A lot of talk is centering around the Biden/Harris/Beto’s threats to disarm America. Several people have talked about this in Doomsday terms, e.g. in the Third World:
…and in Nazi Germany (same link):
I’m not going to suggest that this stuff never happened, because that would be stupid. Leftists attempt to deny history, and I don’t.
That said: I think that in order for a government to get its civilian populace disarmed, one of two conditions need to be in existence.
Firstly, this works in the Third World (Africa, S.E. Asia, etc.) where the population is scattered, impoverished and not very connected by media. Under these conditions, it’s quite easy for the government to send out truckloads of soldiers to village after village to round up the guns. In many cases, the gun owners aren’t aware that the raids are beginning or if they are, it’s too late and they’re too disorganized to devise some system to hide their guns or to organize resistance. And the very isolation of the population groups (by distance, desert or forest) adds to the ease for the government to do, well, anything (and not just gun confiscation) to their hapless citizens.
That’s not the situation facing a Marxist government like the Biden/Harris/Beto model. Gun owners in the U.S. are aware, connected and not easily cowed. Surprise may be achieved once, but only once before the word gets out and the job becomes not only more difficult, but a lot more difficult.
The other situation where gun control works is in a Western country — e.g. Germany or the U.K. — where the population is subservient by nature, and where disarmament can begin first with registration and later with door-to-door confiscation raids by the police.
That may work in Europe, but the snarling gun-owning population is the U.S. is anything but subservient. They’re actively hostile and willing to resist even “commonsense” policies like gun registration. (As was shown recently in Connecticut, the bluest of blue states, where governmental attempts to register AR-15s resulted in perhaps 5% compliance, and even that’s just a guess. Imagine the success rate of handgun registration or hunting — “sniper” — rifle registration…)
Even statewide gun control fails, as evidenced by the continuous wails of neo-Marxist governments like those of Illinois and New York complaining of the flow of “illegal” and unregistered guns from neighboring states like Indiana and Virginia respectively.
I’m not saying that attempts at confiscation aren’t going to happen. Anything is possible with these bastards. But if Marxists are good at anything, it’s trying to suppress human nature and in our case, Constitutional protections, because as with all things Commie, the results are irrelevant as long as the doctrine is followed.
What I am saying is that it’s not going to be as easy as they seem to think. In fact, it’s going to be exponentially more difficult than they think, and a tremendous amount of blood is going to be spilled, probably on both sides. In the end, the side which prevails will be the side with the greater devotion to their particular ideal, and the guts to push it, or resist the other’s, as hard as possible.
That’s enough talk. I’m off to the range. There’s ammo to be tested, and practice to be done.
They’ll remove the eeevil guns with paper and pixels. Your insurance companies will not renew your contract until you provide a list of all your firearms. Same with your bank, public school registrations, all licenses. Once they have all the lists they will contact you and let you know that the costs for all of the above have increased 10 fold. Your (say) $200/month health insurance now costs $2000/month. The bank says you must keep a minimal balance of $2000 at all times otherwise your account will be canceled.
If you get caught lying on any of the forms you will suffer the penalty of a felon.
For quite a while my thinking has complimented my compatriot, ghostsniper. Go after sources of income and ability to interact in society. All my income is either controlled by or from the Govt. State pension, social security, 401k. My medical insurance-ditto.. It’s hard to find any bit of modern daily life that the govt cant control. You wont allow that government inspection of your home? Ok your next meal will be at the reeducation camp.
Many of us prep and would be able to survive for some finite amount of time but how will that work if you are alienated from society.
Yep, you don’t want to mess with insurance companies on insurance fraud. They have some of the best protections out there.
Only away to avoid insurance on your house, is to have enough money to self-insure.
In most states, you HAVE to have auto insurance, it is not an option.
The freedom will go away with a whimper, I’m afraid. Everybody has this idea of street fighting. It won’t be nearly that “easy”!
Or via Administrative Law. The regulations have the full force of law, the agencies are able to ignore the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, and the victim — err, violator has no recourse to the courts until “Administrative Remedies are exhausted.”
At best you have to wait until the Administrative Law Judge has ruled and you have appealed within the agency as far as you can, at worst, it is Lawfare, designed to break you economically so you’ll go along quietly.
