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Fifty-caliber canary.
4 years ago
General
Karno's Rare-Because-He-Never-Has-Time Blather:
I was flipping through my old journals. Yes, I laugh at my own jokes. But I noticed that an awful lot of those journals were about gun ownership - how having a firearm and the training to use it effectively was good for the country's political health (and bad for violent criminals' health, but that's a sub-issue). I had quoted Fewer Guns, More Genocide: Europe In The Twentieth Century in a previous journal:
"Part IV argues against the complacent belief that any nation, including the United States, is immune from the dangers of being taken over by a murderous government. The historical record shows that risks are very broad.
The record also shows that governments intent on mass murder prioritize victim disarmament. Such governments consider victim armament to be a serious impediment to mass murder and to the government itself, as described in Parts V and VI.
Finally, Part VII considers the efficacy of citizen arms against mass murdering governments. Citizen arms are most effective as deterrents."
A summary of the article appears in the October 2021 issue of Reason magazine: https://reason.com/2020/09/22/gun-c.....-life-at-risk/ .
That's pretty much the core of what I'm constantly ranting about: Widespread public gun ownership is a deterrent to mass-murdering tyranny. So attacks on the public's ability to own firearms is the canary in the cultural coal mine (coal-miners in the analog era took cages with canaries in them down into the coalmines: If the canary keeled over dead, it was a warning that toxic gases were building up, and the miners should get out before their larger lungs were also overwhelmed).
Rule of thumb: The more desperate the government gets to disarm the damn peasants, the more imminent the pogrom. And before you start sneering what a ridiculous paranoid I am, answer me this simple question: "What are the good things you can only do for someone who can't shoot back?"
I have never gotten an answer to this question for the obvious reason that are no such things - if you want to do someone a favor, there is no need to disarm them first. People who want to take away your means of defense "for your own good" are simply not your friends. They do not have YOUR good in mind.
I don't keep a 50 caliber because I believe I might get the chance to go Tyrannosaur-hunting some day. I keep it so that the Gestapo goons in the MRAP don't start thinking they're invulnerable, and can do whatever they want.
"Part IV argues against the complacent belief that any nation, including the United States, is immune from the dangers of being taken over by a murderous government. The historical record shows that risks are very broad.
The record also shows that governments intent on mass murder prioritize victim disarmament. Such governments consider victim armament to be a serious impediment to mass murder and to the government itself, as described in Parts V and VI.
Finally, Part VII considers the efficacy of citizen arms against mass murdering governments. Citizen arms are most effective as deterrents."
A summary of the article appears in the October 2021 issue of Reason magazine: https://reason.com/2020/09/22/gun-c.....-life-at-risk/ .
That's pretty much the core of what I'm constantly ranting about: Widespread public gun ownership is a deterrent to mass-murdering tyranny. So attacks on the public's ability to own firearms is the canary in the cultural coal mine (coal-miners in the analog era took cages with canaries in them down into the coalmines: If the canary keeled over dead, it was a warning that toxic gases were building up, and the miners should get out before their larger lungs were also overwhelmed).
Rule of thumb: The more desperate the government gets to disarm the damn peasants, the more imminent the pogrom. And before you start sneering what a ridiculous paranoid I am, answer me this simple question: "What are the good things you can only do for someone who can't shoot back?"
I have never gotten an answer to this question for the obvious reason that are no such things - if you want to do someone a favor, there is no need to disarm them first. People who want to take away your means of defense "for your own good" are simply not your friends. They do not have YOUR good in mind.
I don't keep a 50 caliber because I believe I might get the chance to go Tyrannosaur-hunting some day. I keep it so that the Gestapo goons in the MRAP don't start thinking they're invulnerable, and can do whatever they want.
Piss Off.
Yes I miss it but better safe than sorry
wise is the person that knows they should not have firearms and gives them up WITHOUT insisting that everyone else do the same.
I respect your decision
it's the bastards that wish to disarm us that are unreasonable.
(I only read up to Volume 2, though, so I dunno if she started packing heat after her near-miss out the balcony or not.)
debates can be had over details, like for violent criminals, felons, child molesters, ect.
matter of fact those people exist and innocent civilians need to be able to protect themselves from them
while I do find that Blasphemous, it's your right to be WRONG.
and in all seriousness, I have no problem with people that disagree with me, as long as you do not force your opinion on me through politics.
if you ever find yourself in Wisconsin and want to learn Firearms Safety and learn how to shoot, lemme know. I'd be happy to teach you.
1. Fat. Usually *very* fat.
2. Out of shape.
3. Exceptionally stupid.
In short, the majority of civil war 2.0 enthusiasts are members of Meal Team Six: The Gravy Seals.
They're also *very* unsubtle about their desires, affiliations and intentions, and usually plaster those things on their headgear, t-shirts, bumper stickers and their social media. So they stand out like a sore thumb doused in lighter fluid, ignited, and then shoved up the butt of a rabid raccoon.
However, one thing they certainly have, is a cheering section. Indeed, most of the people they would like to try and kill are not only well aware of the threat they represent (low), but most of us are sincerely hoping they start something. Not because we want a piece of the action (which would be amusing in it's own right) but because they all think law enforcement is on their side.
Prior to January 6, 2021, that might have been true.
Now?
Yeeeeah, no. Law enforcement has one job: keep things profitable. And there's no profit in having lumbering herds of donut operators hanging out the windows of their lifted trucks and taking pot shots at anyone they think looks like a liberal.
