such a funny time for this discourse again ☕
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There’s no place in a civilised democratic society for people to be walking around with guns. America, on the other hand…
In a civilised society, you don’t fear every random passerby will try to kill you, so it is irrelevant what they are carrying.
Look how black panthers existence changed many laws in carry permits, and you understand why both sides needs to be pro-guns
Been around guns my whole life. Shot them, loaded them, cleaned them, but IV never owned one myself. Mostly for a lack of wanting. But now seems a good time to have my own for better or worse.
Girlfriend really don’t want me to have it tho
Same here.
To me it’s a useless item.
I saw a competition where competitors would stand on a blue square and quickly shoot all the blue targets that popped up, then move to a red square and shoot the red ones. It was timed and looked like a ton of fun. I thought, this would be the only reason I would buy one. But you know, I have a lot of hobbies. That looked real expensive. I would have to hang around gun ranges and gun people. There would be a dangerous weapon in the house. We don’t have kids but visitors do. My wife doesn’t want it. In the end I just didn’t want it.
I have a lot of friends who are Democrats and a lot of them own guns. I laugh every time Republicans say Dems want to take their guns. I’m like, no, they just want some simple safety rules and the strange thing is 80% of all gun owners used to to. I don’t know if that’s still true but the number came from the NRA a decade or two ago. Yeah, THE NRA. They even used to be in favor of an automatic weapons ban.
I don’t think more guns is the answer, but I can kind of see the logic for a lefty to want to defend himself…or his country.
I’ve had my FOID for about 17 years. Never felt the need either. Now we’re going to the range and shopping guns. Makes more sense to be armed than not in this current climate.
Why though? It’s not like people are getting kidnapped off the street oh wait
Are you talking about people in the USA or people elsewhere in the world? The USA is always “special” when it comes to matters like this.
It’s definitely not just an American thing.
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” -Karl Marx
America does have a “unique” culture around guns, but that’s not all that prevalent on the left. What’s driving interest in guns is the sad fact that we might need to use them.
The thought process that “we might need to use them” is evidence that the left in America does think about guns differently than the rest of the world.
You should mention that that was Karl Marx before the US civil war. Not Karl Marx in an age where drone-based warfare is common.
Are you suggesting we build weaponized drones?
I’m saying that if Karl Marx had written things in 2025, what he would have said would undoubtedly have been different than what he wrote in 1850.
The potential to need to use guns is a statement of fact. The alternative of counting on law and order to correct the overreach of a fascist cop is no longer valid. When people start getting disappeared without due process, that changes the calculus entirely.
I’ve got no clue what drones have to do with this. That’s just one more threat of extrajudicial state violence we might very well have to face. I’d rather try to defend myself from a drone with buck shot than a slingshot.
The potential to need to use guns is a statement of fact
It’s your opinion that you might want to use guns. That doesn’t mean that guns are the only possible solution to the problem. As I said, American-brained people think Americanely, which distinguishes them from the rest of the world.
Ok Mr big bad, you live around a bunch of idiots and cops that have guns and want to kill you, let’s see how cavalier you are about not wanting to protect yourself especially given the current state of affairs in the US.
Big Ukraine giving up it’s nuclear arsenal just to end up getting invaded by Russia energy.
you live around a bunch of idiots and cops that have guns and want to kill you
Why would I live there? I’d leave.
Not everyone has the financial resources to up and move countries.
I think you will find that anyone who can’t rely on functioning courts thinks about guns this way. It’s not just Americans. There are dozens of countries where you would be braindead not to have guns for home protection. The thing those countries have in common is a rational lack of confidence in the rule of law. Russians see it that way. Afghans do too. Pretty much everywhere but Europe sees it that way unless they have a government so oppressive as to make private gun ownership nearly impossible.
I think you’ll find that it’s mostly Americans who jump to guns first. There are dozens of countries Americans look at and say: “Gee, those people should have guns”, but the locals disagree.
