gun control legislation that makes it to my desk."

would just edit the clip to say "I will SIGN any restrictive gun control legislation that makes it to my desk."

And the gun nuts would go even crazier.

:toast:

but I got into a small back and forth on YouTube with someone who DID in fact believe that having guns would help him fight back against the military should the need arise. He added that his friends agree.

It's anonymous and a small sample size, but it's something.

I wish life really was this simple.

and see just how simple life can be!

To make light of the problem with remarks like that, if you have a better answer put it in writing here and allow the rest to comment on it. I am not really sure where the answer lies on this but armed rebellion absolutely has to be a tactic of last resort.

This was not meant as a put down/slam, but a real request for honest discourse on an existing problem, the two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Why would I want to live in your garage when I have perfectly lovely Place of my own...capable of self-sustaining and living off the grid.....................

with GUNS.

Loss of financial status, and the means of earning your way up
the ladder to prosperity cannot be attacked with Guns.

The change taking place in our country has put most in denial, I fear.

Someday all will understand the gravity of this post.

"The real threat to American Freedom cannot be attacked with guns."

Excellent.

to them the answer to every problem is violence, and that's why they hug their guns more tightly in times like these.

Very thoughtful, very poignant...

It has been estimated that we civilians own over 270 million firearms, very sufficiant to handle any police action. What we lack is organization. The shooting public is just a rag-tag bunch of gun owners without cohesion beyond a desire to keep their guns, generally.

And he still managed to deftly weave NRA and skinheads into the same sentence. 2nd Amendment rights are not "lunatic mentality".

owning guns really has nothing to do with the economic situation...............

and hunt to put food on the table.

Seriously, the fisherman across the street tried taking up hunting last year, what with fishing going into the toilet. Mercifully, I think he gave up after one year. I hear a *lot* of gunfire over there, but never did see any dead deer or turkeys...

I was referring to the other situation. Sorry for the confusion.

:toast:

"this isn’t your father’s recession; this is the permanent deindustrialization of America."

Thats what I'm seeing too.
American who Works for a Living have NO voice in our government.
Wall Street Bankers get Bailouts.
(So will the Health Insurance CEOs)
Blue Collar workers get the shaft.

On Edit:
In 2006, my wife and I cashed out, moved to The Woods, and planted a BIG garden.
We have several guns, and shoot regularly.
They are a necessity here to protect home, stock, and pets from varmints and predators.
They are also a means of procuring food if the need arises.
We have no delusions of fighting it out with the government.

I also farm and so far produce about 35% of our own food and I am able to trade for another 30%. I am not self sufficient energy-wise yet, it is my goal.

But I really see most people living in this sort of dream world bubble that is bursting. A gun or guns will not repair it or restore it.

There's no real definition for a "high powered" rifle--the one that I own could well qualify, since it delivers three times the energy of a bullet out of an AR-15. It's a bolt-action Enfield. Any 30-06 hunting rifle would do even better. And semi-auto handguns make up something like 60% of all pistols in the country.

That aside, I think this article is crap. Permanent deindustrialization my ass. It's a fantasy pursued by some people who thing that somehow we'd be better off if we went back to the 1600s. We've been through recessions before.

I owned two, I wasn't saying all gun owners are nuts. I was saying that some gun owners are nuts and align themselves with the cold dead hand remark. My uncle was a collector and owned over 200 pistols but did not acknowledge the cold dead hand remark. He collected pistols like others collect stamps.

As for deindustrialization the world bank estimated in 2005 that the US had exported almost 40% of its industrial base. That was long before the GM and Chrysler bankruptcy and the report warned that in the event of an economic down turn it would be difficult for the United States to recover as countries with low manufacturing levels generate little wealth

Sorry, Mr. Coe. First of all, the right doesn't have an exclusive hold on being crazy with guns. Remember the Black Panthers and the Weathermen? There is a small but significant number of people on DU that talk just like them.

But more important, the real threat to order isn't organized militants. It's unorganized individuals, full of fear or determined to take. Or both.

My sister once asked me for a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook. "They have a recipe for nerve gas and I want to make it." She further explained, "I'm going to bury canisters out on our lawn and have a trigger switch in the house. When the economy crashes and the n*****s come pouring out of the ghetto to kill us white people, they're going to have a surprise."

She also had a semiauto rifle in her son's bedroom, with ammo, and the kid was instructed on what to do to the remaining N-word people if the nerve gas didn't kill them.

