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| -Land of the Free |
| You will hand your guns over when told to |
| 2016-09-03 |
| I see and hear a lot of talk about how a national gun registration and/or confiscation would be the trigger that would spark a second American Revolution, as patriots rise up to resist the jackbooted thugs who are going door-to-door taking away people’s arms. I have bad news for everyone who’s waiting for national registration or a mass confiscation so they can get their armed rebellion on: a national database of gun owners already exists, and a national confiscation effort will never happen. Ever. Instead, you’ll hand over your firearms peacefully. All of them, even the ones you paid cash for to some random guy on Armslist in the dead of night. Oh. So it's a case of "use 'em or lose 'em." O-o-o-o-okay, I think there are a fair number of Americans who will understand the rules of that game... Here’s a look at how it will play out in our not-too-distant future. The NSA Knows Who You Are and What You Have Second Amendment supporters have been so focused on this one little corner of the Bill of Rights that they’ve let the Fourth Amendment, which is supposed to protect citizens against unreasonable search and seizure, turn into dead letter. That's your opinion. While there exists a popular statement (in certain circles) that "the Second Amendment protects the First", the truth is that the 2A is pretty darned good at defending all of our essential rights. The surveillance state that got started under Clinton picked up steam under Bush II, and Obama has expanded it even further. The NSA is tracking everyone, all the time, and they’re hooked into Facebook, Google, Amazon, and every other piece of web-based software that you’ve been using to shop for accessories for that AR you paid cash for (which your wife doesn’t even know you have). If you don’t believe me, ...we do... go read this article about just how much detailed info one private company, Facebook, has on you, including your web surfing, shopping, and even your driving and walking habits. Now think about the fact that the NSA is even less constrained by the law (and has way more resources) than Facebook and has access not only to Facebook’s detailed profile of you but to profiles created by many other sources, from your credit card company to your health insurance provider. Oh sure, you may have gotten your hands on a few guns that would be impossible to trace, even by the NSA. Why would I skulk around like that? I'm a pretty open fellow. I don't mind that the Federales know that I and about 150 million other Americans own guns. By all means, make your plans to coerce us into doing your bidding. You only have to be off by one percent to spark a revolution. Maybe you inherited a long gun from your grandpa, or maybe you met a guy in a gun show parking lot and paid cash and then never Googled anything related to that gun. So here’s a question for you: how many people like you exist, and how many of those type guns are suitable for urban combat against AR-15s with state-of-the-art optics? I know which of my guns are probably totally “in the black,” and I can’t imagine trying to mount an insurgency with any or all of them. I don't plan to mount an insurgency. Read on... I'm no tactician, but optics in a close quarters battle situation unless it is dark is asking to be shot first. Optics help in long ranges and in adverse conditions. Iron sights always work 100 percent of the time, and are must more accurate than people will admit. The writer has failed to note that civil war is already upon us. It is slowly, inexorably getting ever hotter as the government grows and finds new ways of separating you from your rights, and that includes your money. And as for tactics, I am absolutely sure that state paid thugs are better than your average gun owner in shooting their enemies in a situation where you can stack up four of five before making an entrance. But what about the approach march? Will they really cross a field 200 yards wide, armed, wound up and seeking to kill their target? What happens when the incident or site commander takes a slug to the head while riding to the area of operation? What happens after? Do paid thugs think they won't be organizing convoys to go shopping, or taking their kids to schools. And why do they think that the shooters only will be the only targets? Rule .308 applies to all statists and their allies. There was a remarkable statement in the Gulag Archipelago, in which Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn noted that the camp residents understood something there in the camps that they didn't understand on the night they were arrested: that if each and everyone of them had picked up a table leg, stick, brick, something and had bashed the head of the first Chekist who came through the door to arrest them, that no matter how murderous Stalin was in his blood-lust, he would have run out of Chekists, and the camps would be empty. There are plenty of Americans who understand that. And it only takes a few to get started. The fact is, most guys who have the kind of hardware suitable for a Civil War 2.0 have been shopping on Gunbroker or Armslist, and/or have filled out FFL paperwork like law-abiding citizens. I seriously doubt there’s enough firepower totally hidden from the NSA to sustain any kind of real rebellion. Let us posit that all the above is true. Where's the advantage to the government not knowing you have guns? If anything, in such times, hiding your guns is not an option. Bringing them out and readying them for action is. As I said, use 'em or lose 'em... So the registration ship has sailed. They know what you have and where