Gun Control

[AdLeft]

First of all let me just assert that I believe people should have the right to own pistols, rifles and in some justifiable cases assault rifles and machine guns. Anything more advanced than that however is unnecessary. No one should be owning grenade launchers or missiles.

My question is, for all you who support gun control, what are your arguments for it? Why do you believe in depriving the populace of small arms?

My reasons for opposing gun control is as follows:

1. Most people are not insane enough to commit horrible crimes of mass murder and spree killing.
2. People should have the capability to defend themselves against coercion and tyranny.
3. The populace should be able to defend themselves against foreign invasions.

Everyone else who opposes gun control? What are your thoughts?

[Lily Briscoe]

I support the right to bear arms under the condition that there is a screening process to exclude certain undesirable elements, e.g. rural people, small business owners, men, anyone with a history of using the word "folks", etc

[Creative Destruction]

As a rural man who also knows other rural folks, I think some gun control is necessary. I like how Norway handles it, for the most part. Extensive background checks, mandatory training as a part of licensure, keeping your guns in a case separate from ammo. Which is basically just common sense stuff. I'd be a bit more liberal in what kinds of guns are allowed to have (as in, I don't think we should ban guns that are above .50 caliber and what not.) But complete gun control, no. The only people I am in favor of taking guns away from completely are cops.

[BIXX]

Oh boy this thread again.

Against for a wide variety of reasons. I'd probably carry if I found it convenient.

I think its perfectly acceptable to say 'fuck you I'm against gun control cause guns are fun', and that is one of my reasons as well.

[Comunero]

The state as it exists has no legitimacy to prohibit or restrict availability to firearms.

We must remember that the armed thugs of the capitalist state will still be armed and will continue to murder people (primarily black men) with near impunity.

Of course, I am not a fan of the proliferation of firearms per se, and I believe that we should look to make our communities safe without resorting to guarantee that everyone is packing heat.

I also understand that availability to guns is not the primary reason for violence which may happen to involve firearms. The underlying causes have more to do with irresponsible prescription of not yet fully understood medications, the widespread atomization that is pervasive in American society, and of course, the alienation inherent to capitalist production.

Not to mention the fact that the hegemonic ruling ideology is one which pushes masculinity and patriarchal domination.

So no, I do not support gun control in any traditional sense, I support the empowerment of communities to democratically decide whether they want firearms around or not, but the capitalist state is not an entity which I consider is legitimate in regulating firearms. Not to mention the fact that right-wing militias are allowed to run free by the state while whenever marginalized groups and the working class seek to arm themselves in defense they are crushed immediately.

[John Nada]

First of all let me just assert that I believe people should have the right to own pistols, rifles and in some justifiable cases assault rifles and machine guns. Anything more advanced than that however is unnecessary. No one should be owning grenade launchers or missiles.I think if shit goes down, I'd hope someone has grenade launchers and missles. Those fucking drones and tanks will fuck you up.
My question is, for all you who support gun control, what are your arguments for it? Why do you believe in depriving the populace of small arms?Not me. But for some it's because it's not used for revolutionary self-defense in many places. It's used for crime, suicide, and rightist jingo militia freaks who like to shoot cans and pretend it's dark people. The gun culture in the US is very reactionary, because it's used as a tool to uphold property rights and defend the status quo, rather than a people's army fighting for socialism.
My reasons for opposing gun control is as follows:

1. Most people are not insane enough to commit horrible crimes of mass murder and spree killing.You don't have to be insane to commit horrible crimes. In fact most killers are very sane. I hate this ableist assumtion that all mass murders and spree killers had mental illness. People with sever mental illness get stigmatized as potential killers, when in actuality they no more likely to be violent, but are far more likely to be victims of violent crime and police brutality.
2. People should have the capability to defend themselves against coercion and tyranny.Depends on what coercion and tyranny is. If it's capitalism, fuck yeah. If it's "dem pinko commies, sociaism, and illegal alien invaders," GTFO.:glare:
3. The populace should be able to defend themselves against foreign invasions.Fighting imperialist aggressors, fascism and defending a socialist revolution is required by default. But saving an imperialist state, fuck them! Defeatism or defencism is depends on circumstances.
Everyone else who opposes gun control? What are your thoughts?This is a site for leftist, not liberals. If you expect this board to be made up of Democrats, the two aren't synonymous.

