Guns and Nazi Teabaggers

Mr. Writer,

You must be a subservient tool since you have no problems with corrupt, tyrannical governments having guns, but don't believe law-abiding citizens should.

You must be awfully dense if you believe the Military-Industrial Complex wants people to own guns.

"Weapons of mass destruction." lolololololololololol!!!!!!!

Drop some more acid, brah. I mean, seriously... once you start to speak out against the police and military having guns, perhaps then I will take you seriously.

 

Well, that was eloquently written.. but about as far removed from the reality here as me imagining vapor lounges and seed banks in Florida. Have you ever been around guns?

A .223 will not cut a man in half. You also have to put things into context concerning things like silencers and 100 round drums. Honestly, I don't expect you to understand. My mother is a phd student at U of T.. and that area is completely different than your southern neighbors. She was always left wing but has now become infected with the anti gun dogma that is so popular up there, suddenly now after living in Toronto for a few years she has a problem with things like concealed carry.

I bet if you spent a few years in the south, you would at least have an understanding that not all gun owners and advocates are paranoid or one step away from going on a shooting rampage.

 

It's basically tradition.
You can't really legislate for tradition.
Why do you think UK children have to endure morning assembly and biblical hymns? - no matter how irrelevant that tradition might or might not be.
I do think it is unfortunate that a tradition has edged a whole society into believing carrying weapons is necessary.
We have, thankfully, got over that one.
The truth is, it seems, even as high as the supreme court, the use of guns is given special prevalence, and no argument has been found to prevent that.
Yes, limitations have been found - but the fundamental right, rightly or wrongly, is as strong as ever.
I don't know of many legislators that are actually apposed to gun ownership.

My personal belief is is that you do not need guns. However, I would not try and curtail that, and have never said anything to suggest that.
As irrelevant as I think guns are - it's upto you to come to that conclusion yourself.

I understand you do. But when it comes to actual reasoning why, I think the argument is fairly weak.

Imho, there is a separate argument to be made for why people are violent etc, and the need for guns.

I have my own opinions - but ask you to point out where I have imposed my values onto you.

I do not understand your gun culture. I also realise that gang crime, relating to gun use, is a problem.
I have tried to contain my thoughts to the gang violence in America - where I see the majority of the issues rescinding.
I have never said anything about curtailing people, such as yourself, from owning guns.
The fact that we do live in different cultures, and people here generally don't see the need for guns for protection etc, is only a reminder it isn't actually necessary - rather than a call to disarm you.

We didn't.

 

But I feel that they're really just lumping all guns together, and calling for massive regulations, bans, etc.

Yeah, here in Nebraska the gun focus is mainly for hunting... Unless you live in North Omaha, then the focus is on doing drive-by shootings, robberies, or the like. It's a bit ridiculous in that neck of the woods, and I never venture there after dark. Fabulous.
Anyway, most folks just have your standard shotguns, bolt action rifles, or lever action rifles. Just depends on what they plan to shoot. For the most part, they never plan to shoot people.

 

Or anywhere for that matter. Still, I doubt such life experience would change his outlook very much. He is someone who wants to believe these black, scary looking "assault rifles" are a menace, and so are the people who own them. Evidence to the contrary will simply be ignored.

 

You keep a couple of handguns to protect yourself from the GOVERNMENT??

Do you actually think anyone is going to believe that?

dooood .... pa-leeeese!

 

A handgun, and a semi-automatic rifle. When I practice I use the law enforcement targets which show lethal shots, and I'm getting pretty good at hitting them. (lungs, brain, heart.) I also practice shooting the shoulder that is holding their gun, as to disarm them. The government is powerful, but even with our government, it'd be mad hard for them to send 6-7 troops to everybodies door. It'd probably be closer to 3-4, but enough guys to stabilize each neighborhood. If something crazy like that were to happen,(God Forbid!) I would have to survive stratigically. Of course, I would hate for our "free" country to get that tyrannical, but to me it looks like that's where we're headed.

Still if it did, I would defend my home, my country and my Constitution. This isn't Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.

But so many people are quick to give up their freedoms, for this false government security.

 

It is tradition, but it is more far reaching than that. It goes hand in hand with a lot of our cultural values. And it has nothing to do with violence for the vast majority of us. It more boils down to the fact we are bred to take care of ourselves. And the vast majority of us don't think carrying weapons is necessary. Hell, I'm licensed to carry and more often than not am not armed. Break into my house or try to jack my car, though, and you're getting blasted. With us, it's more about our right to preserve our own lives and the lives of our family and loved ones.