Russia? You can’t buy a hunting rifle unless you’ve owned a smoothbore gun for 5 years without an incident. Fully automatic guns? Forbidden. Pistols and revolvers? Heavily restricted. If you own one you have to keep it in a gun safe which is inspected by the Russian version of ATF. And you need to pass an exam and a psychological check to own one.
I don’t know where you got the idea that Russians have a similar fetish for guns as Americans.
As for Afghanistan, is that really a country you want to compare the US to? A country that has been at war more often than it has been at peace?
Almost nobody in the world sees it the same as the US. Not in Africa. Not in South America. Not in Europe. Definitely not in Asia. And not even in other countries in North America.
I think you’ll find that it’s mostly Americans who jump to guns first.
What does that even mean? First before what? It’s been quite a few years since our civil war. We’ve “jumped to” quite a lot of things before guns, and the left hasn’t really jumped to them yet. I’m not saying there isn’t a massive gun fetish here, because there is, but it exists almost entirely among right wingers. God, guns, and hate are their culture. The left hates the idea of using guns, but we also see the reality we live in, and a lot of us choose to be prepared.
You don’t see lefties going to gun shows unless doing some kind of investigation of the right. We don’t hand our kids AR-15s for the family Christmas photo or celebrate shooting an overly rambunctious pup. We don’t have collections of dozens of guns in private arsenals. We generally do support sane gun control and responsible ownership. We don’t brag about our guns or make them part of our identity.
Russia? You can’t buy a hunting rifle unless…
Don’t you mean “can’t legally buy”? Are you seriously unaware of the rather infamous scope of the Russian black market in guns? Russia has a bit of an organized crime thing going, as in it’s everywhere. Their black market represents a quarter of their GDP, and everyone pays bribes to someone.
As for Afghanistan, is that really a country you want to compare the US to?
What the fuck? Of course not! I don’t want to compare it to Nazi Germany either, but the similarities are kind of hard to miss. Where did you get the idea that I was talking about my aspirations for America?
A country that has been at war more often than it has been at peace?
LOL. As of 5 years ago, the US had been at war for 222/244 years. I don’t know if even Afghanistan can match that.
Almost nobody in the world sees it the same as the US…
Again, the US is a big country and can’t all be lumped into one big group. Different groups relate to guns very differently here. Gun ownership on the left is largely driven by gun ownership on the right, and now our newly fascist government. We don’t relate to guns the same as the right, but many of us do own them and know how to use them.
The American left is not that dissimilar to the left in a lot of other countries as it relates to guns, except that our situation is quite different.
Definitely just the USA. I mentioned earlier that I really respect NZ deciding to disarm after their last public shooting. That’s something that could really happen when corruption is that low and people are educated and healthy.
Leftists have always been pro gun. There’s just not that many leftists. It’s the Democrats and neoliberals who think only Trump and his government should have guns.
I’m not American, but I consider myself left wing, and I am pro gun but I am also pro gun control. I don’t think outright banning them is a solution but I also don’t think letting them out in the world unchecked is a good idea either.
Fr, I’m from Texas and can’t count the responsible gun owners with one hand.
Gotta tap those new markets. Almost a million dead Americans from gun violence in the last twenty years and corporations laughing all the way to the bank.
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Its about making money. That is the beginning and end of it. Except for all the human suffering of course, but hey PROFITS!
Ding ding ding
One day I looked at the Everytown for Gun Safety placard in my window and realized, this is the problem too, we need to yield some battles to not cede the war.
But that was when there was still hope for that
I thought leftists are always pro-gun, while its the liberals (which includes those progressives in the US Democratic party) are always against guns.
I always felt like a minority in politics. I grew more and more supportative of egalitarian policies as a I grew older, coming to that conclusion from both logics (I wouldn’t want to be treated that way), and also from experience as a racial minority.
But I’ve literally always been pro-gun since the moment the gun topic came up in school.
Which just leaves me in a very confused position when I learned that out of the two big parties (those that can actually win an election), the party I agree more with opposes guns. I just had a mini-identity crisis.