She wasn't in a militia. She was a lone homeowner. She wasn't simply racist; she thought her white neighbors would come after their shelter and food when the economy crashed.

It's people like her, the unemployed auto workers when their welfare runs out, the people in California whose welfare is ending NOW, and the many unemployed across the country who will be fighting. And they won't be organized, and only widespread bloodshed on the part of the Federal Government will be able to stop them. Have you ever tried to bayonet an insect?

Over the past 8 years, the first amendment has been repealed (expect for right wingers, who can utter anything they want, including death threats). The 4th amendment has been severely curtailed. So has the 5th. So has the 8th. Our elections are rigged. Corporations have stopped paying taxes. Unions have been obliterated, are close to being illegal. Our economy has been ruined, probably permanently. Millions of people have lost their homes because of crooked bankers. A former vice president is on TV every day confessing to treason and war crimes. His former "boss" has a list of documented lies longer than Lebron James' leg. Political prosecutions have been waged successfully, and without retribution. In fact, the perpetrator still has a 7-figure media job. Liberals have been murdered just because they're liberal (or are associated with a liberal group).

Guns haven't done a fucking thing to prevent this, and they never will, at least as long as the NRA and those under its spell think owning lots and lots of guns means you're "free"

In case you didn't notice, we had this thing called an "election" in 2008, and it kinda sorta changed the political landscape just a teeny little bit.

The right to choose to own guns is not the only component of freedom. But giving up that right to choose wouldn't make us more free; it would make us less so.

Over 80 million people of voting age own guns in this country. 80% are nonhunters, and roughly half swing Dem and independent. We WILL retain that choice, even as we work to restore the freedoms we have lost.

Al Franken is still not a Senator. Don Siegelman is still in custody. Rove, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz are still NOT in custody. The insurance companies are still handing out billion dollar bonuses while 50 million Americans don't have basic health care. 40 Senators are holding 200 million of us hostage. And violence and threats of violence against liberals, Democrats, immigrants, etc. continue to escalate.

I am happy that being a fan of the one amendment that's still in place makes you warm. But don't claim that having an arsenal protects your other constitutional rights. That claim has been disproven beyond doubt.

Countries are like big ships; they turn slowly. But like I said, giving up one more freedom won't help, and we don't know that fear of the citizenry isn't a deterrent to some potential excesses, either.

My father also had a "save" against a much more mundane threat to his life and liberty, when I was a child...a couple of would-be assailants at a river access area in the Croatan National Forest. They saw he was armed, backed off, and left. Deterrence against death squads and other governmental excesses may or may not be significant, but that is only a peripheral reason for gun ownership for most of the 80 million or so Americans who lawfully own them. Most of us own them for more mundane defense purposes, recreational or competitive target shooting, and some own them for hunting.

been hoodwinked by right wing radio and Faux News. They have bought into the liberals and illegal aliens are ruining their country idea. So no number of guns will correct the problems for these people because they don't see their real enemy.

I own a few guns, too. So does my wife. They include several of those "Scary S-Word" guns that he finds so frightful. We choose to keep them, thanks.

comes to your neighborhood, all your guns will be totally useless -- unless you think you can take out those gunship helicopters with your shotgun.

Every male in Iraq had a weapon -- didn't help them at all, either against Saddam or against Bush.

When TSHTF, and I see this happening everywhere at the same time in a panic, is there enough military/mercs/police to keep law and order in every neighborhood, town, city, state in our country? I'm hoping some neighborhoods have planned for this and know better than to go ballistic.

Every male in Iraq had a weapon -- didn't help them at all, either against Saddam or against Bush.

Umm they fought the US to a draw in 3 years. That's pretty impressive.

This is my first post on this forum. I have lurked here for some time, but this latest example of Daveparts' eloquence has finally prompted me to register. Sir, I admire your work, and I look forward to each new product of your pen.

As a longtime gun owner, I must agree with your sentiments. True freedom, that of the spirit, is found within oneself, and political freedom is best achieved by the methods you propose: civil disobedience and defiance of mediocrity. Guns may serve to protect oneself and the safety of one's family, but as a tool to resist tyranny, they may very well be obsolete.

I have seen countless blowhards at gun shows purporting to defy the government, but I believe their pugnaciousness is largely phony and misdirected. Furthermore, I suspect their attitude is rooted in misanthropy and resentment. I remain--so far--a life member of the NRA, but their support of politicians who pay lip service to the second amendment and then vomit contempt on our other rights has made me dubious as to that organization's true commitment to liberty.

chose to believe all the Reader's Digest and right-wing radio propaganda about how unions were the enemy.

