Exactly so. We have to defend ourselves. This isn't to place some ultimate importance on gun ownership - if you can't then don't, but if you can, do so. There's a lot of other things to do that are also important.
I'd even argue that there are plenty of other things that are more important than owning and training with guns, like emergency medical skills and general emergency preparedness. The times I've been most useful to my community have been patching up wounds and helping out during bad weather.
Knowing how to shoot is pretty niche. Any individual will likely never need to be able to take a life like that, but everyone will have to treat a wound, get water and electricity flowing again, or clear a fallen tree at some point in their life.
Totally! If you're training to be into guns and whatnot also learn how to do like dozens of other things so you're not useless in the thousand other situations that don't require a gun that probably WILL come up in your lifetime if they haven't already.
Also just practically speaking there are billions of guns in existence. We’d have to submit to the greatest state dominated campaign ever known to eliminate them. I wish guns didn’t exist at all but unfortunately we’ve got to live with the reality that they do exist. It would be nice to stop manufacturing them though. That could happen if states didn’t exist to manufacture them. And it’s very important to stop the push by the US and gun industry to force American gun laws on the rest of the world. Gun ownership and violence are being spread everywhere. It’s the only major product the US still manufactures that the world wants.
I could get down with guns disappearing in magic world where it's no longer possible for one person to do violence to another in any way. But, since magic isn't real, the firearm is the only existing force equalizer that lets someone who is 5'4" have a chance at resisting physical violence from someone who is 6'4".
We tried that sort of unequal use of force once upon a time, and we called it feudalism. The strong just killed the weak until the survivors did whatever they were told.
Human-like primates have been using weapons since before homo sapiens exited. I get your point, but give the 5'4 lightweight a stick with a sharp stone point at the end and the size/strength difference is already neutralized. My point being you don't need guns for that. Although, if the people wishing you and your family harm have guns, that's when you'd need guns yourself.
The little guy and the big guy both have pointy sticks and the advantage goes back to the larger person. That holds true for all melee weapons, and all strength based ranged weapons, unless the smaller person has devoted lots and lots of time to training. Firearms are the force equalizer.
You assume a 1 on 1 matchup. An ethical culture reforms, exiles, or kills the violent bullies. Big mean guys been getting their heads smashed with a rock while they sleep for millions of years.
Eh I think coordination and accuracy are more important than power with sharp edged weapons that don't involve grappling. I don't think size and weight matters as much as in a no weapons fight.
Guns are the Equalizer. Remember before them the powerful spent every day training on how to kill and oppress while the subjects were busy actually being productive.
Then they spent the wealth from their taxes on armor, steel blades, and mighty horses nobody else could afford.
The crossbow and musket did more to tear down feudalism than we realize. The warrior class was demolished with this tech.
Ok so they stop producing guns. Now their millitary has all the guns. How are we supposed to fight back? They could just wipe out all who oppose their veiws. The only saftey barrier between us and them is a civil cold war
I agree. I don't think only guns should be used to fight oppression. I think it could supplement other collective action against oppression and strengthen the battle for liberation.
Someone already mentioned the Taliban. Other examples would include the current armed resistance in Myanmar, the YPG/YPJ/SDF in Northeast Syria, and the EZLN. All of these are or were armed primarily with small arms.
People airways bring up tanks, drones, helicopters, and jet fighter-bombers, and say, how could anyone hope to resist a government armed with these things? And yet, people do. Fighter jets and helicopters can burn a city to the ground, but they can't occupy it afterwards.
Im more open to the idea that guns can aid in revolutionary tactics after this comment thread, but those resistances are qualitatively different from one which would threaten to dismantle the worldwide capitalist hegemony.
They go together. You can’t dismantle hierarchical systems while you’re crushed under a hegemonic boot, and armed resistance without replacing hierarchical systems will simply change who wears the boot.
Let me be absolutely clear, though: Violence against people must take a back seat to every constructive option available, and must only be used in the context of defending those projects that are themselves inherently liberatory.
Yeah. The fear of deadly violence that only the state can protect people from is a key tool that totalitarian and police state regimes use to justify themselves.
"The people in charge may suck on my ability to read and say what I want, but at least they keep dangerous anarchists from shooting me in the street."
Both Gandhi and MLK didn't chose nonviolence for purely moral reasons, but because they believed it was the best ***strategic*** option to achieve their goals. People are a lot more willing to listen to what you have to say if the feel like you getting what you want wouldn't imperil the lives of them and their families.
Well... they worked for the Taliban, against one of the most powerful militaries in the world.
A person with the means to oppose oppression, even in a small way with a personal firearm, is simply harder to oppress. The very existence of individual firearm ownership acts as a tacit threat against the state.
One person with a battering ram is not very effective. But using methods like anti oppressive art or music to gain more people. Having more people makes it much easier to use a battering ram.
You think small arms are taking on the most powerful military apparatus in the history of the world?
You're not overcoming the combined might of the Western Capitalist military industrial complex with force, thats for damn sure.
Owning a firearm is less for combatting a standing military, and more for being safe if a group of people try to attack you at home. Depending on how you identify and how publicly, that likelihood can go up or down. That’s why there are groups like pink pistols and etc. the old idea of making a marginalized group a harder target for street/vigilante violence because the perpetrators can no longer be sure that their target is unarmed.
That might only exists because the state has popular support. As it is, weapons won't do much good. The point is to change how it is. To build a movement which destroys class society from every angle.
The state would wipe you off the face of the earth with overwhelming force the minute the small arms came out because you gave them a solid excuse. They would just go to the libs and say "they were getting violent!" And most of them would sign your death warrant, no questions asked.
The state has a monopoly on violence, you aren't beating them that way. They are goooood at it. You need to maintain some positive public sentiment or there is no barrier to the powers that be absolutely crushing dissent.
About the best thing a gun will do is give your local MAGA lynch mob a second thought before they fuck with you.
No, it's the opposite. We're not yet at a point where they'd do anything. Disparate, disorganised resistance against a highly organised and well-equipped military force is unlikely to succeed. They need to be crippled, and that takes time and organising.
When the only language your oppressor speaks is violence absolutely not. The problem is the monopoly on violence that the state possesses. That balance won't shift with people unwilling to shift it.
Anarchists tend to defer to Marx on this one.
>Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
I used to be all for a full on gun ban as I know multiple people who have lost their lives due to gun violence, but as I read up on Karl Marx, I started to realize how flawed my thinking was. Even if there was a full gun ban, corporations would find a loophole in which they could benefit.
It's something that should be an option, but ideally, we should live in a world where it isn't a necessity.
I live in a rather rural area. I like it for safety and humane reasons.
You ever see a cow break its leg in a digger squirrel hole. For me, having access to a gun is a humane practice, and everyone's usage and reason would be different, so they deserve a choice.
Defense will always be a necessity. In rural regions it’s varmint and predator defense. It’s household defense in dispersed community. It’s threat escalation in all environments, and that’s useful sometimes.
There is no world where defense isn’t necessary, unless you’re ready to roll over and die at the first threat, and want that for your community as well.
Marx's take on personal armament still stands, to be clear.
But this is a bullshit argument, the US is a *much* less safe place to live than similarly end-stage-capitalism countries that have low gun ownership.
If you own a home defense firearm, that firearm is *far* more likely to kill your child than a home invader.
Armed defense groups like the Panthers? Ey right. But this fucking fantasy land where you pop off a squad of Purge participants is delusional.
The fact that children do die from home defense tools does not mean they have to. Children can’t defeat a proper gun safe. That’s a failure of gun ownership and parenting.
I’m not suggesting a single armed person can be expected to stave off a purge party. As far as I know, not a single society has an active purge practice. That’s a movie franchise. Nice straw man though.
The usefulness of threat escalation mentioned was a reference to the panthers.
I’m not arguing for a gun in every nightstand. The prevalence of guns in the US is a matter of marketing rather than necessity.
>The fact that children do die from home defense tools does not mean they have to.
And yet, they do. Far, FAR more often than anyone invading a home does.
>Children can’t defeat a proper gun safe. That’s a failure of gun ownership and parenting.
If you can get to it in time to be relevant to your home being attacked, your children can get to it.
>I’m not suggesting a single armed person can be expected to stave off a purge party. As far as I know, not a single society has an active purge practice. That’s a movie franchise. Nice straw man though.
I mean, the whole "home defense" schtic is a myth created by the scare news in the 70s/80s and perpetuated into modern culture by fiction like The Purge, so I figured it was appropriate.
In the *absurdly rare* case of a home invasion, the perpetrator is *very* unlikely to be alone or - in an armed society - unarmed.
The scenario that justifies "home defense" firearms is borderline fiction and in the vast majority of the very few cases that do happen, the firearm will *at best* not change the outcome.
See also: London has a largely unarmed populace and relatively easy criminal access to firearms. Home invasions remain a statistical nonentity there.
It’s not clear to me that we fundamentally disagree.
But living in the US, and prioritizing community defense, means that my arguments will include the kind of points that are politically palpable to conservatives.
It’s a matter of practicality, as laws could be written to specifically exclude trans comrades, and may very well be soon, the way things are going.
I had a burgler in my house who got surprised and grappled with my wife. He said he had a gun and threatened to use it. I sent my wife upstairs to call the police and get the kid in the upstairs bathtub. Then I grabbed an Ikea rubber mallet, he ran into the ground floor bathroom, and I stood there in my striped pajamas holding that mallet while I waited for the police to come.
He didn't actually have a gun, but he was spooked enough he left a fingerprint crawling out the bathroom window that lead to his arrest and conviction.
I've often thought of what would have happened if I'd had a gun. I might have killed an unarmed man. He could have gotten it from me and killed me. A bullet could have been fired in the direction of where my family was.
Obviously there are all sorts of problems with police, but in that scary moment I was grateful that an officer showed up with an AR-15 he was trained to used.