Make these things a health or housing or public safety problem, with an agency in charge of enforcement, and the police will not be the ones to enforce this, at least until the violator resists through some act of violence, and the police are called to keep the peace and arrest the lawbreaker.
In the end, the side devoted to gun confiscation doesn’t have the guns. Napoleon said, “God fights on the side with the best artillery.” If push comes to shove, we’re armed, and they’re not, and the only reason groups like Antifa and BLM exist is because our side follows the law, even when their side does not.
Unfortunately for them, we also understand that the highest law is the Constitution, and if any other law goes against that, we don’t follow it. I hope they also understand that, so we can save a lot of bloodshed on both sides.
You want to take our guns? Simple, just get 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the states to agree with you and repeal the 2nd Amendment. Until then, leave us alone and we’ll return the favor.
“You want to take our guns? Simple, just get 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the states to agree with you and repeal the 2nd Amendment. Until then, leave us alone and we’ll return the favor.”
Doing so would accomplish absolutely nothing. The Founders were very clear that the Bill of Rights enumerated pre-existing rights, that the proper function of government is to protect the rights of the people, and that governments which fail to do so are invalid and may be altered or replaced.
You propose an interesting quandary. Would we be required to follow the instructions for removing or changing the Constitution and it’s Amendments, or are we bound by what is written in the Bill of Rights, that part of the Second Amendment that says “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
Shall not be infringed. Not changed, not taxed, not removed, not infringed. I’m no expert, Lord knows, but I believe the instructions of the Second Amendment came before the instructions for changing it for a reason.
I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, and I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but….
Look at any other right in that light: Repeal the 5th Amendment, now you can be forced to incriminate yourself. Repeal the first, now you can be prosecuted for free speech, the Press is a government agency, and the state religion is Islam. Is a government that does those things a legitimate government for free people? Is such a government performing its primary function of protecting the rights of the people? By making such changes does the government “establish justice, ensure the domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”?
If not, it’s not a legitimate government even under the constructs of the Constitution.
Under the precepts set out in the Preamble, any attempt to repeal an Amendment of the Bill of Rights, without scrapping the ENTIRE Constitution and starting over, violates the stated purpose of the Constitution.
“Simple, just get 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the states to agree with you and repeal the 2nd Amendment.”
What you just described is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on dinner. Don’t think they won’t have a majority some day. This past election shows that they can cheat without fear. Add to that the many on our side who (right or wrong) feel that all future elections are futile and will no longer waste the time to cast a ballot.
When the 2024 Republican candidate implores us to go vote, that this time it’ll be different, how many here will believe him or even bother to pay attention?
Mark D got it right, the right to keep and bear arms is ours simple for being born.
“…This past election shows that they can cheat without fear…”
A misapprehension. They seemingly got away with it this time, but there is no telling when that sense of “Fuck this shit….someone’s gotta pay!” will kick in.
That is the point they must fear, for it will come, not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but … it . will . come !
Perhaps the best comment on this topic that I have seen was the simple statement … if you think it’s time to hide your guns, it’s time to use them.
The question is not “if” confiscation, but when. Boating accidents as a tactic, while humorous, is probably not optimal or even effective. I think we are all waiting for someone to show us the way, not necessarily leaders to lead us, but examples to use.
/That’s enough talk. I’m off to the range./
That’s a soft spot right there.
.
There are some very interesting parallels with the “noble experiment” – attempted prohibition of alcohol in the early 20th century. Prohibition was touted as a way to cure all of society’s problems by removing alcohol from society. The prohibitionists failed to understand that while some politicians and religious groups gave lip service to the evils of demon rum just about everybody wanted a drink. People enjoyed alcohol and unfortunately some people were addicted to it but a signature on a piece of paper wasn’t going to stop a natural process (fermentation) or shut down the backwoods chemists who have been making their own stuff for hundreds of years. I’ve heard some say that prohibition produced an attitude of contempt for the law in the American people, but I would argue that as Americans we’ve always opposed stupid and burdensome laws. That’s why many of our ancestors came to this country in the first place.