So while I do vote for democrats, I do so begrudgingly, because there is just no viable left-of-center pro-gun party. Every time they say “gun control” on an election year, I just facepalm, like c’mon just drop the issue from the party platform and win a lot more elections, the time to debate guns was 1789, now its kinda too late, cats out of the bag.
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”
-Karl Marx
I disagree with Stalinism and Maoism, but Marx had great ideas, but sadly people just did a horrible interpretation/implementations of it and used communist/socialist aesthetics to justify their authoritatianism and never actually doing any real egalitarian stuff.
Being pro gun, doesn’t have to mean you’re against sensible gun laws though
So far, what democrats propose aren’t really sensible.
They are giving authority to police to dictate who can or cannot obtain a gun permit.
Like wtf, fuck the police, I don’t trust them with shit.
Give that power to like, idk, some sort of jury and maybe we’ll talk about gun control. But I ain’t trusting cops with the discretion to hand out gun permits. They’ll give it to a white young-adult that’s racist as fuck and threatened people, but will simultaneously refuse to give a permit to a black store owner seeking for a gun to defend against a potential white mob trying to attack his store.
Before 2022, most Democratic jurisdictions operate under “May-Issue” laws, meaning, cops had broad discretion on whether to issue a permit or not, but then the supreme court, ironically its the 6 fascist-alligned judges, struck it down and the whole US is now under “Shall-Issue” laws, which means, cops cannot deny a permit if the background check comes clean, so no more denying guns to non-whites and using “he looks suspicious” as a reason.
Background checks? Yea fine.
Manatory gun safety training? Sure.
Permits? Ummm only if its a neutral nonpolitical jury/citizen’s commission or something like that. Cuz otherwise nope, can’t trust cops with the discretion.
Gun Registry? Don’t give it to the government. An independent citizen’s commission should maintain the registry, only accessible to investigators if there’s probable cause and a warrant should be required.
I agree!
100%. We already know plenty of cops are definitely the, “just following orders” types of cowards for the defenseless, and they call paramedics for anything so i dont have to deal with it for everything else type.
I’ll be damned if im okay with them deciding.
For those DMing me what I meant: I know first hand how domestic abusers and other criminals can get off because the cops dont want to do the paperwork and because theyre drunk or strung out, they call paramedics because, “Altered mental status is a medical issue.”
A disadvantaged person asserting their rights? They’ll just beat the fuck out of them or shoot em.
They are giving authority to police to >dictate who can or cannot obtain a gun permit.
Like wtf, fuck the police, I don’t trust them with >shit.
Give that power to like, idk, some sort of jury and maybe we’ll talk about gun control. But I ain’t trusting cops with the discretion to hand out gun permits. They’ll give it to a white young-adult that’s racist as fuck and threatened people, but will simultaneously refuse to give a permit to a black store owner seeking for a gun to defend against a potential white mob trying to attack his store.
Fun fact: NC “recently” (idfk 1-2yr ago) got rid of their Pistol Purchase Permit required to buy a handgun, because it was found that the Sheriffs (who had the authority to approve the permits) were using the law to discriminate. Iirc around the time I read 60% of denials were to black people. That state and others still gatekeep the CCW permit behind the exact same system. Just evidence to your point.
That said, a jury can be, and often is as we’ve seen, racist too. A NICs check oughta be enough, if you can’t trust someone to carry one you can’t trust them to have it at all imo. Hell even a NICs check, I personally think nonviolent felons should have a path back to firearms ownership, and don’t care if someone is an unlawful user of marijuana.
Manditory safety training, depending on price and time, imo is a barrier to entry for the poor and trivial for the rich. It’d have to be well thought out.
Permits? Bad. Registry? Literal fascism, it’s time to “go.” Idfc if it’s jury, idfc if it’s private companies not the feds, no.
Because we’ve all seen how companies that promised to keep your data safe totally keep that promise! No registry, idfc of it’s a “non partisan citizen organization” or data is not safe with anyone!