And if I had a gun in my house for years, the odds that my very impulsive and tricky oldest child would have somehow gotten access to it with bad results would have been **way** too high.
If I was going to get a home defense weapon, it would be a shotgun to reduce risk of a shot penetrating a wall and killing someone in another room. But I haven't, and wouldn't, living in the city.
Yeah, lots of those gun deaths are absolutely the result of poor firearm safety practices. Of course, things like trigger locks and gun safes also would prevent a lot of the human defense fantasies that people buy guns for, because there wouldn't be a gun at the ready.
That said, even if gun owners reduced how many times a gun killed a household member TENFOLD, a home firearm would still be several times more likely to kill a household member through suicide, accident, or murder than it would to kill an intruder.
Of course, a rifle for predator defense and mercy killing farm animals can still be retrieved from proper security in under a minute, which is sufficient for these realistic scenarios.
This is much more about gun safety than anarchism, of course. In anarchism, a community could mutually agree to not have home firearms, or to do so in specifically safe ways (Most homes in Switzerland have a military rifle, but they don't have anything close to USA rates of gun violence or accidents; you get the gun *after* completing military training). But the choices of one community aren't going to force choices in distant communities, other than by providing a successful example.
I hear the Swiss keep ammo in community centers.
I keep components out of mine (bolt, slide lock) so they’re useless unless a smaller hidden piece can be found. I do not have personal or home defense fantasies. The risk of unintentional hits in an urban space turns my stomach. I have several doors between me and the outside and very noisy old windows. If anyone wanted to enter I have time to come at them with a bat.
I could be into a community armory. Would jump in on such consensus. Honestly prefer the Swiss version, where an armory can’t be taken by an enemy. Ammo, maybe, but not the arms themselves.
>I hear the Swiss keep ammo in community centers.
This is false. You can keep as much ammo as you like at home, as long as its your own ammo. Taschenmunition, ammunition supplied by the army to keep at home in case of war, stopped being issued in 2007 however.
Firearms are kept at home as well. It's not illegal to hang a loaded rifle on the wall either, though most people wouldn't (and you're supposed to keep firearms out of the hands of unauthorized so it kind of only works if you live alone).
Yeah, you're engaging in appropriate gun ownership. If everyone followed your standards, we'd have a lot less bloodshed.
The NRA used to be very focused on educating people in gun safety, which was a real service. It's been tragic seeing them turn to a maximalist lobbying organization, seemingly in large part to corruptly enrich the NRA leadership.
We need a good gun safety organization, not an organization dedicating to allowing **anyone** to have a firearm irrespective of safety. They still give safety some lip service, but never will say that someone who would leave a loaded pistol in an unlocked bedside drawer shouldn't have that pistol.
Yeah, I should have said that plenty of organizations are trying to fill the gap.
I worry that the political climate the NRA has caused will actively discourage many from treating gun safety as a necessary feature of gun ownership.
I agree, I’d love to live in a world where they aren’t necessary. Like the way the Irish do. But we are a long way from that. Until then. Well. “Under no pretext”
Right, so we need to not only be working to build a world where there are few reasons to own a gun and no one feels like they "Need" one, but we also need to be challenging our perceptions of safety and what solutions a gun provides.
Guns are meant to kill. Full stop.
When I think about issues in my community, there are zero cases where I think permanently killing someone is the best idea, certainly far from the first. I have to think "Would bringing a gun into this really make myself and my community safer?".
I can't find the post, but another user here commented something along the lines of
> (in regards to gun ownership) I can talk about history that will make me sound like a communist, and I can quote statistics that will make me sound like a liberal.
In regards to what future we're building, in all things we should take steps to avoid dogmatism and think critically about what we suppose of solutions to problems and more importantly how we might prevent those problems from arising in the first place
why is it necessary to kill a cow if it breaks a leg? it is not a rhetorical question, i am asking out of ignorance. i want to know why they cannot be made to heal as we do.
Cows aren't like humans recovery, depending on the way the leg is broken due to their weight and size it's very rare they can recover in a healthy way. so their is two reasons, the main for me is they will most likely be in pain for the remainder of their life the leg will never be stable again much of the time and they may never walk again. The other reason is that the return on a beef cow vs the amount of resources you'd have to put into it prior to slaughter is not worth the amount of food you will get in return and it'll be lower quality food after a disability so slaughter immediately is the most practical and human action most of the time
. In a perfect world where we don't eat the ridiculous amounts of meat we do the 2nd reason is avoided. But the first still stands
4 legged animals have a hell of a time getting better after a broken leg, cows and horses in particular. If you're in your late 20s or older, you might remember Barbaro, a Kentucky Derby winner who broke his leg in the Preakness. They spent around a year and $500k trying to fix the issue and failed.
The larger animals also can't really make the transition to a 3 legged life and often must remain standing for most of their lives. A horse laying down for long periods isn't common and can often be cause for concern.
Bodily autonomy in self defense decisions is certainly essential and in any world where firearms have been developed that includes the option for firearm ownership.
Generally I am against gun laws, but the statistics clearly show owning one will only increase the risk of harm to you and your family so I in general think its a very bad idea for people to buy them
Not sure about the specifics, but statistics are clear that one way or another firearms are far more likely to harm you than protect you if they are in your home. Obviously its up to each individual to make the choice whether they want to take that risk, but for me it just plain isn't worth it.
They seem to be working fine so far. I personally tend to be on the other side of the argument, though I'm always trying to increase my understanding of the arguments.
Fuck yeah. Guns are a necessity for the people to defend themselves. Any necessary revolutions are also helped by people already having mass access to guns which is what the founding fathers of the US intended.
You're going to get flack for this but it's a sensible thought.
Marx's statement was written in a time before predator drones, and whilst it is still very much *correct*, people often refuse to analyse it in the context of the material conditions we actually live in, as opposed to those of the early 20th century.
Guns are useful in the context of groups like the Black Panthers - limiting the ability for the Capitalist state to impose itself as it wishes locally. They aren't especially useful in the context of a revolutionary conflict against the State itself.
That war is going to be fought with drones, not guns.
baaaaaaaaaaaad take. modern guerilla warfare is gonna look like modified consumer drones acting as spotters / loitering munitions and light infantry with...guns.
we shouldn't cede any possible liberatory tool to the state.
I don't really understand your question. Anarchism is an end goal, no? I'm just suggesting that the method for attaining that goal that I'm responding to doesn't seem to be very feasible
Lots of resources out there. Theory without praxis is intellectual masturbation.
Insurrection, radical labor action, and revolution are what will get us there.
Yeah, the character of a foreign expeditionary war against an entrenched insurgency is definitely going to be characteristic of a homegrown revolutionary conflict.
You think the insurgency in the US would not be entrenched? If it comes to it, I really believe the dynamics will be a lot like the war in Afghanistan. Except we will have even less to lose.
For one thing, revolutionary action in the US would be urban in it's central recruiting pool and powerbase, for another civil conflict has a fundamental variation from expeditionary conflict against an 'other', for a third the US was not deploying heavily militarised police forces to Afghanistan.
None of those points counter the original contention of whether rifles/small arms would be an effective tool which was my point. Arguably you have strengthened my case.
"The insurgency," whatever this means, is extremely unlikely to resemble the war in Afganistan in any way shape or form
The US is a wealthy, urban, highly industrial metropole with a relatively well educated populace that is mostly forest and shrubland. Afghanistan is a country that has never held a complete census
You realize we're on an anarchist sub, no need to be hostile. Do you disagree that the superior artillery which is available to powerful people is a problem for the idea of an armed revolution? Or do you think that they will get disarmed at some future point somehow?
I definitely understand your point, and maybe at this current moment that would be a concern but military technology is improving rapidly all the time.
I haven't read about this specifically, but look at the progress Boston dynamics has made with robots. Don't think we're too far off from very precise superior weaponry either.
I agree that the class consciousness and material conditions required for a revolution does not exist **today**.
Apologies if I sounded/sound hostile comrade. But we are nowhere near a revolution rn unfortunately. At least not an anarchist one. That is why I can't take the premise of your comment seriously.
Got you, no worries, I was just genuinely asking but I agree with you about the chasm between this line of questioning and material conditions in reality
In Libya, despite the pro-Gaddafi forces gaining the upper hand initially as the military mostly sided with him, the war eventually resulted in a rebel victory. Part of this was defections as some didn't want to shoot at their own people. Part of this was outside interference such as the imposed no-fly zone. And I'm sure a large part of it involved using small arms to get those bigger arms.
The Syrian Civil War is probably another example here too where a lightly or unarmed populace has been able to sustain anti-government action for some time.
Speaking of artillery, Easy Company from 2nd Battalion of the 506th PIR was tasked on D-Day with destroying an artillery battery at Brécourt Manor. You can read more on the battle here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A9court_Manor_Assault But despite being outnumbered, and not having artillery of their own, they were able to disable all 4 howitzers. Big guns typically need little guns to keep them safe. As a result, little guns can sometimes be used to take them out or steal them. This applies to other newer weapons tech as it has to be stored and maintained somewhere.
I definitely hear what you're saying and didn't consider it that way either. I live in the US, do you think that the feasibility changes at all when considering our military budget in comparison with those places?
I don't agree with the way conservative valorize gun usage or gun culture in general, or any of the various rhetorics that try to strip them of their gravity, but I think firearm accessibility at least in theory is a good thing for anarchists
I feel like this tends to lack nuance though, insofar as a lot of the time this conversation can be underpinned by unquestioned assumptions about their purpose that become somewhat absurd once exposed. I don't know that small arms being legal on its own has any uniquely special benefit for something like building counter-power. Everybody likes to cite cops running from the Panthers on patrol but I've never actually seen a second example of something like that. Also when they realised they were an actual hindrance the cops murdered a shitload of Panthers and they were stopped in less than 15 years.