I've always considered you astute and intelligent, but I just don't understand why anyone would say that. Going by the crime statistics, you guys deal with more forcible crimes than we do. I hope you are never a victim of one of those crimes, but if you were, wouldn't you like to have a gun to stop it? You don't need a gun, right up until someone is trying to kill or inflict great bodily harm on you, kidnap, rob, etc.

See above.

You haven't necessarily imposed your values, however you are applying your European values when analyzing our society. We are in close proximity to central and south America, the largest purveyors of Cocaine in the world. Between drug smuggling, cartels, the war on drugs, open borders, and so on.. things can get chaotic. And regardless of legislation these criminals will be heavily armed. Street level gangs will be heavily armed. To try to "control" the people that are being open and transparent about their firearms makes absolutely no sense in this country.

 

Oh, they are. The current administration and certain members of congress feel that none of us should have guns for any reason. I'm still not 100% certain if it's just some socialist utopian ideal, or something more sinister. But either way, they have already seen what happens when they poke the issue. The highest amount of guns and ammunition sales in history.

I have a friend that lives in Omaha and have heard the stories. Sounds like the northwest quadrant of my city.

 

Probably right. It's amazing to me how people can have such strong opinions about something they have no real exposure or understanding of. To me that is fear based thinking. I mean, Ontario has a ban on freaking pit bulls. The sweetest, most loyal dogs out there are completely outlawed because a minority of worthless humans made some of them mean. Rather than trying to understand the issue people call for bans.

 

Better to go down shooting with a damn lever action .22, than to be a little bitch waving your hands in the air right before you get mowed down or captured and turned into a slave/concentration camp ID #. The people that you are ragging on might just end up saving your punk ass one day, if the worst were to ever happen.

 

Can guns save you from suppression?

It seems to me that many people who have guns come to see them as a way and means of dealing with or ignoring socio-political problems.

Basically they do not see any urgency in dealing with the social or economic roots of crime since they are armed and believe that if a criminal comes for them they will have the means of dealing with them.

And in the same way many believe ‘government’ suppression isn’t possible because they are armed that if the ‘government’ comes for them they have a gun to protect themselves and that enough people have guns that the ‘government’ could be overthrown anyway if it tried to suppress its citizens.

But this doesn’t seem to fit with US history, and here I would like to go into a little more detail and show how the US political establishment colluded in the often systematic and overt repression of what it saw as a political rival to power.

And to show that during this obvious case of state repression the American people did not rise up to champion freedom and democracy in fact most accepted it, many thought it a good thing and others were happy even eager to help in it.

**

Unions that tried to improve the conditions of some of the poorest in society often found themselves the object of state repression from the very beginning. Demands for such things as an eight hour day were ignored or suppressed with force by private police forces, state militias and even the National Guard, there was the suppression of public meetings or free speech, the imprisonment of people without charge, many people including women and children were beaten up and others killed.

Also it was difficult for left wing groups to break into the political mainstream. The Democrats and Republicans have often joined together to exclude other political groups or party’s, since these are in the main right wing in outlook it has meant that the groups most often excluded have been left wing.

(That is why many people in the US don’t vote for what they believe in or want but just to keep out something that they see as worse.)

Against such opposition it is amazing that in 1912 the US Socialist Party had over a thousand elected officials in local government and that Eugene Debs got a million votes in that years presidential race (6 per cent of the vote, the envy of many socialist around the world at the time). It was able to get over thirty Majors into power as many legislators and had large numbers of loyal votes in many urban areas. It was a growing force.

But the repression of trade union groups and left wing political ideas continued.

For opposing WWI Debs was arrested and convicted to ten years in prison, from where he stood for President in 1920 receiving 913,664 votes (Nader got about half that in 2004 and Perot about double in 1992)

Another socialist opponent of the war was also sentence to prison Victor Berger however he did get elected to Congress but was refused entry this caused a re-election that he again won, but he was still refused entry.

In other areas like New York openly socialist representatives to the city and state - who had been democratically elected - were also barred from their posts.

Around this time many states passed laws banning the display of red flags (a communist and socialist emblem) and the federal government set up the General Intelligence Division headed by none other than J. Edger Hoover to monitor (harass) left wing ‘radicals’.

This harassment turned into repression during the late 1930’s with the establishment of the committee for ‘Un-American Activities’. This was set up to root out people whose view didn’t conform to what was thought of as American (basically thought policemen) and what the US political elite that had a grip on the system came to see those with left wing views as un-American.

It began by targeting those that advocated the overthrow of any government in the United States. Now think about that many people here have advocated the overthrow of the US’s government. As I’ve pointed out above it is the justification for many to have guns so they can overthrow the government of the US if ‘needs’ must.