And if law enforcement starts to slack off, again, bear in mind there are plenty of people (Like Karno!) who are more than capable of taking up the slack.
Whatever happened to Mike Beebee, Mike Hirtes and the rest? Anyone heard from them? Nope. The reason why, is because Usenet ceased to be a good medium for engagement, because anyone and everyone could get in. Once we started getting curated communities like LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter, where we could effectively castrate those idiots, they fell out of the public discourse.
Same thing for the more modern crazies. The more social media platforms expunge them, the less relevant they become. Sure, they're still out there? But everyone wanking into the same bowl of Corny Flakes with no outside engagement gets old after a while.
And to my credit, I purchased my first firearm in California in the late 90s
And I have not shot one person to-date. But I practice and train for the day that I may need to defend myself or others from death, bodily harm and Tyranny...
A fool wishes for conflict, a wise man prepares for it.
Native Americans can give you chapter and verse on this one. So can the Filipinos, the Celts (Boudicca, for example), Rome (Genghis Khan, here), Egypt (the Hyksos who came in with chariots and horses... and then the Achminead empire and then Alexander the Great), Babylon, Canaan, Kush (constantly conquered by ancient Egypt), India, Afghanistan, Gupta empire (Huns took them down), Mongolia (fell to China, then to Russia), etc, etc, etc.
Even America -- the small militias were ineffective until they actually form an organized army (Continental Army) and acquired French military aid.
For my money, you're better off paying taxes and advocating for development of technology and maintaining a field-ready military. Technology (in the hands of the military) seems to be the best defense.
Which suits me fine. It's MUCH better to avoid a civil war (they're very nasty!) than fight one. But for the deterrent to work, the threat of bullets coming back at the Gestapo has to be at least somewhat credible. Like Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
And the modern armies do have some very sophisticated sci-fi type surveillance and weapons. People with guns might get in a hit or two, but it's not very useful against tanks and heavy armor.
Heck -- just look what the hacktivist group Anonymous has done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timel.....with_Anonymous
You can't do that with guns. You might be able to kill some key targets, but guns can't disrupt an entire nation the way a group of hacktivists can.
Computers are a far better tool for freedom.
Interesting times are here, and they ain't all bad, either. Stay flexible!
Trust them not to kill me as a knee-jerk reaction to something?
Or at least, like, trust that if they decide to kill me it'll take more effort / time?
I dunno, I just have a hard time trusting people who want the ability to quickly and efficiently end lives at the drop of a hat. But then again, I don't live in the states, so the discussion is pretty theoretical for me.
Go off I guess! (ha, pun intended)
If you remove those murdered in drug or gang activities you'd see the U.S. murder rate diminished to that of a much smaller country.
What our wise founding fathers did was try to assure that the citizenry had the means to defend themselves from bad people AND bad government.
Look, I'm answering a very simple question that Karno posited: "What are the good things you can only do for someone who can't shoot back?".
My answer is: trust them. At least, regarding being able to quickly kill me.
I haven't said anything about the U.S. murder rate. I haven't addressed the bit your wise founding fathers forgot to put in the original document and had to add in a couple years later. Although, since you brought it up: the idea that a bunch of rich guys wanted to give you guns so you could take power from them if they mistreated you is laughable though. At least admit they primarily wanted armed peasants to resist the British.
Damn, the founding fathers really are like a religion over there aren't they? I guess the best ideas all happened 200 years ago. Shame really, would be nice if people were capable of progressing and finding better ways to do things. Oh well *shrugs expansively* guess sticking to the ideas that some rich guys had 2 centuries ago is the best you all can do.
So we strive to be better people and treat one another as best we can.
As far as our murder rate, I mentioned it because it IS an issue here and access to weapons IS part of that.
As far as the founding fathers, you are correct we were fresh off a victory freeing our new nation from Great Britain and the most powerful military force in the world at that time. So many of us applaud that little document, and yes, it took awhile as those words had to be mulled over rather well. It is a document that says that the power people possess is inherent to those people and not granted by some governing body. I'd say that's pretty revolutionary. whether those writers were rich or not, it was a shot at equality. We are still working on it. We are still growing as a people. For the better I hope.
Sadly, we cannot change human nature. I reserve the right to self defense and would extend that to all people were it within my power.
The problem is that all of north american infrastructure is specifically designed around separating the places people live from the places they work and from the places they shop. So, for most people, having a driver's license is necessary for their day-to-day tasks.
Not really suitable for the comparison you're trying to draw, unless your everyday shopping for groceries and going to work has a high daily chance of gun battles. But solid point regarding the inherent danger of other things in society nonetheless. Cars are absolutely fuckin' dangerous. They're just necessary to function in a society that has a pathological hatred of efficient mass transit. Unlike a gun.
Really convenient to be able to hop in a car and drive yourself to the hospital after you accidentally half the fingers off your hand while playing carpenter.
Just like its really convenient to be able to put a bullet into someone that's trying to kick your head in for being gay.
Not necessary, just saves a bunch of time and effort.
They always answer the same way: "I'm not letting them put that $#!+ in my body!"
Thank you, Typhoid Larrys of the world; you're the problem, not the solution. These people are already potentially running around with a deadly virus, spreading it promiscuously. I certainly wouldn't trust anyone that careless with a firearm, and I'm a staunch 2A supporter.
Guns aren't only for the rich.
I always thought that was hilarious.
Add to these the rout of both current superpowers from The Graveyard of Empires, Afghanistan. Accomplished almost entirely with man-portable arms and grim determination.