Background checks? Sure, but burn the data after(not going to happen, I know). But it’s better than letting literally anyone buy one. But if you think something like a registry or permits, something they need to keep track of periodically, won’t be weaponized against a group of minorities disproportionately then I got some beach front property in Tennessee to sell you.
The issue probably comes with determining which major organizations are knowledgable about guns…and then which of those organizations you’d trust.
If there are regulations, unfortunately someone has to administer them. Juries make decisions regarding cases, but cases only arise through police action; and court systems are already overloaded without handling firearm permits for individuals.
I’m pro gun, but I would tie the ownership of guns to a permit, that includes first aid and firearm safety training at least for the smaller arms, and possibly more for larger arms, on top of some background checks (no history of violent crimes or domestic abuse, etc.).
Who gives out the permits?
Make them shall issue permits, as in they can’t be denied as long as you’ve gone through the proper training
My issue with that is putting permit requirements on constitutional rights is a bad idea. We are sliding closer and closer to needing permits for free speech world wide, and I can see this administration giving out 4th and 5th amendment permits if you submit to pre-screening by ICE and the police.
Gun safety and training should be free and part of our mandatory education system to ensure what you want, rather than gate kept by certifications and permits. The administrative bureaucracy will find a way to be discriminatory with any steps in a shall issue chain.
A true Liberal wants 100% deregulation. It is odd the reject MAGATs thinks the Liberals, Communists and Socialists are the same. Far fucking from it.
A true Liberal wants 100% deregulation.
I think you are talking about a Libertarian
Librarians 4 Gunz 2025
That’s not true either. What you think of as libertarianism is just anarcho-capitalism rebranded. Libertarianism is a left wing ideology. The name was stolen by right wing think tanks. True libertarians absolutely support any kind of regulation that serves to liberate individuals from subservience to capital.
Because fascism is here and guns are a requirement now if we don’t want to live in an authoritarian future.
I’ve been anti-gun my whole life. That’s because I had some faith that our society was intelligent enough that we could create a less violent nation that respects democracy and votes our way into a better future.
Reality Check: That isn’t our society.
Guns may not save us from authoritarianism, but not having them guarantees it. Wish it wasn’t so, but it is.
If this train keeps derailing, they will end up coming for you. That’s how fascism works. You want a way to defend yourself or not?
Pretty much my thoughts. I had someone ask me if I would give up my guns to save children, and or course I would! Thing is it wouldn’t. It just be one less rational person unarmed and neck presented for stepping on. If we had a main wide disarmament(which would include the fucking cops!) I ain’t giving up shit.
Ironically, leftists are more in line with the constitution with our reasoning around gun ownership. In my book, anyone who isn’t happy with the lax state of gun laws is equally an ally and we shouldn’t draw lines in the sand for no reason. You can both own a gun and want it to be harder for people who shouldn’t get them to get them, it’s almost as silly as the “you criticize society and yet you participate in society” argument.
I don’t know. I don’t think we really are good at deciding who should and shouldn’t have a right. there seems to be something fundamentally broken in that
Circumstances change, that’s the main fundamental issue. At the same time, we don’t even check for problems during a lot of gun sales. I would say domestic abuse charges, history of suicidal behavior or terroristic threats, etc. There are at least lines we can draw without it being a free for all or a massive lockdown. Admittedly, it’s mostly so we can feel we’re at least trying something in the face of our children being killed that may actually make an impact in some of the examples.
okay that’s valid and noble. I would like to live to see society change like that
but why do you think they want us disarmed before the change happens?
Well, with conservatives, it’s always about targeting those they don’t like. I wouldn’t be surprised to see anti gun legislation coming from the right that holds those already owning guns immune, but new buyers since November 2024 ineligible. I think we more or less agree?
yeah, probably. I’d bet on them somehow rolling it into concerns about immigrants and how “only real citizens get 2a rights”.
Quickest way for trump to take away everyone’s guns is for people he doesn’t like to arm up. Libs, minorities, etc. incidentally - trump is the only president who has suggested guns be taken away. Not even the snowflake republicans’ deepest fears and hatred of the Democratic presidents was ever validated by one of them saying guns should be taken away like trump.