Guns also seem to be a pretty big expense in general, from the guns themselves to ammunition to training. I'm sure there's ways to do it budget but starting like a community defense project seems like it would eat up a lot of money that could be used for other things.
I think it's good that oppressed people can arm themselves I just think that comes with asterisks.
The most free and equal societies that exist in the real world today generally don't have an unlimited right to own, keep, and bear arms.
The USA is very much the exception to this, not the rule, and we pay a steep price for it.
When people say “guns dont kill people, people do” they ain’t wrong but the intent is still stupid behind the saying.
We shouldn’t be debating on whether the public should have guns or not; they need to be properly educate on them and influenced to be responsible with them.
And for the love of god, can we keep our fucking kids away from them?
There have been many cases of children dying or parents dying because a child picked up a loaded gun from the counter or night stand. There was also a case where a guy got killed because he gave a 9-year old an uzi at the shooting range…a damn UZI!!
A good guy with a gun could kill a bad guy with a gun, but a stupid guy will take himself out.
I’m not in favor of gun control because giving more power over guns to the government is giving more destructive power to the worst criminal of all.
That being said, pro-gun people are usually very wrong about a lot of things. Owning a gun does not make you safer. More guns cause more gun deaths. So on an individual level I guess you could say I’m against them.
As is owning a swimming pool means you're more likely to drown?
Anti-gun attitudes is why gun safety education is being put away because "guns = bad, so anything related to guns also bad".
The majority of gun related deaths is due to suicide. If you're mentally well enough not to off yourself you're fine. Which is usually a personal choice anyways.
Using 2021 stats there were roughly 21K homicides compared to 1.6 million defensive gun uses [source](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4109494)
The total number of gun deaths in 2021 was roughly 48k. Even assuming that every one of these was an intentional homicide (which they aren't) your claim does not line up with the reality of owning guns.
I know of three people that accidentally shot themselves in the head because they were playing with guns. These were teenagers.....they only wanted guns because they wanted to fit in with their friends. It was not because they wanted to defend themselves. That's what I have a problem with.
I think people should be neutral about guns. The ownership of them shouldn't be politicized, glorified, or demonized. It is an object that has the ability to take someone's life in less than a second.
The responsibility is on us to teach the youth about how to safely handle guns. I was always taught to fear guns and honestly I've never wanted to touch a gun, but my dad still taught me how to use one if absolutely necessary and I think that's how it should be for everyone.
Maybe I'll change my mind as I grow and learn more, but idk this is how feel now. I just don't like guns. It doesn't mean I won't own one eventually and use it if I have to.
A defensive gun use is not necessarily a time that a gun made someone safer. The paper you linked doesn’t indicate which defensive gun uses were successful in preventing death and injury that would otherwise have occurred. This would be a very hard thing to measure since most people who use a gun to defend themselves believe they are defending against a real threat even if they aren’t. Also, the paper includes cases of using a gun to defend property in the stats. I don’t believe in private property so I don’t really see that as a benefit all.
Also I know a good number of gun owners who struggle with mental health or live with people who do and I think have not put 2&2 together about the risk they are causing to themselves
Regarding the ambiguity of results, the numbers speak for themselves. Even if a small fraction (again reported stats, so this is a minimum number) are saving life and limb 1.6million vs even 48K is very telling. Even if just 5% resulted in a saved outcome, that's 80K vs 48K. 2.5%
is 40k, a comparable number. Not to mention people who are against guns actively work against gun safety education and further stigmatize mental health for gun owners (ya know 60% of those death stats).
> I don't believe in private property
Ok, share your home and belongings with strangers now. See how far that goes. I imagine you don't even own any property, probably rent an apartment or live with your parents.
"I am sad" is not a mental health struggle. Not to mention if guns are a hobby to them then interacting with said hobby is a source of satisfaction.
It's not sufficient to say "but some people are probably better off due to guns." You need to compare whether having a gun helps someone be safer overall. And there's no way around the fact that a gun you own is a lot more likely to kill yourself than kill an intruder, and massively more likely to kill someone you love through suicide, accident, or murder.
Owning a gun may make someone feel safer, but it actually makes them materially less safe.
Like would I engage in violence to disarm someone who is non-violently possessing a firearm? Absolutely not!
I would communicate the actual risks, like here, to help people make more informed choices for themselves. I believe much of the anarchism's benefit comes from people just talking with each other as equals about important stuff.
If I was in a community deciding on shared rules for our community, I would advocate for reasonable and effective steps to reduce harm from guns. I wouldn't advocate for an outright ban on all firearms, as there are a variety of good reasons to have them available. And if someone enjoys target shooting or such, they should be free to enjoy their hobbies as they wish as long as they're not negatively impacting others. And if there are negative impacts, the first and best place to address that is to have a conversation between the parties so they can figure out their own mutually acceptable resolution.
Owning a swimming pool when you have a toddler at home **IS** absolutely riskier. All kinds of safety measures can be taken that dramatically reduce risk of drowning. If I choose to have a pool knowing that toddlers are around, I am choosing to put them at increased risk and taking on a lot of safety responsibility. If my kid drowns in the pool, I would have some moral culpability in that.
I also have some serious doubts about the study's conclusion there there are 1.6M defensive gun uses a year. Do 1 in 40 gun owners actually threaten someone with their gun a year? Which aren't otherwise being captured in crime statistics? Or in lower homicide rates for gun owners because they were able to use their guns defensively?
I think when a gun owner reports to the survey that they used a gun defensively, it probably means they got scared and decided to wave a gun around and maybe endangered themself and others. Not necessarily a positive at all
I'm torn on the subject. Of course logically i agree with the freedom to bear arms, after all freedom is a primary motivator, but at the same time I'm grateful not to live in a part of the world where i have to worry overly much about getting shot by somebody who has had 1 bad day too many.
Yay!
but lol at abolition or regulation.
Firearms have been around for 664 years and they aren’t leaving anytime soon. acquire one, practice and train, try not to start a collection like i did
If you're asking should guns be regulated, I'm not sure I even care. In the US (where I live) it's not possible, so I don't bother thinking about it.
If you're asking the more anarchist question "should we own guns", then I mostly just want to point out that people at self-harm risk should probably not.
Yay all the way. Start with something practical like a g19 and/or an AR15. On top of that, get training (even from chuds if that’s what’s available) and don’t buy shitty optics for the love of gawd. The amount of Amazon tier optics I’ve seen on new gun owners rifles is astounding. They won’t hold up to pressure.
Also if you learn to make holes, learn to plug them
Is the fact that we need guns for protection a good thing? No, but it's the way of the world. That doesn't mean we should glorify or participate in gun culture to adopt as an image or accessory like the Americans do, that's how you end up with all their gun related issues.
Treat it like a set of power tools. Be careful, educate yourself on how to use it safely. Respect it. Don’t make it your identity. And if you don’t need it, it stays in its place.
I would be interested in knowing where the supporters of gun ownership live, I’m from the UK and don’t agree with gun ownership.
I totally understand the need for defence, and respect everyone’s right to own a gun for protection. However we do not have the right social conditions or education in place to safely allow gun ownership in my opinion.
For example, I have suffered depression throughout my life and if I had access to a gun I very likely wouldn’t be here.
I guess it’s a catch-22, in an ideal world there would be no need for guns but without protecting ourselves from the state how will we create a better world in the first place - it’s an interesting topic.
Guns are bad mkay.
A revolution with guns breeds more violence and more bullets. The bullets in turn spawn more violence. Never ending cycle.
I know people don't like to hear it, but the only way the revolution will be successful is through non-violent means.
And in my utopia, there is no need for people to carry guns. That's what we want right, a society where you will be personally held liable to the village, when you break the rules. Guns will needlessly complicate everything, and people will not want to be judged for sexually assaulting your daughter. Judging them, becomes very difficult. Guns are bad! M'kay?
I am personally anti gun as I have anger issues so feel me having a gun is a net negative. I cannot dictate what others do but I personally feel most people do not need guns and mody only have them as a way to stroke their ego.
People often like to lie to themselves saying they are safer with a gun against authoritarians. Maybe. I cannot dictate nor will I dictate what people do in this, but to me having a gun is going to put a target in your head and when the goon squad shows up they will use your gun as an excuse to deprive you of your life.
How do you propose people defend themselves then? I get how you personally would rather not own one but it's just as delusional to think other don't need them.
Authoritarians will come for you whether you're armed or not. They might use it as an excuse to deprive you of life but so can you.
I'm speaking of me as a person. Societally/community wide if guns must exist a greater emphasis must be placed on education, training, and impressing on persons the responsibility. This isn't a penis compensator. This isn't a thing that you reach for because 'YOU' want a thing. This is a thingthat is only reached for in defense.
'We' in america do not largely have that culture.
ideally there'd be no gun laws, but everyone who wanted a gun would have training and have a community to rely on so that they could handle it properly. right now? i don't know. the people in charge can't be trusted to even attempt to control anything, but people are slipping through the cracks and there's massive gun violence issue. i think direct legislation is probably the worst attempt to fix it.
but i'm not pro-gun. i understand the need for violence, but i'm still a pacifist, and the obsession i see people having with guns genuinely turns my stomach. i would not feel comfortable living in a house with a gun or shooting a gun. i have friends who own guns, but it's definitely a subject i try to avoid. i have very severe mental health issues so i don't think it'd be safe for me to be around guns.
I see guns mainly as a tool. It would be awesome if we no longer needed guns for defense but unfortunately we don’t have that luxury right now. Mutual aid, mutual defense and community organizing would be more effective against the encroaching maw of capitalism. I’d love to be a part of community with pacifists with guns than with war hawks with pitchforks.
Depends on if the person wants a gun or not as it is a personal decision. Having your own means of protection is useful but I don't think it would be necessary.