to find you. Now, here’s how they’re going to get you to turn it over without a fight. Hitting You Where It Hurts When the government outlaws semi-automatic firearms, they won’t send cops or troops door-to-door to take them. No, first they’ll send out letters saying they know what you have, and that you have to turn it over by a given deadline or face a penalty. Nice fantasy. It didn't work in deep Blue Connecticut or New York. It’ll be up to you to prove that you’re clean, and that you’ve handed over everything. They’ll have a list, and if they think you’re still holding, they’ll hit you with asset freezes. Let's suppose that's true. Okay, I'm a gun owner and you freeze my assets. Use 'em or lose 'em. Time for me to implement the plan our green moderator is suggesting. Remember when I said I wasn't planning on an insurgency? I'm not. But these acts will precipitate a revolution, one that I intend to win. Imagine not being able to get any money out of your bank account or from your credit cards, because your assets are frozen. The federal and state governments already do this if you owe back taxes–a simple letter to your bank, and all of your cards stop working. The bank doesn’t care about you, and they don’t have the interest or resources to find out if the government’s claim against you is bogus. No, they’ll just freeze your assets until you get things sorted with the government and the government tells them to unfreeze it all. The other thing they’ll do is take your children. Do you think Child Protective Services is going to let your children live in a house with potentially dangerous firearms? No way. Your kids will get picked up at school and taken into custody, and a social worker will show up at your door with the cops. Only when a thorough search has been conducted and the authorities are completely satisfied that your property is 100% gun-free will they let you see your little ones again. After all, we have to protect the children. The government can only do this one individual at a time. What happens to the entire edifice when the average non gun owning individual sees what the government is doing? Will the officials who created, printed and typed those letters stop their own children from going to school, because when you bring a man's kids into it, there are no rules. You take a man's kids from him, he gets to decide which of your kids he takes. Everyone's a target, and the lead won't stop flying, ever. Most dangerous place in the world is the place between a mother and her threatened child. You’re not going to shoot at those cops, either, because then your kids will just end up in the foster system as wards of the state. Nice bet. I doubt many cops, let alone operators would take those odds over a long enough stretch of time. How many cops will go along with this in the first place? They're parents too, and they love their children. How many cops refusing orders (whether voluntarily or because they understand intuitively that obeying those orders makes their children a target) does it take to bring down the system? The powers that might try to grab all the guns in the way you're suggesting can't do it without the cops. If the cops say 'no', it doesn't happen. Not Nearly Enough for a Revolution Oh, I’m sure there are folks reading this who are so off-grid that none of the above can touch them. Their guns are totally invisible to the NSA, their assets are all in the form of cash and physically held precious metals, and their kids are home-schooled on a well-guarded ranch. Those folks are, for the most part, a little touched in the head. No, you don't have to worry about them. You have to worry about well-connected, on-the-grid people like me who understand that even if I cooperate with you completely, I'm still one day going to end up kneeling in front of a drainage ditch. That's the kind of person you are. I know that today, this very instant, and that in turn informs what I'm going to do if you come at me. But is that blessed group big enough to overthrow a determined US government? No, it ain’t. You don't know that it is, or isn't. There was no way the Bolsheviks could have seized the Russian government and transform things, but they did. At this point, you're just guessing. The measures outlined above–a de facto gun registration database courtesy of the NSA and its private-sector allies, asset freezes for non-compliance, and the threat of CPS visits that hold your children hostage–will be sufficient to take well over 90% of the lawfully held guns out of civilian hands, all without firing a single shot. They didn't conceive of those sanctions in Connecticut, so we have no way or knowing what would not have worked. What we do know is that if those options were on the table in legislative negotiations, they were quickly swept aside as being too un-Constitutional, even for elected statists. I suspect that non compliance would be widespread, though I can't conceive of a specific number. Even if you found a way to get this past the statist pols in Springfield or Albany or Sacramento or Washington, there aren't enough guards in the country to protect all those pols and at the same time go out with CPS, etc., to grab all the guns. The bitter truth is this: there will be no confiscation shock troops for you and your buddies to shoot back at, Really? How do you intend to enforce those CPS orders? and we will discover too late that the rights-defenders’ fantasy–of one, crystal-clear moment when it’s time for everyone to rise up as one and take it all back–has been the establishment’s biggest ally and freedom’s deadliest enemy. Well put. I agree. But I think the writer misses the point that resistance doesn't always mean traipsing around the backwoods