Illustration: Bracken’s CW2 Cube; click to enlarge
From Matt Bracken:
In response to recent articles in mainstream military journals discussing the use of the U.S. Army to quell insurrections on American soil, I offer an alternate vision of the future. Instead of a small town in the South as the flash point, picture instead a score of U.S. cities in the thrall of riots greater than those experienced in Los Angeles in 1965 (Watts), multiple cities in 1968 (MLK assassination), and Los Angeles again in 1992 (Rodney King). New Yorkers can imagine the 1977 blackout looting or the 1991 Crown Heights disturbance. In fact, the proximate spark of the next round of major riots in America could be any from a long list cribbed from our history.
We have seen them all before, and we shall see them all again as history rhymes along regardless of the century or the generation of humankind nominally in control of events. But the next time we are visited by widespread, large-scale urban riots, a dangerous new escalation may be triggered by a fresh vulnerability: It’s estimated that the average American home has less than two weeks of food on hand. In poor minority areas, it may be much less. What if a cascading economic crisis, even a temporary one, leads to millions of EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards flashing nothing but ERROR? This could also be the result of deliberate sabotage by hackers, or other technical system failures. Alternatively, the government might pump endless digits into the cards in a hopeless attempt to outpace future hyperinflation. The government can order the supermarkets to honor the cards, and it can even set price controls, but history’s verdict is clear: If suppliers are paid only with worthless scrip or blinking digits, the food will stop.
STEP ONE: FLASH MOB LOOTING
In my scenario, the initial riots begin spontaneously across affected urban areas, as SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program) and other government welfare recipients learn that their EBT cards no longer function. This sudden revelation will cause widespread anger, which will quickly lead to the flash-mob looting of local supermarkets and other businesses. The media will initially portray these “food riots” as at least partly justifiable. Sadly, millions of Americans have been made largely, or even entirely, dependent on government wealth transfer payments to put food on their tables.
A new social contract has been created, where bread and circuses buy a measure of peace in our minority-populated urban zones. In the era of ubiquitous big-screen cable television, the internet and smart phones, the circus part of the equation is never in doubt as long as the electricity flows. But the bread is highly problematic. Food must be delivered the old-fashioned way: physically. Any disruption in the normal functioning of the EBT system will lead to food riots with a speed that is astonishing. This will inevitably happen when our unsustainable, debt-fueled binge party finally stops, and the music is over. Now that the delivery of free or heavily subsidized food is perceived by tens of millions of Americans to be a basic human right, the cutoff of “their” food money will cause an immediate explosion of rage. When the hunger begins to bite, supermarkets, shops and restaurants will be looted, and initially the media will not condemn the looting. Unfortunately, this initial violence will only be the start of a dangerous escalation.
The ransacked supermarkets, convenience stores, ATMs and gas stations will not be restocked during this period due to the precarious security situation. A single truck loaded with food or gasoline would be perceived to be a Fort Knox on wheels and subject to immediate attack unless heavily protected by powerfully armed security forces, but such forces will not be available during this chaotic period. Under those conditions, resupply to the urban areas cannot and will not take place. The downward spiral of social and economic dysfunction will therefore both accelerate and spread from city to city. These delays, in turn, will lead to more riots with the constant underlying demand that hungry people be fed, one way or another.
Catch-22, anyone? When these demands do not bring the desired outcome, the participants will ratchet up the violence, hoping to force action by the feckless state and national governments.
The “food riots” will be a grass-roots movement of the moment born out of hunger and desperation. It will not be dependent upon leaders or an underlying organization, although they could certainly add to the sauce. Existing cell phone technology provides all the organization a flash mob needs. Most of the mobs will consist of minority urban youths, termed MUYs in the rest of this essay. Which minority doesn’t matter; each urban locale will come with its own unique multi-ethnic dynamic.
Some locales will divide upon religious or political lines, but they will not be the dominant factors contributing to conflict. In the American context, the divisions will primarily have an ethnic or racial context, largely because that makes it easy to sort out the sides at a safe distance. No need to check religious or political affiliation at a hundred yards when The Other is of a different color.
We Americans are all about doing things the easy way, so, sadly, visible racial and ethnic features will form the predominant lines of division.
Would that it were not so, but reality is reality, even when it’s is a bitch.
Especially then.
NEXT STEP: FLASH MOB RIOTS
In order to highlight their grievances and escalate their demands for an immediate resumption of government benefits, the MUY flash mobs will next move their activities to the borders of their ethnic enclaves. They will concentrate on major intersections and highway interchanges where non-MUY suburban commuters must make daily passage to and from what forms of employment still exist. People making a living will still be using those roads to get to where they earn their daily bread.
The results of these clashes will frequently resemble the intersection of Florence and Normandie during the Rodney King riots in 1992, where Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck’s cab and beaten nearly to death with a cinder block. If you don’t remember it, watch it on Youtube. Then imagine that scene with the mob-making accelerant of texting and other social media technology added to stoke the fires. Instead of a few dozen thugs terrorizing the ambushed intersections, in minutes there will be hundreds.
Rioters will throw debris such as shopping carts and trash cans into the intersection, causing the more timid drivers to pause. The mobs will swarm the lines of trapped cars once they have stopped. Traffic will be forced into gridlock for blocks in all directions. Drivers and passengers of the wrong ethnic persuasions will be pulled from their vehicles to be beaten, robbed, and in some cases raped and/or killed. It will be hyper-violent and overtly racial mob behavior, on a massive and undeniable basis.
Some of those trapped in their cars will try to drive out of the area, inevitably knocking down MUY pedestrians and being trapped by even more outraged MUYs. The commuters will be dragged out of their cars and kicked or beaten to death. Other suburban commuters will try to shoot their way out of the lines of stopped cars, and they will meet the same grim fate once they run out of bullets and room to escape.
The mob will be armed with everything from knives, clubs and pistols to AK-47s. A bloodbath will result. These unlucky drivers and their passengers will suffer horribly, and some of their deaths will be captured on traffic web cameras. Later, these terrible scenes will be released or leaked by sympathetic government insiders and shown by the alternative media, which continue to expand as the traditional media become increasingly irrelevant.