“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.
“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.
Turns out they hate women more than they love guns.
No actually I think more women should carry them and learn the laws regarding defense in their locale. Know plenty myself that already do.
And women seem to agree with me, which is why they’ve been one of the fastest growing groups of new gun owners in the past few years.
I think this episode plot of Bojack is one of the most bitingly effective takedowns of US culture I have seen, these words live rentfree in my head as a future epitaph to put on the gravestone of the US.
Turns out they hated women more than they loved guns.
Proceeds to ban all guns Turns out America hates women more than it loves guns.
Diane ❤️
They took away black people’s gun in the past. Specifically their guns. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Exactly why I mentioned it.
Can you explain? I’m not familiar with such an event.
Thanks
Democrats and NRA worked together to end several gun rights in California because black men started open carrying.
Nobody is taking the guns from Americans, because nobody has the balls or the numbers of enforcers to do it.
For reference, the number of Americans who came out to the No Kings Day protests was larger than the sum total of all enlisted US Military and police officers. Next look at the number of Americans who own guns, it’s much larger than all of the above.
They just gradually redefine American and the gun problem disappears, ez
“They’re not taking my guns away, just those America hating
immigrantsgangscommunistsdemocratsdomestic terrorists”Nobody is just straight up kidnapping Americans off the street and deporting them to a concentration camp without due process. We would simply shoot them.
What is this strawman doing here?
Your logic is so bad that I’m not arguing with you. I’m making fun of you.
Anti-gun sentiment doesn’t belong in a country where there are more firearms than people.
It’s always been idiocy. Stupid democrats saying stupid things because they know their idiot followers will lap it up. It’s been bullshit the entire time.
America is well past the point where any of this is going to end without gunfire. So yeah. Leftists, it’s time to admit that MAGA doesn’t give a shit about your “protests” or your “letters to your representative”. Protests only work if the person you’re protesting gives a shit what you think.
It’s time to get your guns. Mussolini didn’t end up hanging upside down in an Italian town square because of protests.
Mussolini didn’t end up hanging upside down in an Italian town square because of protests.
While you’re right that the people who killed Mussolini were armed dissidents, it’s worth remembering that he was allowed to be taken after being deposed after a vote of no confidence from the fascist government of Italy after they got their shit kicked in a few times militarily, and it was the King who removed and presumably arrested him before the citizens did their thing.
And also, the Allies were plowing a path of destruction towards Italy.
Moral of the story: no great story is as simple as we need it to be. There is still politics, there are still decisions by the ruling class that allow the next steps to happen and that ruling class can have their will bent. We still need to be involved in the political system, armed mobs cause as much harm as good even in the best of circumstances, so we want to avoid that if possible, but we need to also have that force behind us or the politics won’t work.
War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him… but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing… but controlled and purposeful violence. But it’s not your business or mine to decide the purpose or the control. It’s never a soldier’s business to decide when or where or how — or why — he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people — ‘older and wiser heads,’ as they say — supply the control. Which is as it should be.
–Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
The calm that washes over me when I see people just casually talking sense on the internet
Love your username!
(•ө•)♡
Ikr it’s the gentle reassurance that nuance and substance are still out there.
To rephrase this line
Protests only work if the person you’re protesting gives a shit what you think.
Protests only work when you directly affect their vested interests. They don’t care about you or what you think. Period. Yet, they do care about something.
Organize. Find out what those vested interests are. Hold them hostage. Create the credible threat that if they do not start representing our interests, as is their assumed role of the position they have been appointed to, then we will royally fuck it up and hit them where it hurts.
Then, it doesn’t matter if they care what we think, we have established our authority and made it known that it will be enforced with immediate consequences. If they want their authority as a government official then they will respect our authority as their constituency or else.
Most of all, be prepared for them to retaliate and defend their interests. To deter us and threaten us to stand down. These are the times in history where we can’t back down. We cannot give in to them just to save our own skin when it comes at the cost of, if allowed to continue, the skins of millions of others under the boot of their oppression.