I saw it played out in Portland when the grocery workers' union went on strike against Fred Meyer stores in the early 1990s. There was a store about ten blocks away on Hawthorne Avenue, sort of on the boundary between the leftie artsie neighborhood and the working class neighborhood.

The grocery workers' union struck against Fred Meyer when the owners decided that no one would have set schedules anymore. People who had been full time for years were suddenly either full time or part-time from week to week, and that meant losing benefits, not to mention income insecurity.

So the workers went on strike, and of course, Fred Meyer hired scabs at much more than they were paying their regular workers. (Isn't that always the case?)

Most of the residents of the leftie artsie neighborhood boycotted Fred Meyer and brought food and moral support for the picketers. There was a FedEx drop-off station inside the Fred Meyer store, and as I crossed the picket line, I always explained to the picketers that I was just going to drop off a package. This was before the day of Internet attachments, so I often returned translation or editing work by FedEx, and eventually, the picketers got to know me and just waved.

Meanwhile, I'd see people in beat-up old cars and K-Mart clothing blithely ignoring the picket line and even lobbing insults at the picketers. It was no coincidence that the right-wing media were going on and on about how the Fred Meyer workers were spoiled and "wanted the moon" and already had better benefits than most workers, so what did they have to complain about? They were lucky to have a job, etc. etc.

Unions not only worked for better wages and benefits and working conditions; in earlier days, they also EDUCATED workers about the facts of economic life and taught them to be wary of corporate bullshit.

No wonder the right wing and its Democratic Party enablers have consistently adopted an anti-union line.

Excellent words.

This discussion reminds me of that sad, pathetic scene in John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath." The bank's men have come to evict the tenant farmers from the land. The father and his son have shotguns at the ready, but the man with the suit and tie teaches them a lesson: (paraphrased) if you kill me, the bank will just send somebody else in my place. You'll go to jail, and the farm will be taken from you anyway. When the bulldozer comes to knock the farmers' shack over, it's driven by a poor joe like them who just needs a job.

very true

815+ views! great job dave!

Your gun won't ensure that your local radio, TV and news media will not lie to you. Your gun won't keep you from being exploited by your employer or some random multinational corporation. Your gun won't keep them from taking your job or your home or all of your possessions. Your gun won't ensure that your vote is counted.

And by the time the brownshirts are marching down your street it will be too late.

The govt in Washington has no fear of you and your gun - but, you know what? The govts in Paris and Berlin and Rome DO fear their people - and there are very few guns in the hands of the public there.

And if you think the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terrah" stepped on civil liberties, you wouldn't like the communitarians' "War on Guns" either. The pro-gun-ban contingent in Congress is largely the same group of communitarians and authoritarians who support Fourth Amendment violations and the War on Drugs, and there are already people on DU and in Congress wanting to put teeth in Bush's Secret Terrah Watchlists to summarily revoke the gun rights of people who get blacklisted (a proposal that originated with Alberto "No Habeus Corpus" Gonzales himself).

A lot of the Bush excesses would have never happened had the Third Way'ers not thrown away so much political capital in the 1990's through 2004 attempting to outlaw rifle handgrips that stick out. If you want another Bush in the future, keep trying to resurrect the "Dems'll-take-yer-gunz" meme.

Take away the threat of bans and their paranoia loses its rudder. I swear, some of these people care about nothing but their weapons. They are single-issue voters who fail to see that their beloved Republican politicians would toss their other liberties away like used kleenex. Obama would be a hero to the NRA if he was a shooter like TR. If Obama was a regular at a gun range, yet maintained all his other policies, and publicly said something esoteric like "The 7.62 x 39 is only ballistically superior to the .30-30 because of its bullet shape," these guys would wet their pants and vote for him like no tomorrrow.

But then, NRA=GOP.

a position which completely trumped skeet-club photo ops aimed at reassuring the tiny percentage of gun owners who are wingshooters. He completely misunderstood the demographics of gun ownership (the vast majority of gun owners are nonhunters) and apparently wasn't all that familiar with existing Federal firearms law, either.