Implausible, you insist?
This grim tableau is my analysis of age-old human behavior patterns, adding flash mobs and 2012 levels of racial anger to the old recipe. Early-teenage MUYs today are frequently playing “The Knockout Game” on full bellies, just for kicks, and proudly uploading the videos. They and their older peers can be expected to do far worse when hunger and the fear of starvation enter their physical, mental, and emotional equations. The blame for their hunger will be turned outward against the greater society, and will be vented at first hand against any non-MUY who falls into their grasp while they are in the thrall of mob hysteria. These episodes of mass psychology we will refer to as “flash mob riots”, “wilding”, or some other new name.
THE OFFICIAL POLICE RESPONSE TO FLASH MOB RIOTS
To gear up for even a single “Florence and Normandie on steroids” flash mob street riot, city police departments will require an hour or longer to stage their SWAT teams and riot squads in position to react. Ordinary patrol cars in small numbers will not venture anywhere near such roiling masses of hysterical rioters, not even to perform rescues. Those citizens trapped in their cars cannot expect timely assistance from local or state authorities.
Even in the first days of widespread riots, when the police forces are well rested, it might take several hours to mount a response sufficient to quell the disturbance and restore order to even one major street intersection riot. In the meantime, scores of innocent commuters will have been attacked, with many of them injured or killed and left at the scene. It will be a law enforcement nightmare to quell the disturbance, mop up lingering rioters, restore security, and bring medical attention to the living and get medical examiners to the dead. And each jurisdiction will face potentially dozens of such scenes, thanks to the ability for MUYs to cross-communicate at will using their wireless devices.
The far more difficult challenge for the police is that by the time they are suited in riot gear, armed and geared up to sweep the intersection, it will probably be empty of rioters. The police, with their major riot squad reaction times measured in hours, will be fighting flash mobs that materialize, cause mayhem, and evaporate in only fractions of hours. This rapid cycle time is a clear lesson taken from massive riots by immigrant French Muslim MUYs in their own religious enclaves and bordering areas.
The American flash mob riot will exist almost entirely inside the law enforcement OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop. In other words, the rioters will have a much quicker reaction time than the police. Until fairly recently, superior police communications meant that they could use their radio networks as a force multiplier. With their networking advantage and cohesive reactions both within a department and among cooperating local agencies, police could act as shepherds guiding or dispersing a wayward stampeding flock.
Today, the mob has the greater advantage, immediately spreading word of every police preparation by text and Tweet, even in advance of the police movement. Attempts by the authorities to stop the flash mobs by blocking and jamming wireless transmissions will have limited success.
It is at this point that the situation spirals out of control.
The enraged mobs in urban America will soon recognize that their spontaneous street riots cannot be stopped by the police, and then they will grow truly fearsome. For the police, it will be a losing game of Whack-a-Mole, with riots breaking out and dispersing at a speed they cannot hope to match. The violence will spread to previously unaffected cities as an awareness of law enforcement impotence is spread by television and social media. After a few days, the police forces will be exhausted and demoralized. As the violence intensifies and spreads, and in the absence of any viable security arrangements, supermarkets and other stores will not be restocked, leaving the MUYs even more desperate and angry than before. The increasing desperation born of worsening hunger will refuel the escalating spiral of violence.
Nor will violent conflict be only between the inhabitants of the urban areas and the suburbs. The international record of conflict in tri-ethnic cities is grim, making the old bi-racial dichotomy formerly seen in America seem stable by comparison. In tri-ethnic cities the perceived balance of power is constantly shifting, with each side in turn feeling outnumbered and outmuscled. Temporary truces, betrayals and new alliances follow in rapid succession, removing any lingering sense of social cohesion.
The former Yugoslavia, with its Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim divisions, comes starkly to mind. The Lebanese Civil War between the Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze raged across Beirut (at one time known as “The Paris of the Middle East”) for fifteen brutal years. Once a city turns on itself and becomes a runaway engine of self-destruction, it can be difficult to impossible to switch off the process and return to normal pre-conflict life. It’s not inconceivable that the United States could produce a dozen Sarajevos or Beiruts, primarily across racial instead of religious divides.
Vehicle traffic by non-minority suburban commuters through adjoining minority areas will virtually halt, wrecking what is left of the local economy. Businesses will not open because employees will not be able to travel to work safely. Businesses in minority areas, needless to say, will be looted. “Gentrified” enclaves of affluent suburbanites within or near the urban zones will suffer repeated attacks, until their inhabitants flee.
Radically disaffected minorities will hold critical infrastructure corridors through their areas hostage against the greater society. Highways, railroad tracks, pipe and power lines will all be under constant threat, or may be cut in planned or unplanned acts of raging against “the system.” As long as security in the urban areas cannot be restored, these corridors will be under threat. Even airports will not be immune. Many of them have been absorbed into urban areas, and aircraft will come under sporadic fire while taking off and landing.
In the absence of fresh targets of value blundering into their areas, and still out of food, MUYs will begin to forage beyond their desolated home neighborhoods and into suburban borderlands. “Safe” supermarkets and other stores will be robbed in brazen commando-like gang attacks. Carjackings and home invasions will proliferate madly. As I have discussed in my essay “The Civil War Two Cube,” so-called “transitional” and mixed-ethnic areas will suffer the worst violence. These neighborhoods will become utterly chaotic killing zones, with little or no help coming from the overstretched police, who will be trying to rest up for their next shift on riot squad duty, if they have not already deserted their posts to take care of their own families.
THE SUBURBAN ARMED VIGILANTE RESPONSE
In the absence of an effective official police response to the exploding levels of violence, suburbanites will first hastily form self-defense forces to guard their neighborhoods—especially ones located near ethnic borders. These ubiquitous neighborhood armed defense teams will often have a deep and talented bench from which to select members, and they will not lack for volunteers.
Since 9-11, hundreds of thousands of young men (and more than a few women) have acquired graduate-level educations in various aspects of urban warfare. In the Middle East these troops were frequently tasked with restoring order to urban areas exploding in internecine strife. Today these former military men and women understand better than anyone the life-or-death difference between being armed and organized versus unarmed and disorganized.