We fight and stand our ground knowing that we may possibly die, but also possibly survive and save millions of lives, or we do nothing, let millions fall to their atrocities, until they finally turn their sights on us and we die with regret that we didn’t even attempt to stop them.
They can’t do this without us so, if they want to go this route, we need to be ready to sink the whole goddamn ship so they don’t get their cake and eat it too. Mutually assured destruction is not just a nuclear deterrent. The best part is, us workers can rebuild. We built this all to begin with. The owning class assholes, if they get rid of us, will live out their final moments in a burned out husk surrounded by resources with no ability to use them. They will be Kings of nothing, to die of thirst surrounded by water with nothing but their imaginary wealth to keep them company.
Well…yeah. But mine fits on a bumper sticker…
I kid…I kid. I have to make a wise ass comment or cry. I choose the former.
It’s okay comrade, I understand.
WRONG.
It’s past time to get your guns. We (I vote Democrat and live in a blue state) have banned most guns.
Great fucking job.
Oh and btw most (as in >50%) gun deaths in the USA are from suicide where how the gun functions or how many bullets it holds at one time are irrelevant. Pity that no political party in America gives a shit about all those miserable souls who want to die. Easier to ban guns and disarm ourselves in the face of fascists who’ve taken over our nation.
Like I said… great fucking job. Quick, someone bitch about Palestine, that’ll surely help.
Actual leftists have always been pro gun though…
Yes, Karl Marx wrote:
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.”
“To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party [bourgeois], the workers must be armed and organized.”
Followed shortly after by:
The former Soviet Union established gun control in 1929 and as a result, Stalin’s government killed 40 million Soviets. This is a clear example of how gun control can be used to oppress a population and take away their right to self-defense.
The former Soviet Union established gun control in 1929 and as a result[citation needed], Stalin’s government killed 40 million Soviets.
And then they call everyone else revisionist
You think Stalin wouldn’t have killed all these people if they had guns?
law enforcers tend to be cowards. an armed community is harder to oppress
What?
Like…
I legitimately don’t know what you’re trying to say or why it’s relevant.
Did you reply to the wrong comment?
“…and as a result…”
Read your own pull quote.
This is going over a lot better than when I said it, in progressivepolitics@lemmy.world no less. What a difference a month makes these days, I suppose.
You have 16 upvotes there though.
There are 12 downvotes that I guess your instance/client doesn’t show, making it a 2:1 up/down ratio. Sure it’s not downvote oblivion, but much less favorable than here, as I said, in the “progressive” politics community, to boot. I also know at least a few people upped it when I posted the above comment.
I would fuck with that sub Lemmy. I got into an argument and they deleted every single comment I made in another separate post, even though it was at +14. Idk if they’re tankies or punks, but they both quacking to me.
Sage advice… for the 1850s.
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Just because an idea is old doesn’t make it valid either.
See for example:
As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
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No, I said: “Sage advice… for the 1850s.”
Whether it’s currently sage advice is debatable.
Like, I’m all for gun laws. But unfortunately a lot of crazy shit is legal, and a lot of people are crazy.
Prepare for the world you live in, not what you think it should be like.
Prepare for the world you live in, not what you think it should be like.
That is an amazing way of wording a sentiment I’ve had for a long time
I don’t think being anti-gun makes one not an actual leftist.
Sure, Marx wrote that stuff in Resplendent606’s comment, but:
- I think it’s worth bearing in mind that when Marx wrote that, guns were still using powder and percussion caps.
- Not everything Marx said was gospel.
Anyone not in favour of recreational nukes is in agreement that there should be a limit on the amount of lethal force a person should be allowed to own, and I think reasonable people can disagree on whether or not guns are within that limit.
Aussie Comedian Jim Jefferies in Boston dissing US gun obsession. He covers all the points in our thread.
EDIT: Not all points. The guy here making a good point about “defending” his immigrant wife isn’t covered by the comedian. It isn’t really defence, it is suicidal pre-emptive vengeance - still valid though.