[VCrakeV]

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. On one hand, I think no one should need a gun. However, in the world we live in, we kind of do. If guns were legal, I think people should only own a gun if they pass certain checks, to make sure they don't use a gun in the wrong way. However, that means not everyone has the same rights. I want no one to have guns, but I don't think it's an option...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I support the right to bear arms under the condition that there is a screening process to exclude certain undesirable elements, e.g. rural people, small business owners, men, anyone with a history of using the word "folks", etc

These are precisely the people that any "gun control" laws are going to pass over. I don't view gun ownership as magical or good, and I particularly don't think the revolution is going to consist of the NRA (communist platform) having a shootout with the police. Where I live (a region that last saw culture during the Avar Khaganate) it seems that every imbecile has a rifle and a couple of grenades. One of the people at my university has a machine gun. I mean why would you even want a machine gun, do you plan on laying down suppressive fire a lot? But as much as I don't trust rentacops and fascist veterans with guns, I trust the bourgeois state even less when it claims it wants to protect me from such people. More likely it will let them keep their guns and take away whatever guns minorities have.

[BIXX]

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. On one hand, I think no one should need a gun. However, in the world we live in, we kind of do. If guns were legal, I think people should only own a gun if they pass certain checks, to make sure they don't use a gun in the wrong way. However, that means not everyone has the same rights. I want no one to have guns, but I don't think it's an option...
Why is it that your ruberic for deciding whether or not people should have guns is whether or not they need them? Unleash desire from capitalist chains and all that. Unless the way you conceive of communism is just capitalism under new management.

[Prof. Oblivion]

First of all let me just assert that I believe people should have the right to own pistols, rifles and in some justifiable cases assault rifles and machine guns. Anything more advanced than that however is unnecessary. No one should be owning grenade launchers or missiles.

My question is, for all you who support gun control, what are your arguments for it? Why do you believe in depriving the populace of small arms?

My reasons for opposing gun control is as follows:

1. Most people are not insane enough to commit horrible crimes of mass murder and spree killing.
2. People should have the capability to defend themselves against coercion and tyranny.
3. The populace should be able to defend themselves against foreign invasions.

Everyone else who opposes gun control? What are your thoughts?

2 and 3 are laughable in this day and age in the developed world. 1 isn't even an argument against it.

[VCrakeV]

Why is it that your ruberic for deciding whether or not people should have guns is whether or not they need them? Unleash desire from capitalist chains and all that. Unless the way you conceive of communism is just capitalism under new management.



If people don't need guns, what would they use them for? Fun? If no one has practical use for a gun, it'll be used for bad, or simply not at all.



I don't relate communism to capitalism (although one could do so). I just think of communism, basically, as an ideology of equality. I don't know if that helps.

[AdLeft]

2 and 3 are laughable in this day and age in the developed world. 1 isn't even an argument against it.

I made my first argument clear. The VAST majority of people are not suffering from severe mental illness (ie severe depression, schizophrenia etc). If they are sane enough to use a gun, what is the problem? And yes, accidents do happen with guns but that doesn't justify them not having the right to own them. It's their choice to take a risk.

When I mean "coercion" or "tyranny" I mean anything from an armed burglar breaking into your home to militarized policeman showing up at a protest. I will confess however that getting into a drone fight with an AK47 is pretty ridiculous. Does that mean people shouldn't have the RIGHT to own a gun? Of course not.

Foreign invasions are possible and to assume that it won't happen is REALLY letting the populace be at mercy of them. If most households owned a gun, it's still a better strategy. I'm pretty sure that guns are better than baseball bats and knives when it comes to foreign invasion.