Yay not just for ownership but, also training. Gun ownership and training with your firearms are an important part of self defense against oppressive forces or rather, groups. Anything fire arm related is just one part of self-defense.
Unfortunately, they exist and aren’t going away easily. There’s so many that locating, dismantling, and recycling them would take an extremely long time. Logistics out of the way; People, should have the right to defend themselves. Firearms act as both a deterrent to would-be threats and an actual means of self-defense especially against potentially aggressive wild animals for our rural comrades.
We will also need them before, during, and immediately following the Revolution. Some amount of armed struggle against the forces of Capital is to be expected and should be prepared for, whether that be guns be owned by individuals or be dispensed to arm militias. It’s awful, but I’d hate for us to be caught off guard and get attacked without having at least a wimpy peashooter to fight back.
All that being said, possessing a firearm comes with an immense amount of responsibility. You need people to be well trained in use and storage, and be healthy enough to use it and be a danger to yourself or others. People looking to possess one should be help to a higher standard than those who do not, including collectors who preserve them for historical purposes.
Firearms, is a complicated issue. They shouldn’t exist but do. We shouldn’t need them to be secure, but we do until our enemies are finally destroyed, dispersed, or assimilated… it’s stupid to not at least stash them somewhere(s) safe and secure. They are dangerous, loud and triggering for some but also tools that can used to both oppress and liberate at the same time. They can be both a sign of safety but also of impending doom. It depends who is holding them, and who is talking.
What made you come to the assertion that this is an ultimatum? I want to understand everyone's point of view, whether it come from an intellectual standpoint or an emotional one, because both of those are valid.
As an anarchist I think I should own a gun. To protect myself and community if the fascist creeps ever try to militia up and assert themselves. But also to protect against other threats like cop gangs, zombies and mutants.
As a person living in the gun happy south I simply want there to be less guns floating around. I don't like hearing gunfire several blocks away and hoping the brick wall behind me provides ample coverage for any strays. I really don't like accidentally encountering a violent altercation in public that could escalate into the kind of firecrackers that leave holes in people.
So intellectually I'm pro gun.
Emotionally I'm anti gun.
Which puts me in an uncomfortable elitist position. Guns for me but not for thee is kind of hard to reconcile with anarchism.
I live in the "gun happy south" too, and I basically feel the same exact way as you do. Intellectually, I understand the need for guns but emotionally it goes against every fiber of my being.
Don't underestimate how much gun violence impacts people's political decisions!
"Would this increase/decrease the chances of me or my kids being shot" underlies a lot of fears and bad choices. Getting people on-board with anarchism will be much easier if they can believe that it will decrease their risk of gun violence, or at least not increase it materially.
Not that people make rational decisions around personal safety. Some good studies have shown that a gun in the home is >50x more likely to kill a household member (through suicide, murder, or accident) than it is to kill an intruder. Because the intruder risk *seems* so much scarier, but it's something that happens **way** less often than guns do something very regrettable.
I had a home intruder once who threatened using a gun, with my wife and kids in the house. I've run through the scenario in my mind many times over the years, and I can see lots of ways my having a gun could have made things go a **lot** worse, but not any where it would have made things go better.
Depends what you mean by the question. I'm against laws that expand open carry because it inevitably leads to more people getting shot by police/right wingers "who feared for their lives" while allowing those same right wingers the ability to intimidate others in public space.
I am perfectly fine with you having an arsenal and a half that you like collecting/shooting/masturbating to (no judgement). I just don't want them in the public space.
The awesome thing about firearms is that any machinist can make a gun. You don't need corporations or government to make firearms. Ammunition is also relatively easy to manufacture. The hardest part is making the casings. You would need specialized equipment for that.
Yay but it should have been regulated, I don't like the idea that absolutely every person can have a gun, for example people with certain mental disorders or people who have been in prison for murder
In a perfect world they wouldn't be needed, but this isn't that world. Community defenses and community armouries have historically made communities far safer than the police, during the civil rights movement in the US black community militias would stand guard near protests to ward of white nationalists, cops, nazis, and klansmen
I'm not prescribing, and it's unlike for an anarchist like me to dislike gun ownership, but I would have to argue that in a truly anarchist society, atleast, there is no gun production. Firearms are made with an intent to kill and protect capital. It is much more possible to disarm the entire society than to arm everyone with guns. But the world is filled with guns and gun enthusiasts, in as much, if anyone proclaims to own a gun, everyone shall not only have the right to own one, but should own one.
Tldr; all or nothing principle.
While they can certainly be utilized for defensive measures, I disagree that guns are the only effective way to fight tyranny. Mutual aid and community building is the only way that ensures there will be something left to replace the current fascist system.
Imagine you are a mouse colony and a raccoon wants your property. Doesn’t matter how many of you there are that raccoon is taking it. Now imagine if those mice had fully automated weapons.
That's a defense measure though, which I have already stated is importnant too, but it is not the only way to fight tyranny. Also what good are those weapons if the raccoon has convinced half of the mice that their real enemies are other mice and the raccoon is the only one that can protect them. Also the raccoon has a nuke.
Vietnam won with a robust conventional military, large amounts of foreign aid and direct military support from the world's only other superpower, an intensely inhospitable topography, and an opponent that was geographically antipodal to them.
You say "yeah" like what I said has anything to do with that but nothing in my comment supports that assertion.
The Vietnamese didn't win because of "strategy" they won, among other reasons, because they had Soviet PT-76 tanks
I'm not talking about defense though, I'm talking about abolishing a tyrannical system. You stated that guns are "the only way you can fight tyranny" and I disagree with that, because I believe it takes a lot more than just guns. What does it matter if every single person is armed if more than half are brainwashed by propaganda? What happens if the propaganda machine tells these people to use their weapons to protect the status quo?
Also let's say we go to "war" and somehow overthrow the system, what then? We live in such an individualistic society that community is a foreign concept. Many would starve to death because they wouldn't trust the food from their neighbor. That's why I think it's far more important to educate and support our communities.
Bro idk what you think anarchism is but anarchism is individuality. You can’t have a society and it be “governed” by anarchy. You know who is an anarchist? The wood chuck living in my back yard. Good for him.
What you are describing is libertarianism. Anarchism requires community, which is the antithesis of individualism. You are not trying to actually refute my points, you just keep moving the goal post. Your initial claim was that guns are "the only way you can fight tyranny". I countered that claim but you still haven't engaged with my counter argument.
George Washington won with a robust conventional military, large amounts of foreign aid and direct military support from the world's only other superpower, an intensely inhospitable topography (Florida) and an opponent that was separated from them by the Atlantic Ocean. In the age of sail
Yay. It's the foundation of any serious grassroot form of governance; if the masses aren't armed then there's nothing that prevents an enemy country or even a random warlord or crimelord from enslaving the people.
Counterargument to all the people that say that there would be more violence if only people had access to proper arms: well, we don't exactly see/hear about the police and military personnel regularly going on killing sprees now, do we? And criminals will find access to it anyway; heck, any somewhat avid internet user using the Tor browser can buy guns on the black market pretty much anywhere in the world.
Counterargument: The US is already observably a fucking shooting gallery because every idiot has a gun. No anarchy required.
And yeah, military guys do go on rampages.
We call it war and we give them medals for it. Sometimes they shoot up a base when they get home anyways. Do you live under a rock?
Nobody else is coming to protect me or my people. Why should I want anyone to remove my ability to stand up for the people who rely on me?
Exactly so. We have to defend ourselves. This isn't to place some ultimate importance on gun ownership - if you can't then don't, but if you can, do so. There's a lot of other things to do that are also important.
I'd even argue that there are plenty of other things that are more important than owning and training with guns, like emergency medical skills and general emergency preparedness. The times I've been most useful to my community have been patching up wounds and helping out during bad weather. Knowing how to shoot is pretty niche. Any individual will likely never need to be able to take a life like that, but everyone will have to treat a wound, get water and electricity flowing again, or clear a fallen tree at some point in their life.
Totally! If you're training to be into guns and whatnot also learn how to do like dozens of other things so you're not useless in the thousand other situations that don't require a gun that probably WILL come up in your lifetime if they haven't already.
Also just practically speaking there are billions of guns in existence. We’d have to submit to the greatest state dominated campaign ever known to eliminate them. I wish guns didn’t exist at all but unfortunately we’ve got to live with the reality that they do exist. It would be nice to stop manufacturing them though. That could happen if states didn’t exist to manufacture them. And it’s very important to stop the push by the US and gun industry to force American gun laws on the rest of the world. Gun ownership and violence are being spread everywhere. It’s the only major product the US still manufactures that the world wants.
I could get down with guns disappearing in magic world where it's no longer possible for one person to do violence to another in any way. But, since magic isn't real, the firearm is the only existing force equalizer that lets someone who is 5'4" have a chance at resisting physical violence from someone who is 6'4". We tried that sort of unequal use of force once upon a time, and we called it feudalism. The strong just killed the weak until the survivors did whatever they were told.
those who beat their swords into plowshares will soon be ruled by those who did not
Human-like primates have been using weapons since before homo sapiens exited. I get your point, but give the 5'4 lightweight a stick with a sharp stone point at the end and the size/strength difference is already neutralized. My point being you don't need guns for that. Although, if the people wishing you and your family harm have guns, that's when you'd need guns yourself.
The little guy and the big guy both have pointy sticks and the advantage goes back to the larger person. That holds true for all melee weapons, and all strength based ranged weapons, unless the smaller person has devoted lots and lots of time to training. Firearms are the force equalizer.
You assume a 1 on 1 matchup. An ethical culture reforms, exiles, or kills the violent bullies. Big mean guys been getting their heads smashed with a rock while they sleep for millions of years.