My wife’s family has some history with prohibition. Her grandfather owned a short haul trucking business based in Philadelphia in the 1920s and a goodly number of his trips between the Jersey shore and Philly involved high proof liquid contents. As he explained much later he did what he had to do to feed his family and made enough money in the 20s to stay afloat when the Depression hit.
So what’s my point in all of this? Liberals tend to think that making a thing illegal makes it go away. They seem to have missed the history lesson that speaks about “the consent of the governed”. When I was a struggling young petty officer (petty being small and insignificant) I remember a salty old CPO giving me a great piece of advice – ” Never give an order that you know won’t be obeyed.”
As we like to say here any fule should know that an attempt to ban and/ or confiscate firearms will be universally disobeyed. The rowdy and historically disobedient American people simply will not consent and the question of who would enforce such an unpopular law has never been answered. Are red state sheriffs going to send their deputies out to confiscate Uncle Joe’s 870 and Ruger 10/22? Would the military do the job? Never mind the laws prohibiting the US military from doing law enforcement work because liberals would be okay with an executive order allowing that.Instead consider that the military just doesn’t have enough bodies to do confiscation. When was the last time American service people mutinied? We don’t want to go down that road.
Will we see attempts to further restrict gun rights? Absolutely because the people who want to prohibit stuff – alcohol 100 years ago and guns today – will never give up. Will people consent to those restrictions? No, much in the same way that they found a place to buy a beer or a way to make their own whiskey. And if you stand in the right place you’ll still see the ghost of Grandpa making the midnight runs to the Jersey shore.
“As we like to say here any fule should know that an attempt to ban and/ or confiscate firearms will be universally disobeyed.”
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They don’t need to touch that. You will be coerced into surrendering them.
Do you need to drive? If so, you need to have a couple of gov’t mandates or privileges. A drivers license and insurance and vehicle registration. They can delete those things at will for any, or no reason, and you’ll have no recourse.
Think of the many ways that the gov’t ALREADY has it’s tendrils embedded deep into your very life. Each of those tendrils controls aspects of your life already. You have long ago accepted those things and moved on. You will also adjust nicely to not possessing any firearms.
The only way out, that I can see, is to either “be off the radar” which is almost impossible (them tendrils are deep) or become a criminal in hiding. You can leave the country but you will not be allowed to take any guns/ammo.
Anybody care to expand on this line of thought?
“Do you need to drive? If so, you need to have a couple of gov’t mandates or privileges. A drivers license and insurance and vehicle registration. They can delete those things at will for any, or no reason, and you’ll have no recourse.”
No, if I need to drive, I need access to a functioning vehicle with appropriate fuel. The license and registration is a courtesy on my part which I put up with, in part to ensure that most other people on the road have some minimum competence, that their vehicles are mostly safe to be around, and the money goes (in part) to maintain the roadways. LOTS of people drive without licenses, we only hear about the people who get caught. My (now deceased, so I’m not incriminating him) brother drove for over a year before he “got around” to getting his license.
Americans mostly put up with infringements on our liberty because they help insure a functioning civilization, so (to use your example above) having to get a license to drive a car is a small infringement that mostly provides for safer and more efficient travel for everyone (ever seen videos of traffic in third-world shitholes?). Tell me I can’t have the license because of something that has no bearing on my ability to drive and my response will be terse, profane and anatomically improbable.
Do you need to drive? If so, you need to have a couple of gov’t mandates or privileges. A drivers license and insurance and vehicle registration. They can delete those things at will for any, or no reason, and you’ll have no recourse.
Do you know what a “ghost automobile” is? A car “owned” by no one, but used by numerous people. an old “beater”, purchased in a private sale, and never re-registered. There have been quite a few of them in central Louisiana. Generally in neighborhoods that you wouldn’t live in.
I don’t require a DL to drive a car, just an available car. Ditto for a plane.
Ghost, you seem to think that local bankers, police officers, insurance executives, etc are untouchable. Remember: “they” live among us…..with their families. And if I’m going to be labeled a felon……..well, “in for a penny, in for a pound”.
Keep this in mind: there was never a Timothy McVeigh bombing attack……..until there was one. No one ever flew a privately owned airplane into an IRS field office…..until Andrew Joseph Stack III did.