The NRA is 4 million people out of 80 million gun owners, 40-50 million of whom own handguns, 20 million own "assault weapons", and 12-16 million hunt. The NRA is a relatively small group with a a modest amount of money in the big scheme of things. What hurt Kerry wasn't so much the NRA as Kerry's alienation of Dem, indie, and moderate repub gun owners in general.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/John_Kerry_Gun_Control.htm

The NRA opposed Kerry because he was the Dem candidate for Pres, not just because he favored reasonable gun control measures. An this small, unimportant group (poor little NRA!) spent $10 million to defeat Obama in 2008. They have the most influential lobbying organization in the country.

and convinced him to leave the campaign trail on freaking SUPER TUESDAY to go vote for it, to show everyone just how zealous he was for new gun bans. The Third Way'ers sold it as a win-win; it wasn't, and voting for what would have been the most sweeping gun ban in U.S. history turned out to be a major albatross. As many of us warned it would, but your fellow pro-banners had the party leadership's ear at that time.

The DLC/Third Way hold on the campaign was so strong that Senator Kerry's own campaign website (of which I was a member) said he favored banning the "POSSESSION or transfer" of all guns dubbed "assault weapons." He also promised to fight hard for a "renewed and expanded" ban on so-called assault weapons if elected. He echoed the DLC line that if the tens of millions of people who own those guns wanted to use such firearms, they/we needed to "join the military." And he expressly positioned himself as someone who would fight hard for more restrictions (3rd debate, IIRC).

Yes, Senator Kerry stood up vocally for hunting, and for the ownership of skeet shotguns. Thing is, those things are almost completely irrelevant to the gun issue. He also made it very clear that he wanted 15-round handguns and modern-looking rifles banned, and those things are most assuredly not irrelevant. Problem is, several times as many Americans own the guns he was manipulated into demonizing as own the deer and skeet guns he promised to protect; his advisers were stuck in a 1950's Field and Stream fantasy of gun ownership.

Before the NRA made all this an issue, I warned exactly what would happen and why. But unfortunately, at that time, everyone was still listening to the Third Way zealots who had been saying since 1994 that a pro-bans position was win-win. Finally, after the November '04 loss, a lot of strategists began to reevaluate the pro-bans siren song and decided to ditch it in favor of a neutral-on-guns message in 2006. And guess what, we turned Congress blue that year, didn't we?

We see examples of misunderstanding by Democrats on gun issues every single day on DU. You correctly point out that the NRA is only 4 million members out of 80 million gun owners. There are millions of moderate gun owners-like me.

of dropping the "assault weapon" fraud and new gun bans in general. Pro-gun Dems were able to turn the Senate blue in 2006 because the gun issue was taken off the table, and the same dynamic was at work to a degree in 2008.

And to me, guns are on a par with other civil liberties, and if we lose much of what we have left on the 2ndA, we will likely never get it back. Academics and think tanks are by their nature more vigorous to defend the 1stA and 4thA than the 2ndA (look at the ACLU's dyslexia on the issue), and for that reason a lot of people view the 2ndA as being in more peril.

I don't think the characterization of most gun owners as supporting Bushco's violations of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments is accurate, though, and the neocons who believe in a police state often don't care for the ownership of modern guns by the "little people."

and the compliance rate has been estimated at TEN PERCENT.

Meanwhile, traditional-looking guns that are functionally identical to banned "assault weapons" in every way (caliber, capacity, rate of fire) are still freely sold in California, without registration.

but registering oneself for future confiscation (which was precisely what Roberti-Roos had in mind, though events didn't turn out that way) isn't one of them.

The Carrie Nation types were ascendant in California politics at the time, and with the way things were headed, voluntarily registering your protruding rifle handgrips seemed that it would eventually lead to a Hobson's choice: surrender your guns down the road, or face guys with machineguns kicking down your door in the middle of the night (lose-lose for everybody). The alternative, nonviolent civil disobedience, seemed to a lot of people to be a more rational (and dare I say, moral) choice. And I note that the same thing has occurred in Canada.

If the Moral Majority came to power and required that all gays and lesbians register with the Morality Czar, and were at the same time pushing for legislation to make engaging in non-Jerry-Falwell-approved relationships a felony, and you were GLBT, would you choose to register? If it were me, I'm not sure I would. Thankfully, I have never had to face that kind of choice, and am doing what I can to ensure I and others never have to.

look in the mirror.

Thankfully, the party at large is moving away from that kind of reactionary BS. Roberti-Roos passed in, what, 1993? And California is STILL pretty much the only state in the nation that makes unregistered possession of a protruding rifle handgrip a felony. And it will stay that way.