Hundreds of thousands if not millions of veterans currently own rifles strikingly similar to those they carried in the armed forces, lacking only the full-automatic selector switch. Their brothers, sisters, parents, friends, and neighbors who did not serve in the military are often just as familiar with the weapons, if not the tactics. Today the AR-pattern rifle (the semi-automatic civilian version of the familiar full-auto-capable M-16 or M-4) is the most popular model of rifle in America, with millions sold in the past decade. Virtually all of them produced in the past decade have abandoned the old M-16’s signature “carrying handle” rear iron sight for a standardized sight mounting rail, meaning that virtually every AR sold today can be easily equipped with an efficient optical sight. Firing the high-velocity 5.56×45 mm cartridge and mounted with a four-power tactical sight, a typical AR rifle can shoot two-inch groups at one hundred yards when fired from a steady bench rest. That translates to shooting eight- to ten-inch groups at four hundred yards.
Four hundred yards is a long walk. Pace it off on a straight road, and observe how tiny somebody appears at that distance. Yet a typical AR rifle, like those currently owned by millions of American citizens, can hit a man-sized target at that range very easily, given a stable firing platform and a moderate level of shooting ability.
And there are a far greater number of scoped bolt-action hunting rifles in private hands in the United States. Keep this number in mind: based on deer stamps sold, approximately twenty million Americans venture into the woods every fall armed with such rifles, fully intending to shoot and kill a two-hundred-pound mammal. Millions of these scoped bolt-action deer rifles are quite capable of hitting a man-sized target at ranges out to and even beyond a thousand yards, or nearly three-fifths of a mile. In that context, the 500-yard effective range of the average semi-auto AR-pattern rifle is not at all remarkable.
So, we have millions of men and women with military training, owning rifles similar to the ones they used in combat operations overseas from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Many of these Soldiers and Marines have special operations training. They are former warriors with experience at conducting irregular warfare and counter-terrorism operations in dangerous urban environments. They are the opposite of unthinking robots: their greatest military talent is looking outside the box for new solutions. They always seek to “over-match” their enemies, using their own advantages as force multipliers while diminishing or concealing their weaknesses. These military veterans are also ready, willing and able to pass on their experience and training to interested students in their civilian circles.
Let’s return to our hypothetical Florence and Normandie intersection, but this time with hundreds of rioters per city block, instead of mere dozens. Among the mobs are thugs armed with pistols and perhaps even AK-47s equipped with standard iron sights, and except in rare cases, these rifles have never been “zeroed in” on a target range. In other words, past a medium distance of fifty to a hundred yards, these MUY shooters will have little idea where their fired bullets will strike—nor will they care. Typically, most of the rioters armed with a pistol, shotgun or an iron-sighted rifle could not hit a mailbox at a hundred yards unless by luck. Inside that distance, any non-MUY could be at immediate risk of brutal death at the hands of an enraged mob, but beyond that range, the mob will pose much less danger.
Taking this imbalance in effective ranges of the firearms most likely to be available to both sides, certain tactical responses are sure to arise, and ranking near the top will be the one described next.
THE SNIPER AMBUSH: THE NEW TACTIC OF CHOICE
The sniper ambush will predictably be used as a counter to rampaging mobs armed only with short- to medium-range weapons. This extremely deadly trick was developed by our war fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, taking advantage of the significant effective range and firepower of our scoped 5.56mm rifles. Tactics such as the sniper ambush may not be seen early in the civil disorder, but they will surely arise after a steady progression of atrocities attributed to rampaging MUYs.
Street intersection flash mob riots will not be the only type of violence exploding during periods of civil disorder. As mentioned earlier, the number and ferocity of home invasions will skyrocket, and they will be very hard to defend against. Neighborhood self-defense forces will be able to protect a group of homes if they are located on cul-de-sacs or in defensible subdivisions with limited entrances, turning them overnight into fortified gated communities. Individual homes and apartment buildings located in open grid-pattern neighborhoods with outside access from many directions will be much more difficult to defend, and the home invasions will continue.
Carjacking and other forms of armed robbery will proliferate to previously unimagined levels, leading to a total loss of confidence in the government’s ability to provide security across all social lines. Stray bullets striking pedestrians or penetrating houses will take a frightening toll, even in areas previously considered to be safe. The police will be exhausted by constant riot-squad duty, and will not even respond to reports of mere individual acts of violent criminality. They will simply be overwhelmed, and will be forced to triage their responses. The wealthy, powerful and politically well-connected will demand the lion’s share of remaining police resources, further diminishing the safety of average Americans.
In that context, neighborhood self-defense forces will form the nucleus of the armed vigilante direct action groups which will spring up next in the progression. Suburban anger will continue to build against the MUYs, who are perceived to be the originators of the home invasions and gang-level armed looting raids. Survivors of street ambushes, carjackings and home invasions will tell blood-curdling tales and show horrific scars.
The neighborhood defense teams will evolve into proactive suburban armed vigilante groups (SAVs) out of a desire to preemptively take the violence to their perceived enemies, instead of passively waiting for the next home invasion or carjacking. The SAV teams will consist of the more aggressive and gung-ho members of the self-defense forces, who met and compared notes. Often they will be young men with recent combat experience in the armed forces, who will apply their military training to the new situation. Major intersections and highway interchanges where ambush riots have previously occurred will be among the SAV targets. The SAV reaction times will be measured in minutes, compared to the hours required by major police department SWAT teams and riot squads.
A SAMPLE SNIPER AMBUSH SCENARIO
When word is received that a flash mob is forming at one of their pre-reconnoitered intersections or highway interchanges, the SAV team will assemble. Sometimes cooperating police will pass tactical intel to their civilian friends on the outside. Some clever individuals will have exploited their technical know-how and military experience to build real-time intel collection tools, such as private UAVs. Police will have access to urban security camera footage showing MUYs moving barricade materials into position—a normal prerequisite to a flash mob riot intended to stop traffic. Tip-offs to the vigilantes will be common, and where the networks are still functioning, citizens may still be able to access some video feeds. Sometimes, police will even join the SAV teams, incognito and off-duty, blurring the teams into so-called “death squads.”
