[flagged]
How do people really expect this to work? In detail? You show up with an armed militia at a school and the ICE guys just drive on past (and then raid someone else)? Or are they expecting more of an Amerimaidan situation? Jan 6th situation?
Coordinating with your neighbors and compatriots is essential from the soap box, to the ballot box, to the jury box, and to the cartridge box. And I'd like to emphasize the order of those boxes should be followed.
Like pjc50, I'm British by birth, though I no longer live there. Like most Brits, the USA's 2nd Amendment isn't something we look up to, it's something we consider deeply weird. Even UK police are not routinely armed, and I've seen polls saying they don't want that to change.
And also like several commenters here, I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. Trump was actually fired at, albeit by an idiot, he still supports the 2nd Amendment. Either the armed forces step in on the side of the constitution, or they step in on the side of the administration, but either way the 2nd Amendment isn't going to make a difference: the guerrilla teams use AR-15s, the military can afford to respond with drone strikes.
ICE is thuggishly and sloppily prowling places like Minneapolis because statistically they can get away with it without causing too many bodies. Up the potential body number and their tactics are forced to change for the better.
If the statistical average door they kick in in Minneapolis had the same likelihood of "shit I ain't going back to prison <bang> <bang> <bang> <dives out bathroom window and hops neighbors fence>" behind it as the statistical average door in St. Louis ICE wouldn't be behaving the way they are in MN. They would have specific targets, specific places and times to pick them up, etc, etc. (i.e. operating like the local professional police do) because the risk calculation with even a tiny change you might get shot back at, even if only ineffectively, makes that (much higher) resource expenditure pencil out, with consequences in terms of how much they can get done.
Personal ability to credibly threaten lethal violence if cornered (note: I did not say "firearms") acts much like an ATGM or MANPADS for an infantry squad. You're not gonna take a squad with TOWs on the offensive against a bunch of tanks, but if attacked you've at least got a prayer. The same math holds on the individual level. Making any potential target substantially more prickly to a potentially superior force and doing so for little cost is a huge boon for the little guy. A firearm is a force multiplier same as a bomb carrying drone or a cell phone that records things the government does not like or a media platform that puts those things in front of the eyes of the masses. It forces the superior force to still be much more careful and expend far more resources when engaging. When it comes to domestic policing what this means is that ICE would be under more pressure to "be careful and professional" in every city like the DEA did during the war on drugs we wouldn't even be having this discussion because they wouldn't be employing the tactics that everyone hates.
This math is a large part of why drugs won the war on drugs. There were enough glawk fawtys wit da switch kicking around on the "wrong" side of the law that the cops needed to adopt militarized tactics, the public didn't wanna pay for that shit (monetarily or politically) over weed, and thus drugs won the war on drugs. If they could've rolled up on just about anyone "cheaply" with just a few cheaply (poorly) trained cops, minimal equipment and support, minimal planning and surveillance, etc. it would've gone on way longer (but they couldn't, because that would have yielded too many bodies and cost too much political capital).
You know where are all NRA and "have gun against govermental tyrrany" guys? In the ICE or supporting from sidelines. And they are itching for when they will finally be able to commit even more violence.
I'm convinced the whole point of pulling a phone out to film a murder is because they having a long-term strategy for slowly boiling the frog and it's gamified for agents. I'm certain that dude got a bonus, an award, and is up for promotion for walking the administration up the next rung of the tyranny ladder.
"achievement unlocked"
One dude in his home with a gun or two versus a 50 billion dollar ICE force that has complete immunity and a massive media and political empire ready to spin any bad incident into an us-versus-them narrative.....
Yeah, it is a fantasy. Oh, and if anything really gets out of hand, that political empire also has nuclear weapons.
How does legal immunity or a media empire affect a dead man?
>Oh, and if anything really gets out of hand, that political empire also has nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons are not very useful in a civil conflict... Or pretty much any conflict
If I have complete legal immunity from ANY of my actions, including killing someone, and there's a massive multi-trillion dollar media empire dedicated to creating regime-friendly narratives and supporting the leaders on "my side" at all costs, I can harass, defame, defraud, and kill you without hesitation whenever, wherever, and however I see fit, and I'll get no blowback. I'll get fans and supporters.
Haven't we learned anything from history?
And the whiplash is quite small, if not nonexistent. Why? Because there's no depths to which this regime, which is openly hostile to its own population, won't go to assert power, as well as to maintain it.
Sounds like a regime worth fighting if that's what you believe, but it seems you've decided it's futile.
They both can and can't fight at the same time. The guns are weapons of war, but also useless in war.
Make it make sense.
Edit: oh, you were responding to the second half of their comment, not the first. I see.
