Question Re: Unintended Consequences

[LiquidTension]

I just finished this book earlier tonight. It was an excellent read, and anyone that appreciates freedom and doesn't look through the window of their bellybutton as far as the ATF and other agencies are concerned would do well to read it. Here's my question:

If someone were to start something like Bowman did, how many of us would "rise up" like the numerous nameless people that did in the book? How many of us would actually go so far as to kill the people that have ended or ruined countless lives for no good reason? I don't think I could be the first, but I think I could help out after it got going. This brings me to another question:

How many of us have the know-how to pull off something like what happened in the book? If you had the will-power to assassinate people that deserved it, how many of us would be able to do it without getting caught? Like the author said in the book, the gun culture is made up of people with above average intelligence and education (from my experience anyway). Yeah, there are some gun owners that are idiots, but the majority of the actual "gun culture" definitely received more than the average amount of brains when <insert diety here> was passing them out.

I'm not asking for people to sound off with "yeah, I would do this stuff." I'm asking more in general. If someone started it, how far would it go? Or would we just sit around and talk about it and complain to the powers that be like we do now?

 

[Jim March]

Nobody here can or should answer something like that.

It's all about the level of provocation. There's a point where the evil is so visible, immediate lethal response is called for.

"Around the time the first death camps go up" would be one answer most US citizens would agree with.



A better question is: "what are you doing to keep it from getting that far?"

 

[winwun]

Like most situations, the pioneers get the arrows.

Those who come along after the pioneers have been buried enjoy the protections earned by those who died up front.

What would I do ? Dunno. Likely, the same as most, wait until it got started and then sort of look for a leader to emerge.

Point me, I'll march.

 

[NukemJim]

A better question is: "what are you doing to keep it from getting that far?"

NukemJim

 

[Henry Bowman]

You rang?????

 

[bogie]

Think of it this way...

The NRA is probably about 5% of firearms owners. We've got what, 4,000,000 members?

Assume that 1% of this group would be given to radical/extreme action, and you've got 40,000. If only 0.1% head out when the balloon goes up, that's 4,000. Which is about 10x the number of terrorists in the Irish Republican Army.

I think that firearms owners have been VERY patient with trying to get the system to work.

 

[geekWithA.45]

"Around the time the first death camps go up" would be one answer most US citizens would agree with.

They won't go up until the means to prevent their erection has been neutralized.

Furthermore, death camps are pretty over the top, and not really an American Thing. We don't really have a universal minority enemy that we'd deem suitable for concentration camps. (although Muslims are pretty nervous these days)

What I _can_ forsee is a sort of technologically enforced minimal freedom socialism death by a thousand cuts "for our own good" kind of thing, and that's just palatable enough that I don't think it's magnitude of provocation will be enough to trip public sympathy in favor of armed resistance.

In addition to that, the "death of Liberty by ten thousand regulations" is a vaporous enemy to fight. You can get 1 regulation struck down, but there are still 9999 remaining, and another 10 springing up, like a hydra.

Q:

A better question is: "what are you doing to keep it from getting that far?"

A:
The New Jersey Coalition For Self Defense

think that firearms owners have been VERY patient with trying to get the system to work.

Amen.

 

[blackhawk2000]

I'm in. Let me know when

 

[winwun]

Bogie, you mentioned "terrorists" in the IRA.

What these "terrorists" want is their country free of foreign intervention.

Would you do less if the US were invaded and a portion of it occupied by foreign forces ?

 

[bogie]

I sure as heck wouldn't set off bombs in public areas where noncombants would be injured.

 

[dog3]

bogie;

It was Jan 30th, 1972.
Derry, Ireland.

Go look it up. It came to be called
"Bloody Sunday".

I remember.

The truth, as always, probably lies
somewhere down the middle.
But I do know that the IRA ranks
swelled after this "event".
The British, acting under Brigadier Patrick MacLellan made clear what they
were willing to do. What came
after is a really good illustration of what happens when people (from then on and
forever more labled terrorists) fight
governments.


A lot of folks will always say, "Of course they
are terrorists, they use-d bombs." Well,
is it bombs that make the terrorist?

These days, and near as I can tell
from everything I have read over the
decades (and it's been a few) that
a terrorist is any one person who
bears arms against a government.

It is a term universally applied to anyone
who is fighting and isn't openly sponsored
by and wearing the uniform of, an UN
recognised government.

Now even entire races of people
are terrorists.

Terrorist is a word that no longer has
any real meaning. If it ever did.

I would never bomb my own town.
I'm pretty sure of that.

I like to think that had I been
in that march. (And I certainly could
have been) and my priest had been
cut down by a para with a FAL, while
waving a white handkerchief while
trying to assist another man down,
(as eyewittnesses have stated)
that I'd be pretty upset.

The "war" in Ireland has been going on
for over 700 years. It isn't a very simple
conflict.

 

[RAY WOODROW 3RD]

People from NJ

If your from New Jersey and reading this, take Jim March's words of wisdom:

A better question is: "what are you doing to keep it from getting that far?"

JOIN US!
We are everyday average Joe's trying to make a difference.

www.njcsd.org

The main problem ? Your average gun owner feels that paying their $35.00 to an XYZ organization is ALL they have to do to protect their rights. :banghead:
Get involved now people. The rights you save may be your own!