The operation I will describe (and it’s only one of dozens that will be tried) uses two ordinary pickup trucks and eight fighters. Two riflemen are lying prone in the back of each truck, facing rearward, with removable canvas covers concealing their presence. Their semi-automatic, scoped rifles are supported at their front ends on bipods for very accurate shooting. A row of protective sandbags a foot high is between them and the raised tailgate.
In the cab are a driver and a spotter in the passenger seat who also serves as the vehicle’s 360-degree security. The two trucks don’t ever appear on the same stretch of road, but coordinate their movements using one-word brevity codes over small FRS walkie-talkie radios. Each truck has a series of predetermined elevated locations where the intersection in question will lie between 200 and 500 yards away. Each truck is totally nondescript and forgettable, the only detail perhaps being the non-MUY ethnicity of the suburbanite driver and spotter driving relatively near to a riot in progress.
By the time the two SAV pickup trucks arrive at their firing positions on different streets and oriented ninety degrees to one another, the flash mob riot is in full swing. A hundred or more of the rampaging youths are posturing and throwing debris into traffic in order to intimidate some cars into stopping. The riflemen in the backs of the pickups are waiting for this moment and know what to expect, trusting their spotters and drivers to give them a good firing lane. The spotters in each truck issue a code word on their radios when they are in final position. The tailgates are swung down, and the leader among the riflemen initiates the firing. All-around security is provided by the driver and spotter.
Lying prone and using their bipods for support, the shooters have five to ten degrees of pan or traverse across the entire intersection. Individual rioters are clearly visible in the shooters’ magnified optical scopes. Each of the four snipers has a plan to shoot from the outside of the mob toward the middle, driving participants into a panicked mass. The left-side shooters start on the left side and work to the middle, engaging targets with rapid fire, about one aimed shot per two seconds. Since the two trucks are set at ninety degrees to one another, very complete coverage will be obtained, even among and between the stopped vehicles.
The result is a turkey shoot. One magazine of thirty aimed shots per rifle is expended in under a minute, a coded cease-fire is called on the walkie-talkies, and the trucks drive away at the speed limit. The canvas covering the truck beds contains the shooters’ spent brass. If the trucks are attacked from medium or close range, the canvas can be thrown back and the two snipers with their semi-automatic rifles or carbines will add their firepower to that of the driver and spotter.
Back at the intersection, complete panic breaks out among the rioters as a great number of bullets have landed in human flesh. Over a score have been killed outright, and many more scream in pain for medical attention they will not receive in time. The sniper ambush stops the flash mob cold in its tracks as the uninjured flee in terror, leaving their erstwhile comrades back on the ground bleeding. The commuters trapped in their vehicles may have an opportunity to escape.
This type of sniper ambush and a hundred variations on the theme will finally accomplish what the police could not: put an end to mobs of violent rioters making the cities through-streets and highways impassible killing zones. Would-be rioters will soon understand it to be suicidal to cluster in easily visible groups and engage in mob violence, as the immediate response could come at any time in the form of aimed fire from hundreds of yards away. Even one rifleman with a scoped semi-auto can break up a medium-sized riot.
Many citizens will take to carrying rifles and carbines in their vehicles, along with their pistols, so that if their cars are trapped in an ambush they will have a chance to fight their way out. If their vehicle is stopped outside the immediate area of the flash mob, they will be able to direct accurate fire at the rioters from a few hundred yards away. Inside the fatal hundred-yard radius, unlucky suburbanite drivers and passengers pulled from their cars will still be brutally violated, but the occurrences of large mob-driven street ambushes will be much less frequent once long-range retaliation becomes a frequent expectation.
THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO VIGILANTISM
Where they will be unable to respond swiftly or effectively to the outbreaks of street riots by MUY flash mobs, the police and federal agents will respond vigorously to the deadly but smaller vigilante attacks. These sniper ambushes and other SAV attacks will be called acts of domestic terrorism and mass murder by government officials and the mainstream media. A nearly seamless web of urban and suburban street cameras will reveal some of the SAV teams by their vehicles, facial recognition programs, and other technical means. Some early arrests will be made, but the vigilantes will adapt to increasing law enforcement pressure against them by becoming cleverer about their camouflage, most often using stolen cars and false uniforms and masks during their direct-action missions. Observe Mexico today for ideas on how this type of dirty war is fought.
Eventually, the U.S. Army itself might be called upon to put out all the social firestorms in our cities, restore order and security, pacify the angry masses, feed the starving millions, get vital infrastructure operating again, and do it all at once in a dozen American Beiruts, Sarajevos and Mogadishus.
Good luck to them, I say.
A few hundred “Active IRA” tied down thousands of British troops in one corner of a small island for decades. The same ratios have served the Taliban well over the past decade while fighting against the combined might of NATO. Set aside for a moment the angry starving millions trapped in the urban areas, and the dire security issues arising thereof. Just to consider the official reaction to vigilantism separately, it’s unlikely that any conceivable combinations of local and state police, federal law enforcement, National Guard or active-duty Army actions could neutralize or eliminate tens of thousands of former special operations troops intent on providing their own form of security. Millions of Americans are already far better armed and trained than a few hundred IRA or Taliban ever were. And the police and Army would not be operating from secure fire bases, their families living in total safety thousands of miles away in a secure rear area. In this scenario, there is no rear area, and every family member, anywhere, would be at perpetual risk of reprisal actions by any of the warring sides.
In this hyper-dangerous environment, new laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in vehicles would be ignored as the illegitimate diktat of dictatorship, just when the Second Amendment is needed more than ever. Police or military conducting searches for firearms at checkpoints would themselves become targets of vigilante snipers. Serving on anti-firearms duty would be seen as nothing but pure treason by millions of Americans who took the oath to defend the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Politicians who did not act in the security interest of their local constituents as a result of political correctness or other reasons would also be targeted.