BTW, the difference between a California approved rifle and a California "assault weapon":


California approved


California felony

Same rifle, two minutes apart.

I would appreciate it if your DLC senator would stop trying to shove that crap down our throats via a Federal ban, though.

Fortunately, cryptographically-strong algorithms remain available to and auditable by the public.

I disagree/agree with the post. 1: I agree belonging to a militia just makes you an easy target. A militia dedicated to gathering information on the government would be much more effective. 2: I disagree that the 2nd Amendment doesn't keep us free. It is total nonsense that the military or Blackwater is going to take this country by force as long as the populace is armed. An occupation can't succeed just by shooting people. Even in a SMALL country like Iraq. If we are unarmed,in other words,defenseless,than it becomes much more likely. You have more to fear from law enforcement seizing your guns than an army. Why would the powerful people in this country take the chance that even one lone gunman could bring them down? 3.The last time two times the NRA called,I explained very forcefully that I could never support them because of their support of people that were destroying our other EQUALLY important rights. 4:I agree some gun owners are paranoid nuts,I know some of them. I own three guns,a 22,4-10,and 30-30. I use them for hunting,tho not very often,and for self-defense,if I ever needed to. I have absolutely no plans to take up arms against the government,but sincerely believe most of us owning arms protects ALL our liberties. 5: Does owning too many books make you a first amendment nut? By the way,my first story was just published,which is exciting!

not a single shot was fired to prevent election theft or unwarranted wiretaps or incarceration of US citizens without charges or a trial, or the squandering of our treasury on an illegal war.

The refusal to enact some sensible gun laws is pandering to a tyrannical minority. And the OP pointed out, correctly, that hoarding guns and ammo in fear of the government is nonsensical and a waste of money. Will 30 guns keep you safer than 15? Will gund 16-30 provide better protection from eavesdropping?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/117361/Recent-Shootings-Gun-Control-Support-Fading.aspx

Wait, it's even more of a majority..

"Now, a recent poll reveals a sudden drop -- only 39 percent of Americans now favor stricter gun laws, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/08/gun.control.poll/

Seems that legislators are reflecting the prevailing, majority opinion.

The way the laws are written today, you are asking to be shot if you even brandish a gun by accident.

The people that believe that a weapon will protect them never have used them in defense, unless they have actually murdered someone in cold blood.

The cops are trained to shoot in defense, and the uniform helps them not shoot each other. All the rest are fair game when the need arises.

The cops and military have stockpiled weapons and ammo for years, while the scattered packs of holdouts maybe have a few thousand rounds at most, sitting in the dark, gethering dust, losing it's potency with every passing month, until it goes bad, just like all the other chemical based weapons.

Your weapons will be useless when they turn the microwave beam on you and make you collapse in hyperthermic shock.

Buy good food, be healthy, don't play their game. Save your ammo for hunting wild pig.

have more. I know a fair number of crazies who keep an arsenal "in case the government comes for us". When I point out the fact that the government is still better armed than they are, they say "well, at least I'll take out a few of them first"! OK, so you kill a few husbands and fathers who are doing what they are ordered to do, and you're just as dead in the end. There may be a huge shortage of jobs in America, but there is no shortage of macho gun fantasies.

They did pretty well against our military with small arms and improvised explosives, and we're leaving without taking all their oil. Their mission is accomplished.

All my life. 55 years old. And I can't think of any time where I felt my 2nd amendment rights were in jeopardy. Just the NRA telling me they were in jeopardy, and send us and the Republican party 50 bucks for a lifetime membership.

When the climate cooled between 1200 AD and 1700 AD, armed mercenaries, 'knights', took over. They crushed the weak and enslaved the populace. The only solution provided was a feudal society.

Those with the guns making the rules, saving strongest -- this is the fascist strong man solution.

So whether guns will save us depends on whether 'us' is the best armed.

Welcome to darwinian history.

and one effect of the invention of practical firearms was that they put well-equipped mercenaries and ordinary villagers on more even ground, IMO. When an armored knight sheathed in expensive plate mail could be brought down by two or three villagers with matchlocks, the balance of power shifted in a more egalitarian direction, although it could be argued that shift really began with the longbow.

I like all of the rights I have been given. I believe they are sacred. I do not see how someone who calls themselves an American gives up ANY of those rights so flagrantly.