When a person believes they have nothing left to lose, then they usually don’t consider life worth living.
Think about those things.
I didn’t say anything about “local” insurance. My vehicle insurance was bought from Progressive online and paid for online too. I have no idea where they are located. Let’s ASSume for a second they are located in Atlanta and they send me the form I mentioned that wants a list of my guns. I throw the blank form in the trash and 30 days later I get a letter saying my insurance has been canceled. Do I go to Atlanta, walk into their 10 story building and just start shooting people?
I have been thinking about this confiscation scenario for 10 years and have thought it out to about 10 steps in every direction and can’t find a way around it except as I previously mentioned. MOST people will cave when things get to the right discomfort level.
“Do I go to Atlanta, walk into their 10 story building and just start shooting people?”
That’s not an effective insurgency strategy.
Your mistake was: “…throw the blank form in the trash.”
No, what you do is you fill out and return the form. If you are like most of us, you own several firearms. Some of them have a paper trail and some don’t. Those with a paper trail become “sacrificial”. They go on the form. The others… Well, you get the picture.
Prohibitions on ANYTHING have worked so well, haven’t they? Alcohol? “Yeah, right,” he said, while pouring his second mid-day whiskey. Cigarettes? Well, the various levels of government managed to tax the crap out of tobacco, and they’ve spent bazillions trying to make us feel bad if we choose to continue with that vile, dirty, habit. Anyone notice any of the tobacco companies going under yet? Has there been a reduction in minor’s using tobacco? Have you passed a high school before, during, or after class lately? Commercial sex businesses? Are there less sales personnel or front line sex workers these days? Governments are now working seriously to decriminalize this particular business, and I’d be curious as to how many church goers avail themselves of these services on a regular basis, legal or not.
Final example: marijuana. Still illegal under Federal laws and in many states, but usage is going up every year. Who were we fooling when we allowed government to “medicalize” marijuana? How many states jumped for joy when they saw the revenue stream it created? How many teens and young adults now carry a Medical Marijuana Card because they’re “suffering” from PTSD or mensural cramping? Now, many states are dropping the veil of “medical need” and going straight to full legalization, including my own state of Arizona. It will be taxed, barely regulated, and if I can work it into my Social Security budget, there’s going to be a bowl of Ganja Gummi Bears on my desk pretty damn soon.
My point: no rule, regulation, tax, or governmental threat is going to stop any of this, and it’s not going to effect gun ownership. Way too late for that. 244 years too late.
Medicalized. how long before it’s included on the 4473 as a reason preventing the purchase of a gun? All this business of making everything into an item for DMS-IV or V or VI diagnosis has the effect of giving more ammunition (yes) to the totalitarians to control the population with.
Since MJ is listed by the Feds as a Controlled Substance, you can be denied the purchase of a firearm for its usage – medical or not, right there in Section B, 21-e: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana….”.
ATF Form 4473 (5300.9), Revised May 2020
If the purchaser is in California or Colorado, to cite two states where the weed is legal, and is a marijuana user, is he a lawful user or an unlawful user?
If it actually comes to keeping the peace, fifteen years ago in New Orleans, police were brought in from states with more strict gun laws and they (unsurprisingly) reverted to their training rather than the mimeographed sheet describing how the gun laws in Louisiana differed from the way they did things “In The Old Country.”
Prohibition…..and the attempt at that gave us the 16th-A, because they knew that when whiskey was prohibited, the government was going to need a replacement revenue stream. So, we jumped out of the frying pan, and into the fire.
Interestingly enough, there is no “enabling legislation” for the income tax permitted by the 16th Amendment. Not that that fact helps you much in an audit. The Leftists are very good at using procedure when it benefits them, and forgetting all about it if you want it to benefit you. As we’ve seen over at least the last 20 years.
Ghostsniper has got down the the bare bones of their strategies that might actually work. The banks have already proved willing to go this way. Insurance companies aren’t too much of a stretch. State based stuff like DLs could work in blue states but not red. One thing that I think is missing is a complete information blackout by media and the tech oligarchs.