A festering race war with police and the military in the middle taking fire from both sides could last for many years, turning many American cities into a living hell. Remember history: when the British Army landed in Northern Ireland in 1969, they were greeted with flowers and applause from the Catholics. The Tommys were welcomed as peacekeepers who would protect them from Protestant violence. That soon changed. Likewise with our tragic misadventure in Lebanon back in 1982 and 1983. Well-intended referees often find themselves taking fire from all sides. It’s as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise. Why would it be any different when the U.S. Army is sent to Los Angeles, Chicago or Philadelphia to break apart warring ethnic factions?
For a long time after these events, it will be impossible for the warring ethnic groups to live together or even to mingle peacefully. Too much rage and hatred will have been built up on all sides of our many American multi-ethnic fault lines. The new wounds will be raw and painful for many years to come, as they were in the South for long after the Civil War. The fracturing of the urban areas, divided by no-man’s-lands, will also hinder economic redevelopment for many years because the critical infrastructure corridors will remain insecure.
Eventually, high concrete “Peace Walls” like those in Belfast, Northern Ireland, will be installed where the different ethnic groups live in close proximity. That is, if recovery to sane and civilized norms of behavior are ever regained in our lifetimes and we don’t slide into a new Dark Age, a stern and permanent tyranny, warlordism, anarchy, or any other dire outcome.
Dark Ages can last for centuries, after sinking civilizations in a vicious, downward vortex. “When the music’s over, turn out the lights,” to quote Jim Morrison of The Doors. Sometimes the lights stay out for a long time. Sometimes civilization itself is lost. Millions of EBT cards flashing zeroes might be the signal event of a terrible transformation.
It is a frightening thing to crystallize the possible outbreak of mass starvation and racial warfare into words, so that the mind is forced to confront agonizingly painful scenarios. It is much easier to avert one’s eyes and mind from the ugliness with politically correct Kumbaya bromides. In this grim essay, I am describing a brutal situation of ethnic civil war not differing much from the worst scenes from recent history in Rwanda, South Africa, Mexico, Bosnia, Iraq, and many other places that have experienced varying types and degrees of societal collapse. We all deplore the conditions that might drive us toward such a hellish outcome, and we should work unceasingly to return America to the path of true brotherhood, peace and prosperity. Race hustlers of every stripe should be condemned.
Most of us wish we could turn back the calendar to Norman Rockwell’s America. But we cannot, for that America is water long over the dam and gone from our sight, if not from our memories. John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” If that is true, judging by current and even accelerating cultural shifts, we might already have passed the point of no return.
The prudent American will trim his sails accordingly.
Matt Bracken is the author of “When The Music Stops” and other essays in The Bracken Anthology, the Enemies Foreign And Domestic trilogy, and his latest novel, Castigo Cay.
Editor’s Note – 0900 EDT 14 SEPT 2012: Per Matt’s request, the second paragraph has been edited slightly to reflect the more probable government actions regarding EBT cards.
Editor’s Note – 0210 EDT 16 SEPT 2012: I have taken the liberty of taking Matt’s note below, originally posted at the end of “Coup”, and placing it here so that new readers would learn of that related essay.
Author’s Note: This essay and last week’s “What I Saw At The Coup” were both written in response to the article published on July 25, 2012 in the semi-official Small Wars Journal titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A Vision of the Future.”
My twin essays represent starkly different “visions of the future” that would-be tyrants, their hopeful henchmen and other self-deluded nimrods may want to consider, before ordering the U.S. military or federal agencies to suppress Americans.
Category: Anti Civil Rights ideas & “Friends”
Mark Kelly and GabbyGiffords look on approvingly as Ilhan Omar explains how Americans can be made just as helpless and dependent on others as the people she left behind when her family fled murderous factions in Somalia. (Ilhan Omar for Congress Facebook photo)
U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Ilhan Omar will be sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives at a time when liberal-leaning newcomers like her are pushing for more influence in shaping the party’s agenda,” the Star Tribune reports. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, “the largest voting bloc among House Democrats,” is turning up the pressure to wield more power and advance its agenda via committee assignments.
That should surprise no one. For all its phony egalitarian posturing, the overtly socialist wing of the Democrat party rejects the ultimate political power-sharing that can only be possible with an armed citizenry. As such, they embrace gun bans and due process-denying prior restraints. And that’s just what they admit to.
They have close ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, the domestic arm of Socialist International, which doesn’t reveal all of its cards, either. Case in point, they’d just as soon you not see their songs of solidarity (now only available via the Internet Archive) that include such inclusive lyrics as:
And when the revolution comes,
We’ll kill you all with knives and guns
So it’s also no surprise that “gun control legislation” is a priority for Omar. The Founders considered a citizen militia to be the one thing “necessary to the security of a free State.” She wants to render those citizens disarmed and thus incapable.
Some might find that curious considering Omar and her family were admitted to this country as refugees from Somalia. Rather than embracing the freedom that made America a place to run to, she’s intent on reshaping the Republic into something alien where all one can do against murderous factions is flee from them or die.
And she’s allegedly not above playing fast and loose with the rules to make the changes happen. Still unresolved are accusations of “using state resources and state staff time to conduct her private business activities” and reports of bigamy (with her brother) and immigration fraud, which she refuses to discuss and tries to dismiss by accusing those calling for answers of being racists and anti-Islamic.
Omar has been able to exploit manipulated demographic changes to obtain political power and thus puts a face on the ideological and cultural transformation that will ultimately prove to be the greatest threat against gun owner rights. Most in the “gun community leadership” ignore that and some even deny that observation, but none will present verifiable facts to refute it.
It’s not bigotry or xenophobia to observe that importing dependent populations with foreign political beliefs and making them “voting citizens” benefits disarmament-demanding political factions. It’s also self-evident that the Founders intended the Constitution “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” with all that implies about who gets admitted and what the expectations for them should be.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regular featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
In the wake of the 2018 mid-term elections, so-called “gun control” is back in the news. Even though the murder rate in the United States is declining and at a 33-year low, the mass media’s much-heralded “threat of gun violence” has politicians in a frenzy much like those seen in 1968 and 1994. Gun control laws and decrees should be called out for what they really are: Systematic Civilian Disarmament.