Incorrect, but judging by the responses here I conveyed my point poorly. I wasn't trying to say that the Left alienated existing gun owners. I was trying to say that their actions and positions prevented the formation of a grassroots population of responsible gun owners in their ranks. Specifically, a population that might be more ready to stand up against ongoing injustices.
> and it’s really not at all restricted. Some states are more restrictive than others
Your AR-15 you smugly mentioned that you bought last year in "15 minutes" is in spite of Democrats best efforts. If they had their way on gun laws any time in the last 30 years, that transaction would be impossible. You'll note that there's a pattern with those "some states" that are stricter than others. The fact that their overreaches have been successfully fought is not evidence that they aren't constantly trying (Paid attention to the docket in Virginia lately?).
But that's not what I was trying to say anyway, you (like many others) just jumped at the prospect of sticking it to a perceived ideological enemy with a pithy reddit quip.
If you genuinely think we're at the point that we need to start shooting, the onus is on YOU to get armed, get trained, and take action. Don't expect anyone else to come and fight for you, especially those you perceive as your political enemies.
We may have the most armed citizenry in the world. If the second amendment advocates cared as much about our protected rights as they claim, they’d be all over this. All you’re saying is that our liberties only matter to them as regards people who agree with them politically. Which is absolutely true.
What I'm saying is that "Gun owner" shouldn't be a political statement, and we'd be a lot better off if more Democrats owned and trained with guns.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Second Amendment, and all intersections with other civil rights are seen through our respective lenses.
There is a lot of attention being paid to this within that community, but it's largely supportive. Everything the left is upset about falls into two categories: it's either something with broad support (deportation of those not legally present) or there's more to the story that significantly changes the situation, at least from their perspective (Renee Good).
To be clear, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind or even state my own views with this comment; I'd just like the various sides to understand each other a bit better.
Forget the left. Why don't they stand up for themselves?
That's doing a lot of heavy lifting. I know Republicans who unironically say shit like "We can't do background checks. What if I'm trying to buy a gun really quick for a hunting trip?" I would imagine your idea of "attacking" the second amendment is just common sense laws.
> Just a few years ago, their own supporters were smugly saying that standing up to the government is a fantasy for paranoid whackjobs.
In your heart of hearts, do you really believe this has anything to do with it? If we were to take your comment seriously, it just illustrates the right never actually cared about standing up to oppressive governments, they just wanted to be the oppressive government. That is actually pretty consistent with how the left clocked them.
But in reality, it has nothing to do with what you wrote. The biggest 2A fanatics, as someone related to quite a few of them, just have a fantasy of shooting people. They are openly celebrating the death of Renee Nicole Good because that's the kind of thing they want to do.
I would imagine your idea of "Common Sense laws" is actually just petty attacks on law-abiding citizens that do nothing to stop crime, so I guess we're even.
> it just illustrates the right never actually cared about standing up to oppressive governments,
My comment was not trying to argue that the Right did or does care. My comment was saying "This is the reason there are comparatively so few gun owners on the (American) Left". Because the American Left (speaking broadly) discouraged it for almost a century.
You imagine wrong, but you use that word "attack" again.
> My comment was not trying to argue that the Right did or does care
You make that sound irrelevant, like the right is a third party in this, and not the dominant party killing citizens in the street. I don't care what lazy gotcha you were trying to angle for, your comment was disgusting.
No we didn't. Promoting safe and conscientious gun ownership is a good thing, and it's the right thing for society. It's actually a pretty common feeling among gun owners. But gun lobbies has polluted people's minds into believing that the "left hates guns." Which isn't really true.
For sure, there are people whose opinion is colored by the frequency of mass shootings and having their kids deal with active shooter drills, etc. But this isn't always a political issue - my hard right-wing grandma hated guns and forbade their ownership in her house.
I frequent a gun club with a bunch of the leftest, gayest, socialistest, DEIest people you could meet, and we always find like-minded people to chat with. We are a minority, sure, but not a small one.
> Just a few years ago, their own supporters were smugly saying that standing up to the government is a fantasy for paranoid whackjobs.
And I still believe this - more than ever. You'd have to be insane to stand up to the current government right now. They will disappear people to gulags or just shoot them in the face for practically no reason. Imagine what they do to people they genuinely believe are threats.
The words of the last Democrat that seemed to really have a chance to win a senator seat in my state. His support really dropped after such a statement in this state.
So you are actually supporting my point. Conscientious, civically-minded people who own guns are unfortunately a minority on the (American) Left.
> And I still believe this - more than ever. You'd have to be insane to stand up to the current government right now.
Then you should be quibbling with my parent commenter who is smugly asking why the "gun people" aren't shooting back, not me.
I was referring, in general terms, to the left wing of mainstream American political discourse without narrowing it down to just "Democrats". I was trying not to trigger the waves of "Ackshyually karl marx says under no pretext" comments that one usually gets.