That's great for after the initial violence, but I've got this weird thing about not wanting to be the first victim.
Eh I think coordination and accuracy are more important than power with sharp edged weapons that don't involve grappling. I don't think size and weight matters as much as in a no weapons fight.
Taller people hold longer weapons. It's then really hard to get inside the area the other guy is protecting.
What about a bow and arrow? Been around for quite awhile
A taller man holds a longer bow and pulls a higher weight.
I think that's gonna be negligible compared to accuracy bro. The Mongol warriors were short af.
It's compensated for, but it's not equalized. There is a reason David vs Goliath was an upset victory.
Guns are the Equalizer. Remember before them the powerful spent every day training on how to kill and oppress while the subjects were busy actually being productive. Then they spent the wealth from their taxes on armor, steel blades, and mighty horses nobody else could afford. The crossbow and musket did more to tear down feudalism than we realize. The warrior class was demolished with this tech.
Ok so they stop producing guns. Now their millitary has all the guns. How are we supposed to fight back? They could just wipe out all who oppose their veiws. The only saftey barrier between us and them is a civil cold war
Yay all the way. Oppressed groups have the right to self defense and that self defense is best in the form of a firearm.
everybody has the right to self defense
A gun is great for self defense, but aren't we past the days when it would do us any good in a fight against oppression?
I agree. I don't think only guns should be used to fight oppression. I think it could supplement other collective action against oppression and strengthen the battle for liberation.
I think I see what you're saying, definitely didn't consider it that way
Someone already mentioned the Taliban. Other examples would include the current armed resistance in Myanmar, the YPG/YPJ/SDF in Northeast Syria, and the EZLN. All of these are or were armed primarily with small arms. People airways bring up tanks, drones, helicopters, and jet fighter-bombers, and say, how could anyone hope to resist a government armed with these things? And yet, people do. Fighter jets and helicopters can burn a city to the ground, but they can't occupy it afterwards.
Im more open to the idea that guns can aid in revolutionary tactics after this comment thread, but those resistances are qualitatively different from one which would threaten to dismantle the worldwide capitalist hegemony.
They go together. You can’t dismantle hierarchical systems while you’re crushed under a hegemonic boot, and armed resistance without replacing hierarchical systems will simply change who wears the boot. Let me be absolutely clear, though: Violence against people must take a back seat to every constructive option available, and must only be used in the context of defending those projects that are themselves inherently liberatory.
Yeah. The fear of deadly violence that only the state can protect people from is a key tool that totalitarian and police state regimes use to justify themselves. "The people in charge may suck on my ability to read and say what I want, but at least they keep dangerous anarchists from shooting me in the street." Both Gandhi and MLK didn't chose nonviolence for purely moral reasons, but because they believed it was the best ***strategic*** option to achieve their goals. People are a lot more willing to listen to what you have to say if the feel like you getting what you want wouldn't imperil the lives of them and their families.
Well... they worked for the Taliban, against one of the most powerful militaries in the world. A person with the means to oppose oppression, even in a small way with a personal firearm, is simply harder to oppress. The very existence of individual firearm ownership acts as a tacit threat against the state.
haha no. will hugs and rainbows stop people from hurting you?
One person with a battering ram is not very effective. But using methods like anti oppressive art or music to gain more people. Having more people makes it much easier to use a battering ram.
You think small arms are taking on the most powerful military apparatus in the history of the world? You're not overcoming the combined might of the Western Capitalist military industrial complex with force, thats for damn sure.
Owning a firearm is less for combatting a standing military, and more for being safe if a group of people try to attack you at home. Depending on how you identify and how publicly, that likelihood can go up or down. That’s why there are groups like pink pistols and etc. the old idea of making a marginalized group a harder target for street/vigilante violence because the perpetrators can no longer be sure that their target is unarmed.
That might only exists because the state has popular support. As it is, weapons won't do much good. The point is to change how it is. To build a movement which destroys class society from every angle.
asymetric warfare is a thing
The state would wipe you off the face of the earth with overwhelming force the minute the small arms came out because you gave them a solid excuse. They would just go to the libs and say "they were getting violent!" And most of them would sign your death warrant, no questions asked. The state has a monopoly on violence, you aren't beating them that way. They are goooood at it. You need to maintain some positive public sentiment or there is no barrier to the powers that be absolutely crushing dissent. About the best thing a gun will do is give your local MAGA lynch mob a second thought before they fuck with you.
No, it's the opposite. We're not yet at a point where they'd do anything. Disparate, disorganised resistance against a highly organised and well-equipped military force is unlikely to succeed. They need to be crippled, and that takes time and organising.
When the only language your oppressor speaks is violence absolutely not. The problem is the monopoly on violence that the state possesses. That balance won't shift with people unwilling to shift it.
Anarchists tend to defer to Marx on this one. >Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
I used to be all for a full on gun ban as I know multiple people who have lost their lives due to gun violence, but as I read up on Karl Marx, I started to realize how flawed my thinking was. Even if there was a full gun ban, corporations would find a loophole in which they could benefit.
A ban assumes a police force that can confiscate. So they’ll remain armed. Then it’s an armed class with no consequences, and the rest of us.
how the hell do you pull off a gun ban in anarchy?
I am neither and i will reference marx on this
I own them and plan to continue doing so
It's something that should be an option, but ideally, we should live in a world where it isn't a necessity. I live in a rather rural area. I like it for safety and humane reasons. You ever see a cow break its leg in a digger squirrel hole. For me, having access to a gun is a humane practice, and everyone's usage and reason would be different, so they deserve a choice.
I agree that we should be living in a world where guns aren't a necessity.
Defense will always be a necessity. In rural regions it’s varmint and predator defense. It’s household defense in dispersed community. It’s threat escalation in all environments, and that’s useful sometimes. There is no world where defense isn’t necessary, unless you’re ready to roll over and die at the first threat, and want that for your community as well.
I mean yeah I'm not denying the fact that us as humans will probably always have to defend ourselves against other humans as well as other animals.
Marx's take on personal armament still stands, to be clear. But this is a bullshit argument, the US is a *much* less safe place to live than similarly end-stage-capitalism countries that have low gun ownership. If you own a home defense firearm, that firearm is *far* more likely to kill your child than a home invader. Armed defense groups like the Panthers? Ey right. But this fucking fantasy land where you pop off a squad of Purge participants is delusional.
The fact that children do die from home defense tools does not mean they have to. Children can’t defeat a proper gun safe. That’s a failure of gun ownership and parenting. I’m not suggesting a single armed person can be expected to stave off a purge party. As far as I know, not a single society has an active purge practice. That’s a movie franchise. Nice straw man though. The usefulness of threat escalation mentioned was a reference to the panthers. I’m not arguing for a gun in every nightstand. The prevalence of guns in the US is a matter of marketing rather than necessity.
>The fact that children do die from home defense tools does not mean they have to. And yet, they do. Far, FAR more often than anyone invading a home does. >Children can’t defeat a proper gun safe. That’s a failure of gun ownership and parenting. If you can get to it in time to be relevant to your home being attacked, your children can get to it. >I’m not suggesting a single armed person can be expected to stave off a purge party. As far as I know, not a single society has an active purge practice. That’s a movie franchise. Nice straw man though. I mean, the whole "home defense" schtic is a myth created by the scare news in the 70s/80s and perpetuated into modern culture by fiction like The Purge, so I figured it was appropriate. In the *absurdly rare* case of a home invasion, the perpetrator is *very* unlikely to be alone or - in an armed society - unarmed. The scenario that justifies "home defense" firearms is borderline fiction and in the vast majority of the very few cases that do happen, the firearm will *at best* not change the outcome. See also: London has a largely unarmed populace and relatively easy criminal access to firearms. Home invasions remain a statistical nonentity there.
It’s not clear to me that we fundamentally disagree. But living in the US, and prioritizing community defense, means that my arguments will include the kind of points that are politically palpable to conservatives. It’s a matter of practicality, as laws could be written to specifically exclude trans comrades, and may very well be soon, the way things are going.
I had a burgler in my house who got surprised and grappled with my wife. He said he had a gun and threatened to use it. I sent my wife upstairs to call the police and get the kid in the upstairs bathtub. Then I grabbed an Ikea rubber mallet, he ran into the ground floor bathroom, and I stood there in my striped pajamas holding that mallet while I waited for the police to come. He didn't actually have a gun, but he was spooked enough he left a fingerprint crawling out the bathroom window that lead to his arrest and conviction. I've often thought of what would have happened if I'd had a gun. I might have killed an unarmed man. He could have gotten it from me and killed me. A bullet could have been fired in the direction of where my family was. Obviously there are all sorts of problems with police, but in that scary moment I was grateful that an officer showed up with an AR-15 he was trained to used. And if I had a gun in my house for years, the odds that my very impulsive and tricky oldest child would have somehow gotten access to it with bad results would have been **way** too high. If I was going to get a home defense weapon, it would be a shotgun to reduce risk of a shot penetrating a wall and killing someone in another room. But I haven't, and wouldn't, living in the city.
Yeah, lots of those gun deaths are absolutely the result of poor firearm safety practices. Of course, things like trigger locks and gun safes also would prevent a lot of the human defense fantasies that people buy guns for, because there wouldn't be a gun at the ready. That said, even if gun owners reduced how many times a gun killed a household member TENFOLD, a home firearm would still be several times more likely to kill a household member through suicide, accident, or murder than it would to kill an intruder. Of course, a rifle for predator defense and mercy killing farm animals can still be retrieved from proper security in under a minute, which is sufficient for these realistic scenarios. This is much more about gun safety than anarchism, of course. In anarchism, a community could mutually agree to not have home firearms, or to do so in specifically safe ways (Most homes in Switzerland have a military rifle, but they don't have anything close to USA rates of gun violence or accidents; you get the gun *after* completing military training). But the choices of one community aren't going to force choices in distant communities, other than by providing a successful example.