In Western nations, most such legislation usually starts small, progressing from registration to wholesale confiscation. First one category of weapons is banned, and then another. Gradually, these draconian laws can ramp up to the point where most citizens can’t even possess air rifles and crossbows. To understand the origins of these laws, we need to examine both some psychology and some history.
INHERENT COMPULSIONS
There is a distinct psychology of humans who gain positions of power. They almost immediately develop a “we/they” outlook on life that can eventually develop into narcissism and paranoia. This is most pronounced in dictators, but even petty bureaucrats display the same sinful tendencies:
- The desire to consolidate and accumulate more power. (In its extreme, totalitarianism and megalomania.)
- Fear and dislike of competitors to their power.
- A tendency toward corruption and nepotism. (Typically, as a means to consolidate power in an inner circle.)
- Belief that laws only apply to “little people.”
- A compulsion toward a monopoly of force, that necessitates arming the “we” whilst disarming the “they.”
With that sadly almost universal psychological makeup in mind, let’s move on to some historical examples of governors and governments that have felt compelled to disarm those they rule.
They leave arms only in the hands of those that they trust. (These trusted folks are usually called “comrades” (cronies), “bodyguards”, “trained police”, “military professionals”, and “loyal cadres.”)
Many people mistakenly believe that systematic civilian disarmament was an invention of the 20th Century. Here in America, gun restrictions actually got a very early start. The first General Assembly of Virginia met in Jamestown in 1619. There, the settlers enacted more than 30 laws to govern the fledgling colony.
One of these laws was a monopoly of force provision that included this wording : “…[t]hat no man do sell or give any Indians any piece, shot, or powder, or any other arms offensive or defensive, upon pain of being held a traitor to the colony and of being hanged as soon as the fact is proved…” Yes, they had the death penalty for selling a firearm or ammunition to an Indian!
Gun laws were not systematic, widespread, and applicable to the general citizenry until after the Civil War.
It was in the late 1860s that such laws got their start at the state level. In this Reconstruction period in the former Confederate States, state governments sought to keep freed slaves from asserting their rights.
These were the first states to systematically ban carrying concealed knives or handguns. Not surprisingly, those inherently racist laws were only selectively enforced, based on skin tone.
THREE MILLENNIA OF DISARMAMENT
But to back up even more… If we dig in to historical texts, we can see that organized efforts to disarms civilians have been going on for at least three millennia.
In the Bible we read an early account of civilian disarmament in the book of 1st Samuel, where it describes a successful effort by Philistine governors to disarm the Israelites. This was at about the same time that Saul was anointed as Israel’s first king (in 1026 BC):
“Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears:
But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his [plow]share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock.
Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads.
So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found.” – 1Sam. 13:19-22 (KJV)
Later, the Israelites were systematically disarmed by successive waves of invaders, most notably:
- The Babylonians–following the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC.
- The Macedonian Greeks led by Alexander The Great in 332 B.C.E.. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, Greek occupational rule of the Levant was continued by the Seleucid Greeks. The Jewish revolt against Seleucid rule was described in detail in the apocryphal books 1st and 2nd Maccabees. Aside from the Greeks defiling the Temple in Jerusalem, one of the main reasons for the Maccabean Revolt was that the Greeks had disarmed the Jews to the extent that they could not even carry a knife to defend themselves against robbers.
- The Romans–from 6 AD to 135 AD. This occupation was detailed by Flavius Josephus, in his histories titled Antiquities of the Jews and Wars of the Jews. (After the burning of Jerusalem in AD 70, the great Diaspora began. The nation of Israel would not be reconstituted until 1948.)
- Under the British Mandate, by the British Army from 1945 to 1947. Jews had to create more than 1,500 hidden weapons caches, while waiting out the British Army’s departure.
- Finally, starting in 1948, by their own newly established government. Since most of the leaders of the new government had a European background, they foolishly imitated their former masters and set up small arms registration schemes for Israel. And, like the Europeans, they fairly quickly banned private ownership of heavier weapons. Getting a permit to own a firearm in modern day Israel is a minor nightmare. It now requires a background check, a physician’s statement, and paying a regular fee. Further, most permit holders are only allowed to own one firearm (usually a pistol), and to possess no more than 50 rounds of ammunition at a time. Roughly 40 percent of requests for gun permits are rejected.
THE JAPANESE SWORD HUNTS
In the Wiki world, we read about systematic civilian disarmament in Feudal Japan:
“Several times in Japanese history, the new ruler sought to ensure his position by calling a sword hunt (katanagari). Armies would scour the entire country, confiscating the weapons of the enemies of the new regime. In this manner, the new ruler sought to ensure that no one could take the country by force as he had just done. The most famous sword hunt was ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1588.
Prior to the sword hunt called by Oda Nobunaga towards the end of the 16th century, civilians were free to carry swords for defense or simply for decoration. Nobunaga sought an end to this, and ordered the seizure of swords and a variety of other weapons from civilians, in particular the Ikkō-ikki peasant-monk leagues which sought to overthrow samurai rule.”
You can read the entire article at Infogalactic.
It is interesting to note that both the Israelites and the Japanese peasantry resorted to using farming implements as weapons, after they had been disarmed. Most famously, the martial arts weapon known as Nunchaku (aka “Nunchucks’ in modern parlance) got their start as a two-piece grain harvesting flail.
Here is another wiki quote: “Okinawans, under the rule of foreign powers, were prohibited from carrying weapons or practicing with them in public. But the weapons-based fighting that they secretly practiced (and the types of weapons they practiced with) had strong Chinese roots.” Many of these weapons were repurposed or simple adaptations of existing farming tools.”
EARLY EUROPEAN DISARMAMENT PROGRAMS
Perhaps the earliest systematic civilian disarmament scheme in Europe was created by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa The First. He issued the Peace Ordinance of 1152. That law forbade peasants from carrying swords and lances. Only nobles were allowed to be armed, in peacetime.
The French nobility also got an early start at disarming those Deplorable Peasants. In the 1440s King Louis XI signed an order called The Noble Privileges, which mentions the right of Nobles to carry swords. All others had no such privileges.
