A whole bunch of people have been getting worried about this development:
Liberals are notoriously loath to take their own side in a fight. But their reticence may well be changing in an age of vigilante, white nationalist terror—openly condoned and supported by an incumbent president who has suggested that his armed devotees won’t stand for his removal from office. Increasingly, the antifa left is arguing—and training—in response. They are worried not only about an armed reckoning following a contested election, but also about rising violence from the paramilitaries loyal to President Donald Trump.
…
Such paranoid fantasies may be familiar to heavy consumers of YouTube and Reddit, but watching them transposed on to the structures of governance is a novelty. As a result, many leftists and even some liberals are beginning to reconsider their feelings about firearms, joining a loose amalgamation of gun groups, from John Brown Gun Clubs (which take their name from the abolitionist) to the Pink Pistols (an LGBTQ group), Liberal Gun Club, and Socialist Rifle Association. Some of these organizations are moderate and traditionalist, others radical and revolutionary. But all share one implicit goal: to normalize firearms ownership and training among liberals. Some of their members hope such efforts will at least make Republicans think twice before attempting a massacre.
LOL. They must be thinking about Spanish Republicans circa 1937 (who, by the way were Communists) and not our flabby Murkin Republicans, who couldn’t massacre the syrup at a pancake breakfast.
Seriously: do these tools honestly think that conservatives are going to launch a massacre of Lefties in this country? Given the de-platforming of conservative voices, attacks on people simply for wearing MAGA hats and throwing Republican civil servants out of restaurants — not to mention the Pantifa attacks on peaceful protest marches in Portland and D.C. — I would suggest that it’s the Left who are far more likely to trigger civil violence.
Then we have this kind of picture, which some find alarming:
Yup; he sure looks like he means business.
To my mind, though, this doesn’t make for nervousness — it makes the whole thing interesting.
Go on, Pantifa Boys: show us what you’ve got. Let’s see how it works out for you.
Oh, and one last thought: if all this “preparation” by the Left means they’re waiting for conservatives / Trump supporters to begin the shooting, they’re going to end up being a lot older than the graybeard in the pic above before they get to put all that training into play. In the meatime, we have crap like this:
The climate of vigilante violence on the right has elevated racist attacks, hate crimes, and terrorism in our political culture.
What “vigilante violence”? Fucking shitbrains are starting to believe their own lies.
I think the lefties may be right to be concerned about violence from the Right, but I also think they’re worried about the wrong causes. Trump’s removal from office, provided it’s either via proper election or term limits (most likely) won’t do it. We believe the peaceful transfer of power at the end if a President’s term to be one of the hallmarks of our system. The horseshit pulled by Clinton staffers (removing the W’s from computer keyboards, i.e. damaging public property) was an annoyance and not worth a riot to people who need to go to work in the morning (although the people who did it SHOULD have been prosecuted for destruction of public property).
However, a few issues keep popping up that, if passed, just might trigger violence. During the Obama administration there was an idea floated to put a one-time tax on all privately held (meaning not union) pensions (401Ks, IRAs, etc) because it wasn’t “fair” that some people have retirement savings and some don’t (so the vacations I didn’t go on, the new cars I didn’t buy, in favor of putting some of my money away for retirement don’t count, and people who didn’t do so should be able to rob me to fund THEIR retirement?) Likewise the subject of slavery reparations. I’m white (and therefore subject to PAYING extra taxes for reparations), three-quarters of my family weren’t even IN the US until the beginning of the 20th Century (after slavery was no longer a thing), and the other quarter lived in North Dakota (part of the country that fought to end slavery, family legend says my great-great(?)-grandfather was a drummer boy in Sherman’s army).
Things like that just may push some folks (like middle-aged and older straight white men, who either have no children or whose children are grown, and are now being told they can’t have the life they worked for because they’re being robbed to pay for someone else’s benefit) to believe they have nothing to lose and no reason to try. However I don’t think it’ll result in actual shooting, bombing, etc. I think they’ll just drop out, stop doing all the things they’ve done their entire lives to be productive, and sit back and watch what happens when a huge chunk of the work force simply stops showing up. These are the people with the most experience in everything from accounting to zookeeping. How many groceries are going to be in stores when the most experienced forklift drivers stop showing up for work in the food warehouse? How long will the power stay on when the linemen stay home? Snowplow drivers? Auto mechanics? I could go on. Best of all, how long will places like NYC last when those hated straight white men call in sick for two weeks. They’ll be eating their dogs and cats after three days and each other after a week.
I take no pleasure in watching the world burn, but sometimes schadenfreude is due.
Liberals are notoriously loath to take their own side in a fight.
And that’s where we can stop reading. The writer is obviously delusional. Leftists are notoriously *eager* to take their own side, violently if possible.
“But all share one implicit goal: to normalize firearms ownership and training among liberals.”
FANTASTIC!! How do you change political and social affiliations? By showing people they’ve been lied to. Some of the best people I know are gunnies. So what happens when fearful liberal venture to the range and half the people there are helpful, offer advice, and generally aren’t monstrous? Minds change. Case in point? Pink Pistols (“Armed gays don’t get bashed”). I joined my local chapter a decade ago because I knew the founder, an IDPA shooter and a staunch gun-rights supporter (whose name was attached to a pro-2A suit against the California AG for some egregious rights violation). Were the members stereotypes? A few. You’d be surprised how many were conservative/libertarian, and not surprised by the frustration of having to choose a Party they largely disagreed with simply because the other Party refused to recognize basic human dignities. Met some fine people and improved my pistol shooting–and bought a gorgeous 1903 Hammerless from one of the guys. Anyway, a few of the members had been actively afraid of guns–and gunnies–going in, but discovered that they had a few incorrect stereotypes of their own.
So maybe in 15 years we get back to a point where the Second Amendment is no longer a 1-party issue. Wouldn’t it be nice if lukewarm Republicans became a little afraid of losing our support because The Other Side wasn’t trying to disarm us? Or we had an NRA that could focus on legislation and gun safety because it wasn’t grafted at the hip to the politicians?
The entire reason to keep and bear arms is to protect the people from the government (from those in power). Who cares how people figure that out? The number of actual Antifa is minuscule (like the actual number of White Power basement dwellers); few want actual violence in the streets.
Antifa has become a real power/problem in Downtown Portland, what with the backing the of mayor (Wheeler) and the chief of police (Outlaw).
And I don’t think they’ll ever be bold enough to take (they’re already taxing it) your IRA; they’ll just inflate the h*ll out of it, so that you’ll have to use all the rest of it to buy a loaf of (stale) bread.
About time they got it.
Course I have not seen any of them in the gun stores or at the range, but they are at least starting to get it.
As to Antifa’s effectiveness, that will wait on the next election I think.
And if those feckless bastard take my IRA it will be war. Maybe just me and short, but I am about ready to retire and if they think I am going to keep working so they can lay around and do nothing, NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Sitting here in the outback of Central NV, I doubt if I’ll ever encounter an ANTIFA mob, but just in case, I think I’ll post the property:
POSTED – Antifa Free Zone – KEEP OUT
Trespassers will be shot – Survivors will be prosecuted!
There’s another version of the keep out sign I like better
“Trespassers will be shot – Survivors will be shot again.”