with the old trusty, rusty AK. Sometimes it means speaking aloud about the issues such as a growing and increasingly hostile federal government, just to provide an example. Educating yourself about economics and government is another. Guns should be the last resort, but they should be an option, always. Not all of us will traipse around in the backwoods. Not all of us need to. We have lots of choices as green mod points out. There are lots of ways to resist. And if only two percent of gun owners decide to shoot a police officer before going down, that's about three million casualties. You'll run out of willing police offers, NSA guards, TSA types, and National Guard soldiers well before that -- they'll quit or refuse to carry out your orders. See the words from the Gulag, above. Why do you think they’ve let you have guns for this long? Because those guns have given you a false sense of security and kept you from doing something truly dangerous, like mass-organizing to pull all your money out of the big banks and to vote out the incumbents. They haven't enough trained crazies to confiscate your firearms? He's got a point -- but there's no reason why we can't do both... So if you’ve sat idly by, fondling your firearms and watching the surveillance state expand while your paycheck shrinks, relying on your gun stash to bail you out when things hit bottom, then the joke’s on you. You’ve already lost the war, and when you hand over your weapons it’ll be the last (and mostly symbolic) step in a process of total subjugation that slipped up and swallowed you while you were distracted with building your gun collection. The writer's use of the word fondle is a gratuitous insult to the reader. It's the kind of statement you use in a bar if you're trying to provoke someone into busting one in your mouth, so I seriously doubt the writer would have done this in a meat space setting. All that said, my firearm remains in a case in condition 3. It remains so through transport to the range and back. It is cleared for cleaning. When not cleared or in the case, it is used for target practice. I do not "fondle", nor pose for a selfie or mugshot with a firearm. They have one dangerous, singular use, and when it is in my hands that is the use I concentrate on. Anything else is complete and utter irresponsibility. You may hate me and everything I’ve said here, but deep down, you know I’m right. You're an ass. He's an ass, and also a warning. Be prepared, and don't go quietly into the Chekists' van. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #13 "You will hand your guns over when told to" You will FOAD long before that, idiot. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2016-09-03 21:52 |
| #12 Just to be clear, not talking about you DP3886, agree with a lot you said. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2016-09-03 21:16 |
| #11 That is quite comforting, Dopey Phuger3886. Thank you. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2016-09-03 21:07 |
| #10 I haven't seen so much snot run out of an asshole since I ate that spicy Mexican food with a head cold. I suppose our game master would be a bit different if the NSA were tracking anal beads or 50 Shades of Gray - or whatever they want - especially after running this sloppy dungeon. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2016-09-03 17:52 |
| #9 This appears to be a well thought out exercise in fantasy. I'm a boomer and we are a large group. We have had our training in war and survived that war. Now we are looking at the end of our lives and how we take care of our children and grandchildren when we pass. I have already had my three score and ten years so I like many know I have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. What I have to look forward to is being in a hospital with tubes in every hole in my body, dying over a 2 day to 2 week period or dying defending what I know is my family and country and within a matter of minutes being killed quickly and honorably. As far as kicking in my front door there is a simple way to assure that everyone would get at least three of the insurgents. I have passed this on to many people I trust to reveal it when and if the time comes. Right now if I make this public knowledge our soldiers would be slaughtered when they kick in doors in the middle east. The author's estimate of the number of firearms is lacking. The latest estimates are 350 million firearms owned by 145 million people. It is also estimated those 145 million people own 17 trillion cartridges that fit those firearms. The US civilians own more small arms than the combined armies of China, India, Russia and the US. Let's assume the feral government actually picked up 99% of the firearms that would still leave 3,500,000 firearms in civilian hands. I was buying guns in the 1950's and remember those times. If you were 18 years old you could buy a long gun with only a 4473 form being filled out. The dealer kept it and did not furnish it to anyone unless asked to do so. Every dealer I knew hung onto the records for the required amount of time and then burned them. During that period the US firearms dealers sold about 80 to 100 million surplus firearms. Most of the 22 M German 98K Mausers went to the US, almost all of the Japanese long guns went to the US and a huge number of French rifles and English Enfield #1 Mark 3 rifles were also sold here. The US civilians own most of the small arms used in WW-2. There is virtually no paperwork on these weapons. Further a millions of sub machine guns and machine guns were sold as DEWAT (deactivated war trophies) which were mostly deactivated by welding a plug in the barrel. These were sold with no paperwork at all because they were not