It made it illegal to advocate or teach such ideas or help disseminate them in any way also any group that the government didn’t like could be targeted and forced to give the names and address of its members and the FBI illegally was authorised to tap phones and mail open peoples mail.

This suppression was stepped up after the war, and to give an indication of the mentality of those in charge of the ‘un-American’ purge this is a quote from Albert Canwell who was chair of the California state committee –

“If someone insists there is discrimination against Negroes in this country, or that there is inequality of wealth, there is every reason to believe that person is a communist”

And when the House Committee for Un-American Activities dropped its investigation into the Klu Klux Klan in favour of going after the left wing the committee member John Rankin said that "After all, the KKK is an old American institution."

**


What followed seems very like a move by the American political elite to rid the US of what they saw as a political rival.

A loyalty programme was brought in for all government workers and anyone with left leaning views or associations could lose their job, be sacked for their beliefs.

People could appeal but the evidence against them did not have to be disclosed and accusers did not have to be identified.

Think about that – believing in equal rights or a distributive tax system could get you thrown out of your job?

Later it became even easier to sack someone for having ‘suspect’ (left wing) views, with the criteria for dismissal going from ‘reasonable grounds’ to only having to have ‘reasonable doubts’ about a persons supposed ‘loyalty’ and those that had been cleared under the lower criteria had their case re-opened.

And in 1953 departments were given the power to dismiss individuals without having to conduct any hearing whatsoever on the merest suspicion.

The Progressive Party of the time, which among other things advocated an end to segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health insurance, was branded a ‘communist’ party. Its leader Henry Wallace, along with others advocating such ‘radical’ ideas were then banned from speaking at a number of universities.

The purge spread from the government into other areas most famously the entertainment industry, but also academia were airing ‘communist’ ideas (that in practice meant many left wing ideas) could bring about dismissal and the law where the American Bar Association also brought in a loyalty oath, and lawyers that defended those accused of having un-American ideas could find themselves been accused of the same thing and put under investigation.

At the same time there was a constant stream of anti-communist propaganda but this very often made no distinction between what was ‘evil communist’ and the vast majority of left wing thought. And many Americans even today seem to make little distinction between hard line Stalinism and the wishy washy leftism of say New Labour - it happens frequently on these forums with ‘communist’ been thrown out as an insult and being directed at those with even the most moderate of lift wing views. And on the many right wing websites there are shrill cries whenever anyone says anything that isn’t firmly right of centre, and the kind of attack and slander once directed at commies has now expanded to include ‘liberals’.

**

Many pro-gunners seem to feel they are the final arbiters, the ones that would defend American liberty, uphold the US constitution.

So what were they doing when their fellow citizens rights were been curtailed in such open fashion and the Constitution trashed?

As establishments know if they want to go after a people, religion or political group they first have to demonize it and or make it seem threatening.


This can be done for many reasons to scapegoat, blaming a particular group or race for the woes of the majority as happened with the Jews and Bolsheviks in 1930’s Germany, or it can be directed at whose that are seen as political rivals.

The Nazi propaganda films showing Jews as rats seem crude today but the principles are the same as the anti-communist films made in the US.

(And with every threat or policy the villains change, Columbian drug dealers to accompany the ‘war on drugs’ and Arab terrorists to accompany a pro-Israeli foreign policy).
The thing was that many people at that time (as now) who were pro-gun were also right leaning politically and were therefore not seen as a threat by the political establishment but rather as an ally.

The thing is are they still?

If they are I think the establishment will continue to stand by them.

But if they stop being seen as allies or the establishment believes it has other means of control they will turn on the gun owners. I think many pro-gunners realize this and feel the threat.

Now many are going to cry ‘YES that’s why we need guns’ but what I’m trying to point out is that those guns are unlikely to save them.

Because once the government - which the establishment is happy with - is threatened the thing threatening it is put under pressure. Look at what happened to the anti-government citizen militias after the Oklahoma bombing opened up an opportunity to move against them (and how they briefly became the villains in a number of films).

The problem is that I think many pro-gunners believe the guns will protect them and so do very little (if anything) to actually counter the establishment.

That could be done politically but only if they were willing to ditch the views that help the establishment to stay in power and realign the political system so that it is not a threat to its people.

 

Wow, you are clueless.

First off, communist and socialist idealists are fucking pussies that are generally too lazy and too passive to do something about anything (except talk).

Second, the constitution doesn't give us some kind of permission to overthrow the gov't and form a communist state. The "pro-gunners" are interested in preserving our traditions which includes a capitalist system.