Not with the full faith and credit clause. If it’s recognized by a “red” state, it’s valid in a “blue” state. The blue states would have to do what the California State Police did to the Okies in Grapes of Wrath. Stop the “outastater”, ask to see ID, and rip the Oklahoma driver’s license in half, so you no longer have a license and you can’t drive.
This may come down to old farts. What will us old farts be willing to do and how far are we willing to take this and sacrifice. As for me? At this time I say I am willing to go from this world how I came into it. Screaming and kicking and covered with someone else blood. I have lived a full life, a bit overweight and not willing to run or hide. I will not comply. My hope is the local LE types will refuse to assist the Feds.
Till you get to the pharmacy (assuming like most other seasoned citizens, you take medications), they say, we are sorry but you and your wife are no longer eligible for perscrptions.
Or the power company: your house is no longer elegible for electricity.
Or the water company: your house is no longer elegible for water.
Add infinitum…
And if you shoot any of these people —- you are not targeting close the real problem.
Getting the heck of dodge seems the best bet. But I also have non-adult kids, so I am constrained.
Suppose they say gun owners are inherently and dangerously making their homes unsafe for kids?
Tendrils
They’re wrapped around your legs all the way up to your air pipe.
For y’all’s consideration.
Various sources on the Internet assert that the US military has something on the close order of four and a half million guns. I happen to think that if that’s what the government says, it’s probably about right; they’re cheapskates, they don’t want to pay storage for guns they don’t officially have.
Estimates I have read of the number of privately owned firearms in the US range from three hundred million (older, very likely outdated) to slightly over four hundred million, to as high as six hundred million.
I once read (and can no longer find, damnit) that the estimate of the number of firearms in civilian hands was based on the assumption that guns wear out in twenty years.
*snort*
Maybe that assertion is pigswill. I don’t know (although I remember thinking the source was probably decent).
I guess we’ll see.
That may have been the late Kevin O’Brien’s website, Weaponsman. IIRC, both Bill St. Clair and Looserounds archived his blog, so you might swing by their places to see.
“No… and thank you for the offer. Now, run along. Find somebody else to play with.”
While ghostsniper’s concerns are not unfounded nor illusory, you might also see states that are ‘heavy red’ applying countermeasures to any such shenanigans. This is a good reason to keep your hand in at the local and state level of affairs.
Repeated state-level audits of companies that have a rep of denying services for those who claim their rights, for example. Excessive overregulation (two can play that game, you know). Meanwhile, local and state businesses that are more reasonable find any travails to clear up with surprising speed.
Sue the states for interfering? Sure. See you in front of SCOTUS, ‘comrade’. Hope Kavanaugh and Barrett don’t hold grudges.
I’m not saying ghostsniper is wrong. However, this threat would be a LOT more effective if we were actually some kind of monolithic nation as opposed to fifty states.
Factoids.
Playing defense does not win. Playing offense wins.
Every militia group was infiltrated by the FBI. The same FBI that tried to oust President Trump.
Lone actors tie up enormous amounts of LEO resources. Think Lee Boyd Malvo.
If the Government will not abide by the law and conduct open and fair elections, why should we be constrained by laws?
Election fraud is treason.
Media management is at least as culpable as Democrat criminals, and should share in the retribution.
All social media communications are compromised, including this blog.
You will excuse me if I’m tired of the vaunted “America’s Gun Owners” line of reasoning.
Guns are but decorations without the will to use them. And if there is anything that 2020 has proven, it’s that the will to use them does not exist. I keep hearing “The Second Amendment protects all the other amendments. Horse hockey.
“Muh guns is gonna pertect us from tyranny an’ stuff.”
Bullshit. We have had tyranny all through 2020, on a scope unimaginable in this country just nine months ago, and nary a shot fired by the good guys. The Bill of Rights has been shredded, the shreds burned, the burned parts buried and shit on, and not a shot. Millions have been destroyed by unconstitutional government edicts, our cities have been set aflame, and the biggest, most heinous crime in our nation’s history – the brazen theft of the Presidential election (which is to say the theft of every election henceforth) has taken place – and nary a shot fired.
America’s gun owners are paper tigers. When the Left comes to confiscate their guns, they will surrender them meekly and get willingly onto the cattle cars.