guns anymore. Most of the owners just simply bought a new surplus barrel and installed it. Those who kick in doors may be facing some old geeser with a functioning MG-42 at point blank range. Lastly if our (already insolvent) government went after gun owners the country would have to be locked down for at least a month. The cost of the country locked down for a month or more would cause the economy and the government to collapse. Further since we are entitled to a trial by jury (just think how many jurors this would take) and must be furnished with an attorney; the incredibly massive amount of cases would preclude a speedy trial and 95% of the cases would have to be dismissed. Law enforcement will not kick in doors in their own communities, everyone in the military has taken an oath to defend the constitution, foreign soldiers would stand out like sore thumbs and be shot on sight and lastly the Korean War, Vietnam War and all the wars in the middle east have trained 21 million veterans who have already fought for their country. If anyone in government actually believes it is possible to pick-up the firearms in the US by force they are smoking some powerful drugs. |
| Posted by: Dopey Phuger3886 2016-09-03 16:29 |
| #8 The grabbers do not exist...and the keyboard intelectual warrior that desires the grabbing is a coward and can only imagine grabbing scenarios. Never gonna happen. |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2016-09-03 12:03 |
| #7 Gee, with an entire Army in Iraq it wasn't till the locals decided to cooperate in the Anbar Awakening that the momentum swung around. Even before and after our forces retired to base camps. Notice how Chicago has the toughest gun laws and one of the largest gun deaths rate. Notice how on edge cops are now with just a few shootings. Now all those grabbers have to go home at sometime. Their families are there as well. Until they erect base camps for them and their families, they're not going to be out of harms way. They know it. They'll be a tough team breaking down someone's door. Not quite as much walking from their front door alone to their car. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2016-09-03 11:01 |
| #6 I just finished McKenney's book earlier this summer. A riveting and fantastic saga of the Civil War in Kentucky and the area we now know as the Land Between the Lakes. I'm currently finishing Ian Johnson's 'A Mosque in Munich.' Another fantastic book that [among other things] explains the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood, our own Kabuki dance with so-called 'Muslim moderates,' and precisely how the dance began. I believe someone here in the Burg recommended both. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2016-09-03 10:06 |
| #5 If anyone has doubts about the damage one man can do, they should read: Jack Hinson's One-Man War, A Civil War Sniper, Hardcover – January 27, 2009 by Tom McKenney (Author). Granted, the book is about the Civil War but the tactics that were used probably would apply today. The rifle was made for Hinson by a Southern gunsmith and was state-of-the art for the time--it would not have been on the books today. Hinson racked up over 100 kills of blue coats from moving sniping positions. He was never caught as many of the locals helped him (as aspect of guerilla warfare). He was dishing out retribution because his two sons were beheaded by Yankees and their heads mounted on Hinson's gateposts as a message. I suspect there are many people left and right who have guns in this country. I read the other day that about 44% of the households in this country have firearms in their homes. That is a large amount of guns. Estimates of about 300M guns exist in this country. I doubt the government has anywhere near that many firearms for their LOE branches of government. Why does this author think that everyone who works in law enforcement in the government would go along with the government? Consider also local law enforcement such as the sheriffs. These are elected officials by the people. They would be less likely to support gun confiscation schemes by the federal government. Lastly, I don't think anyone knows how many "off-the-books" guns exist but I'd bet there are plenty. Not everyone exists on, likes, or cares about Facebook or other social media. Not everyone spills their guts about every they have or do on FB--in fact they might even think it sucks as I do. We have a history and a culture of firearms. We also have a history and culture of revolution. Our forefathers today would have been considered then about the same way they would today--as criminals and lawbreakers. Our forefathers risked everything for a free country. We don't need another King George telling us what to do from Washington today. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2016-09-03 09:52 |
| #4 IMO, what they get away with in schools is a lot more, long-term, dangerous than gun confiscation. Because, “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-09-03 06:21 |
| #3 HA HA! |
| Posted by: newc 2016-09-03 02:27 |
| #2 Why do you think they’ve let you have guns for this long? Because those guns have given you a false sense of security Try breaking down my door or pulling me out of my F-150 and you'll meet my....'false security.' Have a nice day. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2016-09-03 01:34 |
| #1 I suppose Mr Grren is Badanov.... Readers, do understand, the Feds and locals can pull records of all your gun purchases and get a legal search warrant for said weapons in a matter of hours. Your weapons are not safe from law enforcement. That said. Don't store unregistered weapons with registered. |
| Posted by: jvalentour 2016-09-03 01:22 |