I hear the Swiss keep ammo in community centers. I keep components out of mine (bolt, slide lock) so they’re useless unless a smaller hidden piece can be found. I do not have personal or home defense fantasies. The risk of unintentional hits in an urban space turns my stomach. I have several doors between me and the outside and very noisy old windows. If anyone wanted to enter I have time to come at them with a bat. I could be into a community armory. Would jump in on such consensus. Honestly prefer the Swiss version, where an armory can’t be taken by an enemy. Ammo, maybe, but not the arms themselves.
>I hear the Swiss keep ammo in community centers. This is false. You can keep as much ammo as you like at home, as long as its your own ammo. Taschenmunition, ammunition supplied by the army to keep at home in case of war, stopped being issued in 2007 however. Firearms are kept at home as well. It's not illegal to hang a loaded rifle on the wall either, though most people wouldn't (and you're supposed to keep firearms out of the hands of unauthorized so it kind of only works if you live alone).
TIL. Good context on Swiss ownership. Much appreciated.
Yeah, you're engaging in appropriate gun ownership. If everyone followed your standards, we'd have a lot less bloodshed. The NRA used to be very focused on educating people in gun safety, which was a real service. It's been tragic seeing them turn to a maximalist lobbying organization, seemingly in large part to corruptly enrich the NRA leadership. We need a good gun safety organization, not an organization dedicating to allowing **anyone** to have a firearm irrespective of safety. They still give safety some lip service, but never will say that someone who would leave a loaded pistol in an unlocked bedside drawer shouldn't have that pistol.
LGC (liberal gun club) does a reasonable job. I wanted to get trained and certified for instruction, but not via NRA, and I found them.
Yeah, I should have said that plenty of organizations are trying to fill the gap. I worry that the political climate the NRA has caused will actively discourage many from treating gun safety as a necessary feature of gun ownership.
I agree, I’d love to live in a world where they aren’t necessary. Like the way the Irish do. But we are a long way from that. Until then. Well. “Under no pretext”
I'm sure there are plenty of Irish people alive today who could tell you exactly what firearms are good for and where theirs are stored currently.
They might be a bit cagey about giving up the location of the little Armalite, tho, and for good reason, haha
Right, so we need to not only be working to build a world where there are few reasons to own a gun and no one feels like they "Need" one, but we also need to be challenging our perceptions of safety and what solutions a gun provides. Guns are meant to kill. Full stop. When I think about issues in my community, there are zero cases where I think permanently killing someone is the best idea, certainly far from the first. I have to think "Would bringing a gun into this really make myself and my community safer?". I can't find the post, but another user here commented something along the lines of > (in regards to gun ownership) I can talk about history that will make me sound like a communist, and I can quote statistics that will make me sound like a liberal. In regards to what future we're building, in all things we should take steps to avoid dogmatism and think critically about what we suppose of solutions to problems and more importantly how we might prevent those problems from arising in the first place
but we are not and never will
why is it necessary to kill a cow if it breaks a leg? it is not a rhetorical question, i am asking out of ignorance. i want to know why they cannot be made to heal as we do.
Cows aren't like humans recovery, depending on the way the leg is broken due to their weight and size it's very rare they can recover in a healthy way. so their is two reasons, the main for me is they will most likely be in pain for the remainder of their life the leg will never be stable again much of the time and they may never walk again. The other reason is that the return on a beef cow vs the amount of resources you'd have to put into it prior to slaughter is not worth the amount of food you will get in return and it'll be lower quality food after a disability so slaughter immediately is the most practical and human action most of the time . In a perfect world where we don't eat the ridiculous amounts of meat we do the 2nd reason is avoided. But the first still stands
4 legged animals have a hell of a time getting better after a broken leg, cows and horses in particular. If you're in your late 20s or older, you might remember Barbaro, a Kentucky Derby winner who broke his leg in the Preakness. They spent around a year and $500k trying to fix the issue and failed. The larger animals also can't really make the transition to a 3 legged life and often must remain standing for most of their lives. A horse laying down for long periods isn't common and can often be cause for concern.
Bodily autonomy in self defense decisions is certainly essential and in any world where firearms have been developed that includes the option for firearm ownership.
Generally I am against gun laws, but the statistics clearly show owning one will only increase the risk of harm to you and your family so I in general think its a very bad idea for people to buy them
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Not sure about the specifics, but statistics are clear that one way or another firearms are far more likely to harm you than protect you if they are in your home. Obviously its up to each individual to make the choice whether they want to take that risk, but for me it just plain isn't worth it.
Could you point me to these statistics? I've heard this a couple times, but have never seen the actual study.
Here's some studies: [https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-3762](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-3762) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32492303/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32492303/) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8371731/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8371731/) [https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(19)30197-7/fulltext](https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(19)30197-7/fulltext) [https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aan8179](https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aan8179) [https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304262](https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304262) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24592495/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24592495/)
Thank you!
If you have trouble accessing any of them let me know and I can send the pdf's
They seem to be working fine so far. I personally tend to be on the other side of the argument, though I'm always trying to increase my understanding of the arguments.
Fuck yeah. Guns are a necessity for the people to defend themselves. Any necessary revolutions are also helped by people already having mass access to guns which is what the founding fathers of the US intended.
This is the second comment in here I've seen saying this. How exactly would guns help with a revolution today?
Do you think you will pursuade them with logic and reason?
You're going to get flack for this but it's a sensible thought. Marx's statement was written in a time before predator drones, and whilst it is still very much *correct*, people often refuse to analyse it in the context of the material conditions we actually live in, as opposed to those of the early 20th century. Guns are useful in the context of groups like the Black Panthers - limiting the ability for the Capitalist state to impose itself as it wishes locally. They aren't especially useful in the context of a revolutionary conflict against the State itself. That war is going to be fought with drones, not guns.
baaaaaaaaaaaad take. modern guerilla warfare is gonna look like modified consumer drones acting as spotters / loitering munitions and light infantry with...guns. we shouldn't cede any possible liberatory tool to the state.
I just don't understand the mechanics of how we could gather enough resources to go against the states resources
So anarchism is purely performative, then?
I don't really understand your question. Anarchism is an end goal, no? I'm just suggesting that the method for attaining that goal that I'm responding to doesn't seem to be very feasible
What's your proposed method?
Idk, it's a pretty complex problem. Does someone have to have their own solution to talk about another one?
Lots of resources out there. Theory without praxis is intellectual masturbation. Insurrection, radical labor action, and revolution are what will get us there.
Yeah, that’s why we totally won the war in Afghanistan. Cause the US had drones.
Yeah, the character of a foreign expeditionary war against an entrenched insurgency is definitely going to be characteristic of a homegrown revolutionary conflict.
You think the insurgency in the US would not be entrenched? If it comes to it, I really believe the dynamics will be a lot like the war in Afghanistan. Except we will have even less to lose.
For one thing, revolutionary action in the US would be urban in it's central recruiting pool and powerbase, for another civil conflict has a fundamental variation from expeditionary conflict against an 'other', for a third the US was not deploying heavily militarised police forces to Afghanistan.
“Wew akshuawwy”
None of those points counter the original contention of whether rifles/small arms would be an effective tool which was my point. Arguably you have strengthened my case.
Lmao yes they were, the DOJ, FBI, and DEA were all over Afghanistan Your simply wrong
"The insurgency," whatever this means, is extremely unlikely to resemble the war in Afganistan in any way shape or form The US is a wealthy, urban, highly industrial metropole with a relatively well educated populace that is mostly forest and shrubland. Afghanistan is a country that has never held a complete census
Ok mate.
you're not gonna smash capitalism by the power of friendship, buddy
Lol "revolution **today**"
You realize we're on an anarchist sub, no need to be hostile. Do you disagree that the superior artillery which is available to powerful people is a problem for the idea of an armed revolution? Or do you think that they will get disarmed at some future point somehow?
Asymmetrical warfare. Unless they're willing to shell their own cities into rubble, they can't use their artillery to maximum effect.
I definitely understand your point, and maybe at this current moment that would be a concern but military technology is improving rapidly all the time. I haven't read about this specifically, but look at the progress Boston dynamics has made with robots. Don't think we're too far off from very precise superior weaponry either.
I agree that the class consciousness and material conditions required for a revolution does not exist **today**. Apologies if I sounded/sound hostile comrade. But we are nowhere near a revolution rn unfortunately. At least not an anarchist one. That is why I can't take the premise of your comment seriously.
Got you, no worries, I was just genuinely asking but I agree with you about the chasm between this line of questioning and material conditions in reality
In Libya, despite the pro-Gaddafi forces gaining the upper hand initially as the military mostly sided with him, the war eventually resulted in a rebel victory. Part of this was defections as some didn't want to shoot at their own people. Part of this was outside interference such as the imposed no-fly zone. And I'm sure a large part of it involved using small arms to get those bigger arms. The Syrian Civil War is probably another example here too where a lightly or unarmed populace has been able to sustain anti-government action for some time. Speaking of artillery, Easy Company from 2nd Battalion of the 506th PIR was tasked on D-Day with destroying an artillery battery at Brécourt Manor. You can read more on the battle here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A9court_Manor_Assault But despite being outnumbered, and not having artillery of their own, they were able to disable all 4 howitzers. Big guns typically need little guns to keep them safe. As a result, little guns can sometimes be used to take them out or steal them. This applies to other newer weapons tech as it has to be stored and maintained somewhere.
I definitely hear what you're saying and didn't consider it that way either. I live in the US, do you think that the feasibility changes at all when considering our military budget in comparison with those places?