It almost sounds like you're saying that the developed world is not prone to civil unrest and collapse. If that is what you are implying, then it's pretty laughable. It's pretty much what a liberal would say.

Regardless, I think you need to explain yourself.

[AdLeft]

I think if shit goes down, I'd hope someone has grenade launchers and missles. Those fucking drones and tanks will fuck you up.

I agree. I just don't know if I would put my trust in the average citizen in owning those. :laugh:

Cognitive dissonance.

[AdLeft]

If people don't need guns, what would they use them for? Fun? If no one has practical use for a gun, it'll be used for bad, or simply not at all.

I don't relate communism to capitalism (although one could do so). I just think of communism, basically, as an ideology of equality. I don't know if that helps.

What is the point in talking about a perfect world where no one needs guns?

Guns will continue to be used for hunting, self defense and warfare for a LONG time. And until other weapons somehow COMPLETELY replace guns, we will continue using them.

The ability to defend oneself is a need. The ability to hunt is a need.

If no one needed guns we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

[Sewer Socialist]

If people don't need guns, what would they use them for? Fun? If no one has practical use for a gun, it'll be used for bad, or simply not at all.

Uh, yeah, guns are fun. You can google image search pictures of famous reactionaries and print them out and shoot those pictures between the eyes while making loud explody noises.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I own a couple of guns myself. Out here in the country they're kind of a necessity (home invaders, hostile wildlife, etc.)

And obviously , it would very difficult for the revolution to succeed without guns.

But I also openly oppose groups like the NRA and the Gun Owners of America. The first does not represent gun owners, but arms manufacturers and their political agenda. The latter is an ultraconservative group of reactionaries.

[VCrakeV]

Uh, yeah, guns are fun. You can google image search pictures of famous reactionaries and print them out and shoot those pictures between the eyes while making loud explody noises.



Guns aren't toys. They're tools. I was being rhetoric earlier. Guns, ammunition, powder--they are all resources with important uses. Making "explody" noises is not one of them.

[Lily Briscoe]

These are precisely the people that any "gun control" laws are going to pass over. I don't view gun ownership as magical or good, and I particularly don't think the revolution is going to consist of the NRA (communist platform) having a shootout with the police. Where I live (a region that last saw culture during the Avar Khaganate) it seems that every imbecile has a rifle and a couple of grenades. One of the people at my university has a machine gun. I mean why would you even want a machine gun, do you plan on laying down suppressive fire a lot? But as much as I don't trust rentacops and fascist veterans with guns, I trust the bourgeois state even less when it claims it wants to protect me from such people. More likely it will let them keep their guns and take away whatever guns minorities have.

I was being tongue-in-cheek in that post, in case it wasn't clear (I'm not exactly predisposed to spending my time crafting 'ideal' policies that I wish the government would enact in some alternate reality where the state takes policy proposals from communist dilettantes in Seattle).

I don't think there's a communist position either in support of 'gun rights' or gun control; it isn't a working class issue imo. In the US, it's basically the urban, cosmopolitan part of the working class and the urban, cosmopolitan part of the bourgeoisie who support gun control measures (although the latter more often just pays lip service to the issue and lacks the political will to do much beyond that), versus the petty bourgeoisie, the more backward strata of workers, and the more conservative factions of the bourgeoisie that are shrieking like fucking idiots about fighting for gun rights in a country with generally extremely lax gun laws, where virtually anyone with the money and the desire can obtain a gun at the drop of a hat, where there are roughly as many guns as there are people... That there are people on the American left who genuinely believe gun rights is some kind of pressing issue never ceases to amaze me.

Then again, you never know when the next foreign invasion might be, and people need to be armed to defend the homeland Plus you need guns to oppose coercion and tyranny, like when the IRS audits your small business, or when the state snatches away your religious freedom and forces your burger shop to serve queers. I don't trust the bourgeois state, but I trust the petty bourgeoisie even less.

[Sewer Socialist]

Guns aren't toys. They're tools. I was being rhetoric earlier. Guns, ammunition, powder--they are all resources with important uses. Making "explody" noises is not one of them.