As to the answer to the original question for the record:

I'll let you know when it happens.

I pray to GOD that it does not.

 

[rhedley]

in the 51 days of WACO

Or would we just sit around and talk about it and complain to the powers that be like we do now?

 

[WingZero]

The only things that exist, are the things we let exist.
(That is of course, pertaining to that which God has allowed us to control)
If a threat is present, it is up to us (you) to decide how to deal with it.
Whether preemptively , or other wise.

 

[12.7x99mm]

Assume that 1% of this group would be given to radical/extreme action, and you've got 40,000. If only 0.1% head out when the balloon goes up, that's 4,000. Which is about 10x the number of terrorists in the Irish Republican Army.

You computations are staggering and very true.

How many people did bowman have in the book in his immediate team? (Not counting all the people he called up from the newsgroups/net) ?

What was it like .... about 4 people

 

[Jack19]

What these "terrorists" want is their country free of foreign intervention.

No, what "these terrorists" want is a Marxist state, with them in charge, and the freedom to continue their drug smuggling operations. It hasn't been about "uniting Ireland" or "Irish freedom" in 80 years. Both "sides" have their paramilitaries, neither wants a free and democratic Ireland.

Who's worse Johnnie Adair or Gerry Adams? Both are criminal thugs for my money. (And I was accross the street then Airey Neave was blown up in 1979.)

With regard to the original question, I think what someone else mentioned here is true....US citizens in general, and gun owners in particular, have been very patient waiting for the Constitution to work the right way. We sat through Waco with hardly a peep, I think it would have to be pretty bad before an armed response happened.

And, as someone else also mentioned, what are we doing now to keep that from happening? We still have the vote to hold them accountable, we can still contact members of congress to voice our opinions. If the AWB gets renewed next year with Republicans in charge....just wait until the next Dem President gets voted in...then we'll see some gun control.

 

[H Romberg]

"First death camps"

The problem with that one is that they probably won't advertize it as such. Heck, Camp X-Ray is (I hope) a far cry from one, and its got us on the Amnesty International hit list.

Any sophisticated bad guy on a power trip would probably use existing prisons for the purpose, and just make it a lot easier to get in and get a death sentence. Anti-terrorism legislation would make a pretty handy tool to do that, since it seems to trump such petty things as the Constitution these days, and especially since the defiition of "terrorist" can be morphed just like McCarthy did with "Communism".

The really scary thing about that book for me is that it details a world VERY close to our own, and shows how easy it is for the state to push folks over the edge when it (as usual) gets out of hand.

To answer the question though, the reaction Bowman got in the book would need a much more intrusive state to materialize in reality. Folks live, even with all our flaws, pretty well in America right now. Most people won't cross that line unless they either have nothing left to lose, or are so ticked off that they no longer care what they have to lose. We're not there yet, and I hope we never get there. I'll second the "What're we doin to stop it?"

After all, if the principles of freedom are worth killing and dying for, aren't they worth working and paying for too? I think some old Chinese guy said something about winning without fighting being pretty cool right?

 

[rhedley]

 

[Jim March]

I didn't mean to imply that "death camps" are the sole possible "trigger".

I was only presenting one example of an absolutely unambiguous "trigger".

 

[Henry Bowman]

The biggest safety enjoyed by the potential tyrants is that freedom lovers (as John Ross pointed out) typically just want to be left alone. But just leaving everyone else alone when statists want to have control will not maintain the status quo of freedom.

In any organization, be it government, a corporation, or a homeowners association, those who wish to control others are drawn to leadership roles. Those who just want everyone to leave everyone else alone are not. In fact, they are usually glad that someone is willing to do the job. This keeps the controllers relatively safe in their positions of control. It has to get really bad before others will interrupt their previously-scheduled lives to accept a leadership position and exert the relatively small and limited amount of control necessary to prevent total anarchy.

In other words, freedom requires eternal vigilence. Sometimes with forceful persuasion.

 

[H Romberg]

Understood about the trigger event. I almost wish they'd give us one. The incremental approach seems to be working really well though, so I don't hold much hope for its changing.

 

[sw442642]

This was discussed to death on TFL. The book is like a long Penthouse letter to a gun rag.

However, American Handgunner had a review that the book was idiotic. It called it a masturbatory fantasy. And that it is.

Get to the ballot box.

 

[simon]

freedom to continue their drug smuggling operations.

The IRA only turned to drug smuggling to finance their operations,because funds coming in weren't enough or weren't often enough,and this was a way to get instant gratification(money)Most were opposed to this way of doing things.

 

[rhedley]

UC is FICTION

sw442642
The book is fiction, it is labeled as such by the Author.
I enjoyed it.

 

[Solinvictus70]

From the excerpts I read on Amazon.com, it seems to fail as art and it certainly lacks any subtlety. There seems to be too many terms only gun people would recognize and with this, the author is merely preaching to the choir. The book IS NOT going to reach outside to anyone who is sitting on the fence on RKBA issues. If anything, it reads like The Turner Diaries without the racial element. If you wish to read political fiction, start with George Orwell and use him as an effective model. Then, to grasp what many statist control freaks want for the US, read Solzhenitsyn.