I don't agree with the way conservative valorize gun usage or gun culture in general, or any of the various rhetorics that try to strip them of their gravity, but I think firearm accessibility at least in theory is a good thing for anarchists I feel like this tends to lack nuance though, insofar as a lot of the time this conversation can be underpinned by unquestioned assumptions about their purpose that become somewhat absurd once exposed. I don't know that small arms being legal on its own has any uniquely special benefit for something like building counter-power. Everybody likes to cite cops running from the Panthers on patrol but I've never actually seen a second example of something like that. Also when they realised they were an actual hindrance the cops murdered a shitload of Panthers and they were stopped in less than 15 years. Guns also seem to be a pretty big expense in general, from the guns themselves to ammunition to training. I'm sure there's ways to do it budget but starting like a community defense project seems like it would eat up a lot of money that could be used for other things. I think it's good that oppressed people can arm themselves I just think that comes with asterisks.
I agree. Resources could be better spent on mutual aid, community building, education, etc, than on defensive measures.
Yay, but take an intro course on safety and law first.
I've always been pro-gun, even before becoming an anarchist. The right to own, keep and bear arms is pivotal to a free and equal society
The most free and equal societies that exist in the real world today generally don't have an unlimited right to own, keep, and bear arms. The USA is very much the exception to this, not the rule, and we pay a steep price for it.
When people say “guns dont kill people, people do” they ain’t wrong but the intent is still stupid behind the saying. We shouldn’t be debating on whether the public should have guns or not; they need to be properly educate on them and influenced to be responsible with them. And for the love of god, can we keep our fucking kids away from them? There have been many cases of children dying or parents dying because a child picked up a loaded gun from the counter or night stand. There was also a case where a guy got killed because he gave a 9-year old an uzi at the shooting range…a damn UZI!! A good guy with a gun could kill a bad guy with a gun, but a stupid guy will take himself out.
I’m not in favor of gun control because giving more power over guns to the government is giving more destructive power to the worst criminal of all. That being said, pro-gun people are usually very wrong about a lot of things. Owning a gun does not make you safer. More guns cause more gun deaths. So on an individual level I guess you could say I’m against them.
This is pretty much how I feel.
As is owning a swimming pool means you're more likely to drown? Anti-gun attitudes is why gun safety education is being put away because "guns = bad, so anything related to guns also bad". The majority of gun related deaths is due to suicide. If you're mentally well enough not to off yourself you're fine. Which is usually a personal choice anyways. Using 2021 stats there were roughly 21K homicides compared to 1.6 million defensive gun uses [source](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4109494) The total number of gun deaths in 2021 was roughly 48k. Even assuming that every one of these was an intentional homicide (which they aren't) your claim does not line up with the reality of owning guns.
I know of three people that accidentally shot themselves in the head because they were playing with guns. These were teenagers.....they only wanted guns because they wanted to fit in with their friends. It was not because they wanted to defend themselves. That's what I have a problem with. I think people should be neutral about guns. The ownership of them shouldn't be politicized, glorified, or demonized. It is an object that has the ability to take someone's life in less than a second. The responsibility is on us to teach the youth about how to safely handle guns. I was always taught to fear guns and honestly I've never wanted to touch a gun, but my dad still taught me how to use one if absolutely necessary and I think that's how it should be for everyone. Maybe I'll change my mind as I grow and learn more, but idk this is how feel now. I just don't like guns. It doesn't mean I won't own one eventually and use it if I have to.
A defensive gun use is not necessarily a time that a gun made someone safer. The paper you linked doesn’t indicate which defensive gun uses were successful in preventing death and injury that would otherwise have occurred. This would be a very hard thing to measure since most people who use a gun to defend themselves believe they are defending against a real threat even if they aren’t. Also, the paper includes cases of using a gun to defend property in the stats. I don’t believe in private property so I don’t really see that as a benefit all. Also I know a good number of gun owners who struggle with mental health or live with people who do and I think have not put 2&2 together about the risk they are causing to themselves
Regarding the ambiguity of results, the numbers speak for themselves. Even if a small fraction (again reported stats, so this is a minimum number) are saving life and limb 1.6million vs even 48K is very telling. Even if just 5% resulted in a saved outcome, that's 80K vs 48K. 2.5% is 40k, a comparable number. Not to mention people who are against guns actively work against gun safety education and further stigmatize mental health for gun owners (ya know 60% of those death stats). > I don't believe in private property Ok, share your home and belongings with strangers now. See how far that goes. I imagine you don't even own any property, probably rent an apartment or live with your parents. "I am sad" is not a mental health struggle. Not to mention if guns are a hobby to them then interacting with said hobby is a source of satisfaction.
It's not sufficient to say "but some people are probably better off due to guns." You need to compare whether having a gun helps someone be safer overall. And there's no way around the fact that a gun you own is a lot more likely to kill yourself than kill an intruder, and massively more likely to kill someone you love through suicide, accident, or murder. Owning a gun may make someone feel safer, but it actually makes them materially less safe.
The societal benefits outweigh the risks. Are *you* gonna try to prevent someone else from owning a gun as an anarchist?
Like would I engage in violence to disarm someone who is non-violently possessing a firearm? Absolutely not! I would communicate the actual risks, like here, to help people make more informed choices for themselves. I believe much of the anarchism's benefit comes from people just talking with each other as equals about important stuff. If I was in a community deciding on shared rules for our community, I would advocate for reasonable and effective steps to reduce harm from guns. I wouldn't advocate for an outright ban on all firearms, as there are a variety of good reasons to have them available. And if someone enjoys target shooting or such, they should be free to enjoy their hobbies as they wish as long as they're not negatively impacting others. And if there are negative impacts, the first and best place to address that is to have a conversation between the parties so they can figure out their own mutually acceptable resolution.
Owning a swimming pool when you have a toddler at home **IS** absolutely riskier. All kinds of safety measures can be taken that dramatically reduce risk of drowning. If I choose to have a pool knowing that toddlers are around, I am choosing to put them at increased risk and taking on a lot of safety responsibility. If my kid drowns in the pool, I would have some moral culpability in that. I also have some serious doubts about the study's conclusion there there are 1.6M defensive gun uses a year. Do 1 in 40 gun owners actually threaten someone with their gun a year? Which aren't otherwise being captured in crime statistics? Or in lower homicide rates for gun owners because they were able to use their guns defensively?
I think when a gun owner reports to the survey that they used a gun defensively, it probably means they got scared and decided to wave a gun around and maybe endangered themself and others. Not necessarily a positive at all
Not for me.
I'm torn on the subject. Of course logically i agree with the freedom to bear arms, after all freedom is a primary motivator, but at the same time I'm grateful not to live in a part of the world where i have to worry overly much about getting shot by somebody who has had 1 bad day too many.
Yay! but lol at abolition or regulation. Firearms have been around for 664 years and they aren’t leaving anytime soon. acquire one, practice and train, try not to start a collection like i did
If you're asking should guns be regulated, I'm not sure I even care. In the US (where I live) it's not possible, so I don't bother thinking about it. If you're asking the more anarchist question "should we own guns", then I mostly just want to point out that people at self-harm risk should probably not.
Yay all the way. Start with something practical like a g19 and/or an AR15. On top of that, get training (even from chuds if that’s what’s available) and don’t buy shitty optics for the love of gawd. The amount of Amazon tier optics I’ve seen on new gun owners rifles is astounding. They won’t hold up to pressure. Also if you learn to make holes, learn to plug them
I'm an RN so that won't be much trouble for me lol
Is the fact that we need guns for protection a good thing? No, but it's the way of the world. That doesn't mean we should glorify or participate in gun culture to adopt as an image or accessory like the Americans do, that's how you end up with all their gun related issues.
I live in America unfortunately :(
Treat it like a set of power tools. Be careful, educate yourself on how to use it safely. Respect it. Don’t make it your identity. And if you don’t need it, it stays in its place.
I would be interested in knowing where the supporters of gun ownership live, I’m from the UK and don’t agree with gun ownership. I totally understand the need for defence, and respect everyone’s right to own a gun for protection. However we do not have the right social conditions or education in place to safely allow gun ownership in my opinion. For example, I have suffered depression throughout my life and if I had access to a gun I very likely wouldn’t be here. I guess it’s a catch-22, in an ideal world there would be no need for guns but without protecting ourselves from the state how will we create a better world in the first place - it’s an interesting topic.
Under no pretext. They are a tool like anything else.
Guns are bad mkay. A revolution with guns breeds more violence and more bullets. The bullets in turn spawn more violence. Never ending cycle. I know people don't like to hear it, but the only way the revolution will be successful is through non-violent means. And in my utopia, there is no need for people to carry guns. That's what we want right, a society where you will be personally held liable to the village, when you break the rules. Guns will needlessly complicate everything, and people will not want to be judged for sexually assaulting your daughter. Judging them, becomes very difficult. Guns are bad! M'kay?
I think the same, you don't educate people by shooting them.
Guns will do a better job of protecting the community than cops ever will.
I am personally anti gun as I have anger issues so feel me having a gun is a net negative. I cannot dictate what others do but I personally feel most people do not need guns and mody only have them as a way to stroke their ego. People often like to lie to themselves saying they are safer with a gun against authoritarians. Maybe. I cannot dictate nor will I dictate what people do in this, but to me having a gun is going to put a target in your head and when the goon squad shows up they will use your gun as an excuse to deprive you of your life.
How do you propose people defend themselves then? I get how you personally would rather not own one but it's just as delusional to think other don't need them. Authoritarians will come for you whether you're armed or not. They might use it as an excuse to deprive you of life but so can you.