The ICE raids were unimaginable at the time.
I think it’s worth bearing in mind that when Marx wrote that, guns were still using powder and percussion caps.
The Gatling Gun predates came out a 5 years before Das Kapital. Sure arms hadn’t had the revolution they’d get during WW1 yet, but they were plenty capable.
The quotes from Marx about guns were from 1850, before even the widespread adoption of the metallic cartridge.
How exactly should we enforce the rule of no recreational nukes? It typically comes down to shooting the guy trying to get a nuke - so by who, then? I don’t think it’s reasonable to conclude the existence of nukes dooms us to a state forever.
I personally don’t believe a non-anprim stateless society is feasible so I wouldn’t know.
I think it’s worth bearing in mind that when Marx wrote that, guns were still using powder and percussion caps.
More importantly than that, there were no machine guns, no tanks, no airplanes, no helicopters, no guided missiles, no rockets, no cluster bombs, no satellites, no drones, etc.
The quote is from Marx’s address to the communist league in 1850, so approximately the time of the US civil war. This was a time where the most powerful weapon of war was the cannon. Most cannons at that time were smoothbore breech loaded weapons. They were slow to load and inaccurate. In WWII up to 75% of all casualties were the result of artillery, but in the civil war it was only 12% of all casualties.
Aside from cannons, everything else was weapons carried by individual soldiers. Grenades sort-of existed at the time, but were very unreliable, and very difficult to use. So, it all came down to individual soldiers and their muskets.
Also, consider that in the 1850s a professional standing army was rare. At the peak of the US civil war there were 700,000 soldiers on the Union side, but it started with only 18,000 soldiers. That means that in wars during Marx’s time, most soldiers were conscripts or newly recruited and barely trained.
All that to say that in Marx’s time, it might have been possible for civilians armed with personal weapons to take on a government and win an armed conflict. The “proletariat” army would more or less be on an even footing with the army of the state / bourgeoisie. They’d have more or less the same weapons and the same level of training. The only thing they wouldn’t have would be the slow, inaccurate and unreliable cannons that were more scary than effective. But, presumably they could more than make up for that in sheer manpower.
Finally, even though it probably didn’t matter to Marx, consider what having a gun at home would mean in the 1850s. If an intruder comes and breaks into your house, are you going to defend your property with your musket? Probably not. It takes minutes to load and once fired, minutes more to reload. Are you going to use your musket in a “road rage” incident while riding your cart to market? Probably not. Were there mass shootings by musket? Of course not. Were there homicides and suicides? I don’t know, but I assume it happened occasionally, but it was a very different weapon back then.
Marx was concerned with the great forces of history, so he probably wasn’t the type of person who was going to consider the negative consequences of firearms lying around the house. But, even if he had considered it, back in the 1850s having a musket at home probably wasn’t a major danger to the household or to society at large.
So, let’s say what Marx said was gospel. Even in that case, it was gospel for the 1850s. What would a modern-day Marx say about things today? Maybe a modern-day Marx would say that modern standing armies are so overwhelmingly powerful that it’s pointless to pretend that they can be beaten by civilians with small arms and no training. Maybe he’d take lessons from Gandhi and MLK and suggest non-violent resistance. Or, maybe he’d be a prepper and suggest that civilians stash grenades, machine guns, rocket launchers, etc. But, IMO, his advice probably wouldn’t be that civilians just have muskets (or their modern day equivalents) because he’d have to know that in the modern world a bunch of untrained dudes with AR-15s isn’t going to win against the US military.
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No, I’m saying that what was possible for a bunch of civilians in the 1850s may not be possible today.
Look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria, Libya, Ukraine
Which one of those is a war where a force of civilians defeated a well trained and equipped modern military?
If you go far enough left, you get your guns back.
Sick of the constant, “Where my 2A people at?!” around here. I am right fucking here, but I’m not in much of a position to mount a personal assault on Washington DC. All I can reasonably do is defend my immigrant wife and our home if it comes to that.