 

And let me reiterate - I do not expect that my guns will save me in such an event, when you are talking about going up against military force being used against it's own citizens.

BUT I WILL GLADLY DIE FIGHTING FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IN AT THAT POINT!!

Does "give me liberty, or give me death" ring a fucking bell with any of you?

 

Deviate

Thank you, oh thank you, I mean you are a great example of what I’m highlighting and back up many of my theories.



*

 

Yet again, Balbus, you are completely off the mark when it comes to America and Americans. I believe this has to do with your own, obvious political bias.

The issues and acts of repression you brought forward (all of which happened over 50 years ago, I might add) were addressed through legislation. I have not met a single "pro-gunner", as you term them, who believe peaceful means of change should be bypassed if those means do exist

On top of that, America is diverse politically as it is demographically (for better or worse). With that in mind, everyone has their own red lines, so to speak. Sometimes those red lines are shared among many. Sometimes they aren't. In the end, it is never as black and white as you paint it. Many are unwilling to fight, and possibly die, for a cause they don't believe in.

 

deviate

You put it very well: 'It is tradition, but it is more far reaching than that. It goes hand in hand with a lot of our cultural values.'
You also have it as part of your constitution - albeit an interpretation (but we've been over that, I guess).
I do understand - you may not think so - but I do.
Some Americans possibly do have more of a legitimate reason to carry guns than we do here.
Our ancestors may have had more of a legitimate reason to carry weapons - but we don't anymore.
I think a majority of Americans don't have a legitimate reason to carry guns anymore.
But traditions/culture etc are hard thing to dispense of.
'America' isn't particular old - so I can understand why it remains part of you identity (for want of a better word).
I don't know if America had the same restrictions on guns (as we do here) it would solve the issues surrounding the high murder rate due to guns.
I don't know if in the short term your traditions/culture will change.
It doesn't appear so.
I just wish more Americans would look at their own circumstances, and likelihood of actually needing a gun - rather than having one because of the constitution/tradition/culture etc.
I do understand a lot of American are more into looking after themselves and their family - rather than rely on the state: Healthcare being the big one.
And that is the root cause of a lot of the issues in America, imho.

I hear this a lot.
We have 'car-jacking' and burglary here too, obviously.
That goes on everywhere, obviously.
My reaction would not be to go out and buy a gun, and blast somebody who was stealing my car - that's what insurance is for.
My reaction to an increase in burglary rates would be to secure my home more, and buy an alarm system - maybe set up a neighbourhood watch scheme. Boring? Possibly.



Something is obviously very different in America.

I'm not sure which crime figures you're looking at...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/14/crime-statistics-england-wales
It is hard for me to know what my mentality would be as I've never had to deal with that type of crime.
I think most people here have a similar attitude to guns as I do - which includes the criminals too.
So that's possibly why there isn't many cases of car-jackers being blasted or burglars being blasted, either.
Even gangs that try and copy American gangs wouldn't necessarily all be carrying guns. The well is very dry.

I do appreciate near the borders and in deprived areas where gangs carry guns and shoot anything they don't like the look of - it would possibly more advisable to be a little more protected than a burglar alarm.
But people have the same lever of reasoning in the safe parts of America, too - which I just don't understand.

I agree. But then again how do you stop homeowners going out of their way to confront a burglar or a person stealing a car being shot dead?

I think a big problem with America is that it doesn't do anything by halves.
Everything is ramped up to level 11.
I know this might be a generalisation - but that's what I think.
You all need to calm down. Is that patronising?

 

A bit, yes. I am not near deviate in terms of the "STAY THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN" mentality. I've been trained, and raised, differently. Though, to be honest, I doubt deviate will open fire with his weapons without thinking twice. It has been my experience that the vast majority of gun owners in this country are very level headed. I am inclined to count him among that majority. I could be wrong though. There are whack jobs out there.

 

Not patronizing, just correct.

 

Sig

Ah the man that doesn’t like to answer questions, debate or present rational argument but instead likes to tell me I’m wrong because he thinks I’m wrong.

Thing is that I’m not saying I’m right I’m presenting theories if you actually have counter arguments please present them.

Anyway -

It seems to me that they ‘addressed’ only after they had basically done there job of purging the system (it was going from the 20’s to the 60’s). I mean a lot of it was not the actual ‘repression’ but putting in place influence backed up with propaganda backed up by the ‘repression’ after a certain point the when influence was in place, propaganda is enough, and the actual ‘repression’ is not needed (until something similar is needed again).

LOL yet you famously have what is basically a two party system made up of two parties that as groups lean to the right (centre right and further to the right).