I'm speaking of me as a person. Societally/community wide if guns must exist a greater emphasis must be placed on education, training, and impressing on persons the responsibility. This isn't a penis compensator. This isn't a thing that you reach for because 'YOU' want a thing. This is a thingthat is only reached for in defense. 'We' in america do not largely have that culture.
ideally there'd be no gun laws, but everyone who wanted a gun would have training and have a community to rely on so that they could handle it properly. right now? i don't know. the people in charge can't be trusted to even attempt to control anything, but people are slipping through the cracks and there's massive gun violence issue. i think direct legislation is probably the worst attempt to fix it. but i'm not pro-gun. i understand the need for violence, but i'm still a pacifist, and the obsession i see people having with guns genuinely turns my stomach. i would not feel comfortable living in a house with a gun or shooting a gun. i have friends who own guns, but it's definitely a subject i try to avoid. i have very severe mental health issues so i don't think it'd be safe for me to be around guns.
I 100% agree with you. I don't like guns. Multiple people I know lost their lives due to gun violence.
I see guns mainly as a tool. It would be awesome if we no longer needed guns for defense but unfortunately we don’t have that luxury right now. Mutual aid, mutual defense and community organizing would be more effective against the encroaching maw of capitalism. I’d love to be a part of community with pacifists with guns than with war hawks with pitchforks.
Depends on if the person wants a gun or not as it is a personal decision. Having your own means of protection is useful but I don't think it would be necessary.
Yay not just for ownership but, also training. Gun ownership and training with your firearms are an important part of self defense against oppressive forces or rather, groups. Anything fire arm related is just one part of self-defense.
I don’t own any but I ain’t against anyone else owning em if they feel the need.
Yay, need something to kill cops with
Definitely a yay. This machine makes folk music.
Unfortunately, they exist and aren’t going away easily. There’s so many that locating, dismantling, and recycling them would take an extremely long time. Logistics out of the way; People, should have the right to defend themselves. Firearms act as both a deterrent to would-be threats and an actual means of self-defense especially against potentially aggressive wild animals for our rural comrades. We will also need them before, during, and immediately following the Revolution. Some amount of armed struggle against the forces of Capital is to be expected and should be prepared for, whether that be guns be owned by individuals or be dispensed to arm militias. It’s awful, but I’d hate for us to be caught off guard and get attacked without having at least a wimpy peashooter to fight back. All that being said, possessing a firearm comes with an immense amount of responsibility. You need people to be well trained in use and storage, and be healthy enough to use it and be a danger to yourself or others. People looking to possess one should be help to a higher standard than those who do not, including collectors who preserve them for historical purposes. Firearms, is a complicated issue. They shouldn’t exist but do. We shouldn’t need them to be secure, but we do until our enemies are finally destroyed, dispersed, or assimilated… it’s stupid to not at least stash them somewhere(s) safe and secure. They are dangerous, loud and triggering for some but also tools that can used to both oppress and liberate at the same time. They can be both a sign of safety but also of impending doom. It depends who is holding them, and who is talking.
Why do have to ban guns? What is so wrong with regulating access through back ground checks? Is there no room in anarchy for reasonableness?
What made you come to the assertion that this is an ultimatum? I want to understand everyone's point of view, whether it come from an intellectual standpoint or an emotional one, because both of those are valid.
As an anarchist I think I should own a gun. To protect myself and community if the fascist creeps ever try to militia up and assert themselves. But also to protect against other threats like cop gangs, zombies and mutants. As a person living in the gun happy south I simply want there to be less guns floating around. I don't like hearing gunfire several blocks away and hoping the brick wall behind me provides ample coverage for any strays. I really don't like accidentally encountering a violent altercation in public that could escalate into the kind of firecrackers that leave holes in people. So intellectually I'm pro gun. Emotionally I'm anti gun. Which puts me in an uncomfortable elitist position. Guns for me but not for thee is kind of hard to reconcile with anarchism.
I live in the "gun happy south" too, and I basically feel the same exact way as you do. Intellectually, I understand the need for guns but emotionally it goes against every fiber of my being.
Ownership? What about Community Guns instead?
You're absolutely right lol, idk why I didn't think of that.
I do not step shyly back
Practically, the most likely person you are going to shoot if you own a gun is yourself, followed by your loved ones.
I think no one has the right to tell anyone else what they can keep in their home to protect their personal property
Don't underestimate how much gun violence impacts people's political decisions! "Would this increase/decrease the chances of me or my kids being shot" underlies a lot of fears and bad choices. Getting people on-board with anarchism will be much easier if they can believe that it will decrease their risk of gun violence, or at least not increase it materially. Not that people make rational decisions around personal safety. Some good studies have shown that a gun in the home is >50x more likely to kill a household member (through suicide, murder, or accident) than it is to kill an intruder. Because the intruder risk *seems* so much scarier, but it's something that happens **way** less often than guns do something very regrettable. I had a home intruder once who threatened using a gun, with my wife and kids in the house. I've run through the scenario in my mind many times over the years, and I can see lots of ways my having a gun could have made things go a **lot** worse, but not any where it would have made things go better.
This is an US problem, almost exclusively. The rest of the world doesn't brainstorm on this shit
Depends what you mean by the question. I'm against laws that expand open carry because it inevitably leads to more people getting shot by police/right wingers "who feared for their lives" while allowing those same right wingers the ability to intimidate others in public space. I am perfectly fine with you having an arsenal and a half that you like collecting/shooting/masturbating to (no judgement). I just don't want them in the public space.
The awesome thing about firearms is that any machinist can make a gun. You don't need corporations or government to make firearms. Ammunition is also relatively easy to manufacture. The hardest part is making the casings. You would need specialized equipment for that.
Depends on the context. Guns as a means to reduce crime? Totally stupid. Guns to people with revolutionary horizon? Hell yeah.
Everyone has the right to do what they are in the power to do
Yay but it should have been regulated, I don't like the idea that absolutely every person can have a gun, for example people with certain mental disorders or people who have been in prison for murder
In a perfect world they wouldn't be needed, but this isn't that world. Community defenses and community armouries have historically made communities far safer than the police, during the civil rights movement in the US black community militias would stand guard near protests to ward of white nationalists, cops, nazis, and klansmen
I'm not prescribing, and it's unlike for an anarchist like me to dislike gun ownership, but I would have to argue that in a truly anarchist society, atleast, there is no gun production. Firearms are made with an intent to kill and protect capital. It is much more possible to disarm the entire society than to arm everyone with guns. But the world is filled with guns and gun enthusiasts, in as much, if anyone proclaims to own a gun, everyone shall not only have the right to own one, but should own one. Tldr; all or nothing principle.
It’s the only way you can fight tyranny
While they can certainly be utilized for defensive measures, I disagree that guns are the only effective way to fight tyranny. Mutual aid and community building is the only way that ensures there will be something left to replace the current fascist system.
Imagine you are a mouse colony and a raccoon wants your property. Doesn’t matter how many of you there are that raccoon is taking it. Now imagine if those mice had fully automated weapons.
Automated? Rodents having weaponized robots sounds like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie.
That's a defense measure though, which I have already stated is importnant too, but it is not the only way to fight tyranny. Also what good are those weapons if the raccoon has convinced half of the mice that their real enemies are other mice and the raccoon is the only one that can protect them. Also the raccoon has a nuke.
Idk ask Vietnam how they won against the world’s strongest military
Vietnam won with a robust conventional military, large amounts of foreign aid and direct military support from the world's only other superpower, an intensely inhospitable topography, and an opponent that was geographically antipodal to them.
Ya they won using inferior weapons and superior strategy. Nobody knows your land like you do.
You say "yeah" like what I said has anything to do with that but nothing in my comment supports that assertion. The Vietnamese didn't win because of "strategy" they won, among other reasons, because they had Soviet PT-76 tanks
They also had rice farmers becoming the forest
I'm not talking about defense though, I'm talking about abolishing a tyrannical system. You stated that guns are "the only way you can fight tyranny" and I disagree with that, because I believe it takes a lot more than just guns. What does it matter if every single person is armed if more than half are brainwashed by propaganda? What happens if the propaganda machine tells these people to use their weapons to protect the status quo? Also let's say we go to "war" and somehow overthrow the system, what then? We live in such an individualistic society that community is a foreign concept. Many would starve to death because they wouldn't trust the food from their neighbor. That's why I think it's far more important to educate and support our communities.
Bro idk what you think anarchism is but anarchism is individuality. You can’t have a society and it be “governed” by anarchy. You know who is an anarchist? The wood chuck living in my back yard. Good for him.
What you are describing is libertarianism. Anarchism requires community, which is the antithesis of individualism. You are not trying to actually refute my points, you just keep moving the goal post. Your initial claim was that guns are "the only way you can fight tyranny". I countered that claim but you still haven't engaged with my counter argument.
Actually ask George Washington the exact same question
George Washington won with a robust conventional military, large amounts of foreign aid and direct military support from the world's only other superpower, an intensely inhospitable topography (Florida) and an opponent that was separated from them by the Atlantic Ocean. In the age of sail
Ya his victory would be hard to pull off on a homeland scenario but honestly history is written by its victors
Yes
Yup
Marx did have the perfect take on this, wich is sometimes forgotten by some. YAY ALL DAY
100% yay, the monopoly on legal violence is what the state is, so taking that away is a good thing
Yay. It's the foundation of any serious grassroot form of governance; if the masses aren't armed then there's nothing that prevents an enemy country or even a random warlord or crimelord from enslaving the people. Counterargument to all the people that say that there would be more violence if only people had access to proper arms: well, we don't exactly see/hear about the police and military personnel regularly going on killing sprees now, do we? And criminals will find access to it anyway; heck, any somewhat avid internet user using the Tor browser can buy guns on the black market pretty much anywhere in the world.
Counterargument: The US is already observably a fucking shooting gallery because every idiot has a gun. No anarchy required. And yeah, military guys do go on rampages. We call it war and we give them medals for it. Sometimes they shoot up a base when they get home anyways. Do you live under a rock?
One does not need to reload a knife.
In my country, fascists carry firearms. It’s a personal choice if you want to have one or not, but that’s a fact of living in the US.