Just remember that the American Revolution was fought by only a tiny fraction of the population. Revolutions don’t need mass uprisings, just a few very committed citizens.
I remember reading that less than 10% of the population of the Colonies actually participated in the actual combat during the Revolution, and that included both sides. Looking at more recent examples of revolutions just in the 20th century, while I have no hard facts, it appears to be a common truth that most people might have picked one side or another, most people also chose to remain on the sidelines to watch what happened.
No revolution ever starts out with all the support it will need to succeed. They begin with an offence, usually by the government, and one person or small group gets pissed off enough to do something about it.
The Colonists were pretty equally divided in their loyalty and outlook for separating from the British.
1/3 wanted out;
1/3 wanted to stay; &
1/3 were agnostic.
The Tories (the stays) FTMP left for Canada after 1783.
I agree about the few committed citizens – so where are they and what are they waiting for? If it’s “I’m waiting for them to come take MY guns,” then they’re waiting until it’s too late.
Our side writes strongly worded letters and they engage in actual peaceful protests that are laughed at by those they are protesting. Protests took place last weekend in front of a couple of Governors’ houses. Accomplishment? Nothing.
Again. I still believe that they are paper tigers. I’d rather NOT believe that – but we have been overrun and not a shot has been fired.
“…all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” – T. Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence.
We just haven’t gotten there yet. Yes, we’re taxed, feed, regulated, and abused more than the “British Americans” were, but we’re still suffering the sufferable. Remember, the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party happened before Lexington & Concord turned the America Revolution into the Revolutionary War. Antifa and BLM have rioted, looted and burned, but it may take something like Concord – two armed groups facing each other and neither backing down…and that first shot. The paper tigers won’t show up there, though.
Gun sales this year broke records. They can’t make guns or ammo fast enough to supply everyone. And first-time gun purchases broke records. Did a whole bunch of unarmed conservatives suddenly decide this was going to be the year to join their families at the range? Maybe some. But most of that tsunami was Democratic blue-staters who were generally anti-gun before. They’ve always scoffed at the idea of their own hostile government coming for them, but between the prospects of a 2nd Trump term and all the right-wing militias walking around protests armed “to the teeth”, the precariousness of their situation is hitting them square in the face. My very liberal, anti-gun brother wants to buy a gun, and is dismayed by all the hoops and nonsense he has to go through to “be allowed” to buy one (it’s California). He was surprised (and disaappointed) he couldn’t buy a short-barreled shotgun. A lot of “never gunners” are discovering that, contrary to what the media has always told them, you can’t just walk into a store and walk out with a machine gun. I’ve always thought that the best way to awaken someone to the preciousness of a civil right is to try to deny it to them. And that’s just liberals! The radicals are finally remembering (or just learning) the wise words of Chairman Mao: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” You might not like the idea of armed radical Antifa neighbors, but their numbers are small, and they’ll fight their disarmament as heatedly as you do.
Couple that with the fact that Trump has been appointing a lot of conservative, Federalist judges away from the Supreme Court spotlights, and I’m actually more optimistic about my gun rights than I have been since before 9/11. We’re starting to see court cases go our way here in Cali(fuckin!)fornia, and the state is facing uphill battles as the appeals go higher. If California can defeat them, so can you. Biden/Harris have much bigger problems than guns to deal with, and will for some time.
This is a critical time, because we need to get these newly-enlightened gun owners to the ranges and into classes–which is really hard in a pandemic. However you feel about your Biden voting neighbor, now’s the chance to “reach across the aisle” (because “We’re all in this together, right?”) and make the 2nd apolitical. We aren’t going to make them all gun-waving patriots; I’ll settle for getting a lot of them to sit on the fence and be ambivalent.
As to your brother, when a riot — excuse me, Leftist speech incident — occurs near him, if he hasn’t bought some sort of home defense, you can’t just loan him a firearm, either. As Charleton Heston said, after the Rodney King Riot, his neighbors called him asking to borrow a gun, and he told them that he can’t, and the reason is the restrictive gun laws THEY voted for.
why on earth would I arm a thief who intends to steal from me? That’s what giving a firearm to a Biden supporter will do. They supported a party ideology based on envy, greed and theft. They’re too cowardly to bust into your house and steal for themselves so they voted and hired government to do the heavy lifting for them.