FFS, some of these people even question self-defense. “They’ll just kill you, moron!” Yeah, well that was on the table anyway.
And if any gun-grabbers think the cops and ICE and politicians are fascist enough as-is, imagine how they would be acting if they could kick down doors with full impunity and zero fear. Yeah, the local cops could get a squad of 20 and take this house apart. But somebody’s getting hurt. I guarantee it.
Here’s an interesting thought, let’s see how this plays out. Florida is red enough ATM, governor and state Congress. Why haven’t they passed open-carry legislation? Why isn’t it even under discussion? Think they’ll make it happen?
I’ll give you three guesses, but you’re only going to need one. Fuck no they will not legislate open carry because men like me will be at every protest with an AR-15 on my shoulder and a Colt .45 in my belt.
It’s honestly crazy that we have the “right” to bear arms and the “right” to protest, but half the country cannot protest while bearing arms. Meanwhile, police are shooting people’s eyes out and trampling them with horses.
Or burning them alive in houses cause they (the cops) throw flashbangs without thinking.
And if any gun-grabbers think the cops and ICE and politicians are fascist enough as-is, imagine how they would be acting if they could kick down doors with full impunity and zero fear. Yeah, the local cops could get a squad of 20 and take this house apart. But somebody’s getting hurt. I guarantee it.
And there’s the real case for private ownership.
If you have the choice of being disappeared and killed…or being disappeared and killed while taking a few of them with you, definitely choose the latter.
It won’t help you, but if you do it, your neighbor does it, and the next 10, 20…50 people do it, eventually two things are going to happen: if it’s local forces, they’re gonna start needing help, and if it’s not local, it forces those powers into a more difficult decision of having to either get more overt with their fascism or backing off. It’s not ideal but that’s pretty much the options you have.
If they want to do all the shitty fascist things, don’t let them do it easily and for free. The higher ups might not care, but that local cop in the red hat might start to think twice when “his” government keeps asking him to haul away people, and each time, another of his friends goes down. If not from a place of shifting world view, then maybe from self preservation.
The analogy I go to for this concept is “the thorny vine.” A single thorn is a minor inconvenience, but if one were to attempt to grab the vine and tear it down by force, then there’s a lot of pain.
I tried several times in the last few days to articulate the points you’re making. well said
I’m sick of the 2A people doing fuck all beyond barricading their own doors
Be the change
Yeah screw those people who :: checks my notes:: cares about their family! Fucking bastards!
Yeah, fuck all of those other families!
you seem to be riding the, fuck all families, train so you don’t have a good argument here
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The fact that we have millions of people willing to barricade themselves while ready to defend their homes with weapons, is what will keep this tyrannical administration from knocking down random doors and dragging people out for looking at porn or leftist youtubers.
Nobody, NOBODY in the US wants to be the one breaking down the door of another US citizen, because everyone knows how many people are ready to open fire.
It’s not ideal, but it’s what we have.
If you think it would be better to “rise up” and form an armed revolution… you’re insane and dumb. They have fucking missiles and tanks.
Lol
Lol
Well thought out rebuttal, I didn’t have time to read it all but I will try to address each point later.
You typed up all them words in a country where citizens are getting disappeared right now
so your argument seems to be, ‘there are 2a people not sacrificing their lives to murder my enemies, curious…’
seems to me that in order for the next step to happen there needs to be an armed movement, which you are actively are at this moment suppressing. there needs to be more guns in progressive hands, and a collective movement else it’s just sparkling mad gunman, and thoughts and prayers.
and i guarantee you would be the first to claim the shooter would be a republican plant
And the best thing you can do to prevent that is to keep a fucking gat pointed at your door when they come, and that way we turn a potential takeover of our nation into a house-to-house meat grinder, effectively preventing that kind of action.
You are not going to win an offensive game, no matter how many people you recruit to throw their lives away in the face of machine guns and ordinance. It’s delusional roleplay thinking from watching too many movies or youtubers who make careers on LARPing.
Well what ya do is meet up at protests and devise some shenanigans