In 1533, the crown of England issued this edict:
“An Act for shooting in Cross Bows and Hand Guns Whosoever shall shoot in any Hand Gun or Cross Bow or keep any in his House except he has Land Annuities or Offices to the yearly Value of an Hundred Pounds shall forfeit Ten Pounds for every Offence and a Justice of the Peace may commit the Offender to Gaol until he hath paid the same Forfeiture All former Placards made to shoot in either of them shall be void.”
It is interesting that the 1533 English law exempted wealthy people–that is, anyone with a net worth of One Hundred Pounds. In today’s currency, that is the equivalent of near $800,000 USD. Once again, it was the Deplorable Peasants that powers the Powers That Be of that era meant to disarm.
Weapons prohibition gradually increased in western Europe in the 17th, 18, and 19th centuries. Along with mass production of arms in the 1800s came the standard practice of stamping serial numbers. And that opened up the opportunity for governments to register not just owners but particular guns to particular owners.
THE 20TH CENTURY: THE CENTURY OF GENOCIDE
What is now called “common sense gun control” was adopted by many nations around the world in the 20th Century, with disastrous results for human life and liberty. Although nearly all of Europe now has gun registration, there have been a number of notable campaigns to outright disarm the European citizenry:
The Ottoman Turkish government began systematic civilian disarmament in the 1890s. These laws were not equally enforced.
It was non-Muslims that were singled out for prosecution. In 1901, H. F. B. Lynch–a British travelogue writer–described the Armenians of Turkey as “rigorously prohibited from possessing firearms.” The Armenian Genocide (1915 to 1922) saw some 1.5 million disarmed Armenians killed.
They died at the hands of Turkish Army troops, police, and civil administrators. Most of the Armenian genocide victims were Christians.
As early as 1918, the Soviet Union established systematic civilian disarmament. In December of 1918, the Council of People’s Commissars issued decree on the surrender of weapons.
As documented at the Infogalactic wiki: The citizenry was ordered to surrender “…any firearms, swords, bayonets and bombs, regardless of the degree of serviceability. The penalty for not doing so was ten years imprisonment.
Members of the Communist Party were allowed to have a single weapon (a pistol or a rifle) and possession of the weapon was recorded in the party membership book. On December 12, 1924 the Central Executive Committee of the USSR promulgated its degree “On the procedure of production, trade, storage, use, keeping and carrying firearms, firearm ammunition, explosive projectiles and explosives”, all weapons were classified and divided into categories.
Now the weapons permitted for personal possession by ordinary citizens could only be smoothbore hunting shotguns. The other category of weapons were only possessed by those who were put on duty by the Soviet state; for all others, access to these weapons was restricted to within state regulated shooting ranges.
Illegal gun possession was severely punished. Since March 1933 the manufacture, possession, purchase, sale of firearms (except for smoothbore) hunting weapons without proper authorization was punishable by up to five years in prison. In 1935, the same penalty was imposed for possession of knives.”
From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million disarmed dissidents in the Soviet Union were either systematically starved, exiled to Siberian gulags, or exterminated. Some of these pogroms were on a grand scale.
Most notably, there was the forced starvation in the Ukraine, called The Holodomor. (“To kill by starvation”). This man-made famine of 1932-1933 was also also known as the Terror-Famine or the Famine-Genocide.
Nazi Germany established systematic civilian disarmament in 1938. Under the Law on the Reunification of Austria with Germany of 13 March 1938, most guns in Germany became subject to registration.
But even earlier, in Section 5 of the First Regulations of the German Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935 (Reichsgesetzblatt 1, p. 1332) Jews were named in particular as prohibited from “acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition”, as well as “truncheons or stabbing weapons”.
From 1939 to 1945, no less than 6 million Jews and 4 million others were segregated, rounded up, and systematically worked and/or starved to death or outright exterminated by gassing or gunfire. Their bodies were then either cremated or buried in mass graves.
During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied parts or all of 18 countries. (This included some of the Channel Islands that were part of the United Kingdom.)
In the majority of those countries, the Nazis immediately seized gun registration records held by local police. Using those records, they confiscated nearly all guns in private hands.
This systematic civilian disarmament made occupying these nations much easier, and any organized resistance quite difficult.
In Hungary, systematic civilian disarmament began soon after the end of World War II. The Soviets were successful in quashing the attempted counter-revolution of 1956 because they mainly faced unarmed (or grossly under-armed) civilians. More than 2,500 Hungarians died in the failed counter-revolution.
Yugoslavia began systematic civilian disarmament immediately after the end of World War II. In the Kosovo War that erupted with the inevitable breakup of Yugoslavia, there were widespread kidnappings, summary executions, and civilian massacres.
Programs of “ethnic cleansing”–primarily through forced property dispossession and relocation–caused untold misery in the late 1990s.
In the Kosovo War it was primarily ethnic Albanians who were systematically killed. The worst of these were in the Dubrava Prison massacre, the Meja massacre, and the Orahovac massacre.
These massacres underscored the sad truth: Disarmed people can be victimized en masse. And in this case, it was a nominally Christian government that was oppressing Muslims.
SYSTEMATIC CIVILIAN DISARMAMENT IN EAST ASIA
In 1948, Indonesia established systematic civilian disarmament with enactment of Law No. 8/1948 On Firearms, followed by Emergency Law No. 12/1951 On the Illegal Possession of Firearms , and Law No. 62/1960 On Gun Licenses.
Beginning in December 1975 and up until October 1999, Indonesia conducted a brutal occupation and mass killings in East Timor (Timor-Leste). In each village that the Indonesians successively occupied, Indonesian troops knew exactly where to go to round up Timorese-owned guns.
Most of them had been dutifully registered. The civilian death toll for East Timor in the period of 1974 to 1999 was estimated at roughly 103,000 people.
Communist China established systematic civilian disarmament throughout all their territories in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million disarmed political dissidents were rounded up and exterminated.
Then, again in from 1966 until 1976, Chairman Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution. This was intended to purge “remnants of capitalist and traditional elements” from The People’s Republic. According to Wikipedia: “…millions of people were persecuted and suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, hard labor, sustained harassment, seizure of property and sometimes execution.
A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed and cultural and religious sites were ransacked.”