JQ
I would ask, “Who is going to do the confiscation?”. Is it the police, who they are actively demonizing, undermining, and trying to defund? Is it the military, who they are actively demonizing, undermining, and trying to defund?
My guess is that when push comes to shove, majorities of the military and police are not going to cooperate like they think they will.
Don’t kid yourself, Ravenwood. While certainly not all of them will cooperate, enough of them will.
They have taken Caesar’s Gold (and look forward to that pension), they have every incentive to follow Caesar’s Orders; the only question is “how many”.
A pension, and a family are two powerful instruments by which government suborns its citizens.
A year ago I would agree.
Now, I’m not so sure. The Democrats managed to screw that angle up tremendously with their support for BLM, Antifa, and the resounding cry of ‘defund the police’ — so much so that Democrat Congresscritters had themselves a nice little catfight over how stupid that message was.
It’s one thing to say ‘Follow your orders or you get fired and lose your pension’. It’s another to blatantly show that even following your orders might result in you getting fired, etc. Scapegoating can be a dual-edged blade.
give out authority and some bully will always be glad to take it for minimal recompense. There were victims of the holocaust who sent their fellow prisoners to hard labor and even death for the mere payment of an extra slice of bread.
I’m sure the hoplophobes will move on as many fronts as possible as they have done for decades.
They’ll move to ban anything and everything that they can. This may be fought in courts and they may even lose but in the years it takes to get their legislation ruled unconstitutional, they will have ruined many people’s lives, convinced some folks to register, destroy or turn in their property. They have used that tactic in EPA cases.
CCW and hunting licensing will become more strict, delayed and difficult where ever possible. See NJ, MA, CA, NYC. This will lead to a registry of potential firearm owners. Of course the registry will get used for confiscation just as it has been used in every country that has enacted it.
Physical raids will occur whenever possible at the convenience of like minded police chiefs. Politicians and higher ups have no problem sending people who want to collect a pay check into harms way. Whether the politicians defund the police or not, there is always a willing bully to do the tyrant’s bidding. Expect some raids for bureaucratic infractions such as a short barrelled shotgun (Ruby Ridge anyone?). The perpetrator will be painted by the media to be a fringe loony, racist etc whatever they can get away with.
Registration of magazines, limits on firearm design, firearm approval lists such as California and Massachusetts will be enacted at the local, state and federal level whenever possible.
Red Flag laws will be enacted where ever possible and used to make accusations true or not against a firearm owner. Everyone has to be safe until we can determine the person’s suitability to possess firearms. These cases will last until the accused is bankrupt and essentially blackballed from working. Since they won’t be able to afford a real defense, they will be banned by the government from owning firearms in the future. ANy appeal would be cost prohibitively expensive and predetermined to be useless.
Private sales will be banned because we wouldn’t want someone to possess a firearm without the government’s permission and knowledge.
NICS checks will be delayed or unavailable with increasing frequency and duration.
Ammo will be become largely unavailable, quantities of ownership restricted etc. EIther resources redirected at government fiat or some other method.
If you can imagine a restriction to our rights as recognized by the Second Amendment, the hoplophobes will follow it whenever possible.
To paraphrase Churchill, we must fight them whenever and where ever possible. we shall fight them in the legislature, we shall fight them at the ballot boxes, we shall fight them in the courtrooms and God forbid we shall fight them in the streets.
JQ
Prohibitions have a poor chance of working, they only make things more expensive.
If ammo remains in short supply, how long before the Cartels start moving it north along with their other prohibited goods?
“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, polkers, or whatever else was at hand?”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
– Part I The Prison Industry, Ch. 1 “Arrest” (p13, The Gulag Archipelago, Collins 1974)
and….to paraphrase Emiliano Zapata
It is better to die on your feet fighting for Freedom, than to live on your knees as a Slave.
WRT “paper tigers” & etc:
One of the things I’ve noticed is that when responsible people become gun owners, they stop casually joking about anything that approximates killing, because having attained the means, it’s no longer a preposterous, laughing matter.