Simultaneously, The Great Famine, created by communist Central Planning resulted in the deaths of approximately 45 million Chinese citizens.
Any attempts at rebellion by anti-communists were put down with extreme force by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA was successful because they had a monopoly on force. Only loyal communist cadres were armed. All others had long since been systematically disarmed.
Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950. There, they quickly embarked on systematic civilian disarmament. The PLA had a devious three-part plan to subjugate Tibet: Gun restrictions, imprisoning or deporting those who resisted, and bringing in thousands of ethnic Chinese settlers, to shift demographics. Those all worked, and Tibet is still under Chinese control, nearly 80 years later.
Cambodia (aka Kampuchea) established systematic civilian disarmament in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, mostly during the second term of Pol Pot, as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, one million intellectuals, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
IN AFRICA
Uganda established systematic civilian disarmament under the Firearms Act of 1970. During the rule of Muslim dictator Idi Amin (from January 1971 to April, 1979), 300,000 people mostly Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Here is an insightful quote from the Infogalactic wiki: “Amin recruited his followers from his own ethnic group, the Kakwas, along with South Sudanese. By 1977, these three groups formed 60 percent of the 22 top generals and 75 percent of the cabinet.
Similarly, Muslims formed 80 percent and 87.5 percent of these groups even though they were only 5 percent of the population. This helps explain why Amin survived eight attempted coups.”
Zimbabwe’s dictatorship led by Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party began systematic civilian disarmament in 1981. They focused on disarming the minority Ndebele tribe of western Zimbabwe.
Then, starting in 1983, there was a series of hushed-up massacres in Matabeleland by the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwean Army. Those took the lives of 20,000 Ndebele tribe men, women, and children. In 2015 it was revealed that Mugabe had personally ordered the main massacre series, commonly known as The Gukurahundi killings.
The nation of Sudan (which later partitioned into Sudan and South Sudan), ruled by an Islamist government, implemented the “Arms, Ammunition and Explosives Act of 1986.” This law requires the registration of most firearms, and entirely bans civilian possession of most military weapons.
According to Pierre-Richard Prosper, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues of the U.S. State Department, in the Second Sudanese civil war (1983 to 2005), “…the Government of Sudan engaged in a policy to destroy the predominately Christian and animist south.
Death and destruction reached staggering proportions. Credible estimates from human rights organizations suggest that two million people have perished, four million have been internally displaced, and nearly 400,000 have been forced to live in neighboring countries as refugees.”
SYSTEMATIC CIVILIAN DISARMAMENT IN THE AMERICAS
Cuba established systematic civilian disarmament soon after Fidel Castro took power on July 26th, 1959. By restricting firearms almost all gun ownership to the military, police, and a few loyal communist paramilitary cadres, any organized resistance to to the Castro regime was almost impossible.
Guatemala established systematic civilian disarmament in 1964, by the Directorate General for Control of Arms and Ammunition (DIGECAM). From 1964 to 1981, roughly 100,000 disarmed Mayan Indians were rounded up and killed.
The Mexican Constitution of 1857 promised that: “…every man has the right to keep and to carry arms for his security and legitimate defense.” However, in 1917, in response to a revolution led by Pancho Villa, their constitution was amended.
Under one amendment citizens were precluded from being able to buy weapons “reserved for use by the military”. Another amendment forbade carrying “…arms within inhabited places… …without complying with police regulations.”
Mexico was successful in stopping several revolutions. Gun laws were a key part of their strategy. But now, in the 21st Century, there has been an unintendend consequence: Mexico’s drug cartels now run rampant.
They just ignore the country’s gun registration, caliber restriction, and firearm category restriction laws. The gangs import or even manufacture weapons, with impunity. The police are outnumbered.
And because of civilian disarmament laws the general citizenry is vastly out-gunned by the drug gangs. They are at their mercy.
In the United States, there were no Federal gun laws until 1934. Then, in the midst of the Great Depression, with a Democrat-dominated 73rd Congress and with Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the White House, the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA-34) was enacted.
This law put a $200 tax on machineguns, silencers, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns. The machinegun law was expanded in 1986, when an outright freeze on the production or importation of any new machineguns transferable to civilians was enacted.
After the NFA-34 tax morphed into a quasi-ban, the prices of transferable machineguns have risen astronomically. Just a two ounce AR-15 registered drop-in autosear now sells for as much as $34,000!
As you can see, over the centuries the gun-grabby compulsions of governments keep coming back, like a bad rash.
Sooner or later, centralized governments almost always gravitate toward a monopoly of force. And even in nominally “democratic” countries, gun prohibition laws have led to suffering and death on a monumental scale.
WE, THE DEPLORABLES
The gun politics of the 21st Century have become intensely divisive. The increasingly populous and liberal coastal states are at odds with the conservative lightly-populated interior.
The published talking points and “messaging’ of the gun grabbers reveal that they are willing to twist statistics, mischaracterize events, and vilify their enemies, in order to get their way.
We are now viewed as “deplorables” by the media, academia, the Democrat party, and even by the euphemistically-labeled “moderate” wing of the Republican party. To the urban elite, we are seen as disloyal, deplorable, and despicable country bumpkins.
This viewpoint was revealed in 2008 by then-candidate Barack Hussein Obama, when he went off-script at a campaign town hall meeting. In those remarks, he described working-class people in traditional industrial towns thusly: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
I’m proud to call myself a Bitter Clinger. I will defy their unconstitutional gun laws, even if means going to prison or dying in combat. The alternative–complying and simply watching the history of genocide repeated–is not acceptable to me.
Whether its now spoken or not, Obama’s view of the We/They Paradigm is clearly shared by leftists and statists at all levels of government. They see us clinging to our guns as a threat to their power.
And in one sense, they are right. We will continue to cling to our guns as long as governments continue to pursue a monopoly of force and creep toward total government. This is what the Second Amendment is all about: It provides a final check on the ambitions of those with unlimited ambition.
Learn from the mistakes of history. Do not allow them to be repeated! – JWR
Note: Permission is granted for re-posting of this article, but only if done so in full, with proper attribution to James Wesley, Rawles and SurvivalBlog.com, and only if the included links are preserved.)