It is a serious business. The most serious. There are good reasons we don’t just haul off and blast sketchy people who approach us asking for the time on the street. Yes, it’s a classic prelude to a mugging, but sometimes, it’s just some idiot with a dead phone.
Good people (ie: those with consciences) simply aren’t going to fight, ~in the absence of some level of moral certainty~ that fighting is both necessary and justified.
Events are being carefully orchestrated so as to remain below some threshold of action, to ensure that a region of ambiguity and doubt exists, and furthermore, to ensure that this region of doubt cannot be filled with anything like certainty until it’s too late.
It’s worth noting that this fact alone is not sufficient to justify tossing flares at the powder keg.
One of the big lessons our enemies have taken from the 20th century is that the iron fist smashes the goose that lays the golden eggs, but the velvet glove and the smiley face mask won’t trigger the tripwires, which are very daintily being danced around, very much like a mugger that ambiguates his hostile intentions so as to close within striking distance.
Communists and socialists (but I repeat myself!) have learned that their world collapses, and they die in poverty and misery without capitalist subsidy, and capitalists have learned that it’s easier to pay off and collude with humanity’s ever present have nots organized under red and pink flags than fight the underclass.
And we, the productive milk cows, are basically told to STFU, and ignore the post constitutional order that is the engine on the elite’s gravy train.
Further thoughts at my blog:
https://johnlockeson.blogspot.com/2020/11/some-thoughts-on-election-of-2020.html
And yet, here our communists and socialists come from the upper reaches of society and would be the ones directing the payoffs, not receiving them.
What I see and fear might be very close to happening is more Medieval:
Entire urban areas under an embargo by the Deplorables in Flyover-ville:
Water, electricity, food-stuffs, not permitted to pass into those comfy socialist zones along the coast and inland university-centered areas, requiring them to survive on just what they can produce internally.
I can also see the Feds applying some sort of interdict to cities and states that are too red for them, or too resistant to “sweet reason” and “reality.”
All the opinionating, but lacking this one thing that I think is VERY applicable in the here and now.
Choose 1 to 3 (or more, if you wish) selected arms from your safe, with accompanying ammo, and CACHE them away from your home, to whatever locales you deem “safe.”
You’ve got to make yourself “proof” against disarmament.
It’s not a matter of “digging them up”. It’s more E&E till you can re-claim them.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Yeah, i don’t see any kind of “confiscation” happening, whatever masturbatory fantasy Beetle O’Rourke indulges in.
One other factor that needs to be considered is that when countries like the UK and Australia initiated large scale confiscations, the fraction of legal gun owners to the population as a whole was miniscule. I think Australia was something like 10% or less and NZ even fewer. IIRC the UK was something like 1 or 2% of the population were gun owners. It’s pretty easy to steamroll a tiny minority like that. After all, their votes aren’t really worth anything to any particular party so why not screw them over?
Besides the fact that the US political system is very different, there’s the fact that the ‘gun vote’ can comprise up to 40% of the electorate in some states. You can’t steamroll over 40% of your citizens no matter how much information you control.
And BTW a lot of you out there seem to think the liberals want your guns. The liberals, for the most part, actually don’t care about your guns. They want to be seen as “doing something” about a problem. That’s why they liked the 1994 “assault weapons ban”, a “ban” that did not take one, single solitary firearm off the street, did not prevent one person from getting a firearm who wanted one and did not prevent one mass shooting.
They don’t care. They just want to be able to say “we did something” and then move on to the next issue.
I’d counter that a massive gun grab WILL work in the US.
The reason is that US citizens, and especially conservatives, are way too divided among themselves to properly work together.
They don’t trust each other any more than they trust the government, so organised resistance will be next to non-existent.
It will be SWAT teams against individual homes, not entire blocks or towns, with each household sitting there behind their front door waiting for their chance at “taking on the bad guys” and having them “take my guns from my cold dead hands”, which is exactly what that SWAT team will do.
The organised militias and similar groups are few and far between and easily isolated. A few Wacos will take care of them, and are easily shut off from communications with the outside world by scrambling cell phones and internet connections.