It's a fun way to learn how to shoot. If using a gun in such a way is to use it as a toy, then yes, they are toys, for the reason that that is how I use them. Have a little fun.

In a similar way, tools are also fun. Have you never used a sledgehammer? A sawzall? A jackhammer? Fucking shit up is enjoyable, and if you're being destructive for practical reasons, you might as well enjoy it.

[Lily Briscoe]

"Guns are fun". Paintball guns, airspft guns...? Or presumably it's more the 'lethal weapon' part that makes it appealing

http://static.thefrisky.com/uploads/2012/12/17/bushmaster-ad1-600x450.jpg

[Sewer Socialist]

"Guns are fun". Paintball guns, airspft guns...? Or presumably it's more the 'lethal weapon' part that makes it appealing

http://static.thefrisky.com/uploads/2012/12/17/bushmaster-ad1-600x450.jpg

Oh, those are fun, too.

That ad sure isn't, though. :mad:

[Creative Destruction]

"Guns are fun". Paintball guns, airspft guns...? Or presumably it's more the 'lethal weapon' part that makes it appealing

Yeah, sure, paintball guns are fun, but there's a kind of power (not political or social power -- but physical power) in an actual gun that isn't comparable to shooting paintball guns or airsofts. There's some physics involved in ensuring your sight-line is calibrated correctly, how well you need to hold the thing to compensate for recoil and a sense of accomplishment in, after doing all of that, hitting your target where you wanted to. It's an involved process.

Not everyone enjoys it or sees it as "fun," but some people don't see golf or soccer that way either.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I was being tongue-in-cheek in that post, in case it wasn't clear (I'm not exactly predisposed to spending my time crafting 'ideal' policies that I wish the government would enact in some alternate reality where the state takes policy proposals from communist dilettantes in Seattle).

I don't think there's a communist position either in support of 'gun rights' or gun control; it isn't a working class issue imo. In the US, it's basically the urban, cosmopolitan part of the working class and the urban, cosmopolitan part of the bourgeoisie who support gun control measures (although the latter more often just pays lip service to the issue and lacks the political will to do much beyond that), versus the petty bourgeoisie, the more backward strata of workers, and the more conservative factions of the bourgeoisie that are shrieking like fucking idiots about fighting for gun rights in a country with generally extremely lax gun laws, where virtually anyone with the money and the desire can obtain a gun at the drop of a hat, where there are roughly as many guns as there are people... That there are people on the American left who genuinely believe gun rights is some kind of pressing issue never ceases to amaze me.

Then again, you never know when the next foreign invasion might be, and people need to be armed to defend the homeland Plus you need guns to oppose coercion and tyranny, like when the IRS audits your small business, or when the state snatches away your religious freedom and forces your burger shop to serve queers. I don't trust the bourgeois state, but I trust the petty bourgeoisie even less.

I realise your post was not intended as a serious policy proposal. I was responding to the implicit - explicit in the subsequent post - argument that the bourgeois state is less of a problem than the various petit-bourgeois strata. I understand this position (I certainly have no great love for the petite bourgeoisie), but I think it's wrong. In the end it's not even a choice between the bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie. White elderly gun nuts in rural areas are going to be left alone by the state, no matter how much they think the black helicopters are coming for them. They are the sort of useful idiots that the bourgeois state needs. But, ah, if some Branch Dravidian weirdoes might have guns, that means the good bourgeois state needs to intervene - more so if there are children, the children need to be freed from the sinister people with guns, preferably by killing them. I think we should oppose gun control, not on fantasy grounds of "national defense" (in the case of a foreign invasion, the most revolutionary thing you can do is shoot your commanding officer in the head and go have a smoke with the evil invading army) or people taking out military drones by themselves, but because we should oppose expanding the police powers of the bourgeois state. Yes, that won't sit well with a lot of people who imagine themselves progressive and sophisticated, but when has that ever stopped us?

[Bala Perdida]

I don't care for gun regulations, although living here it does get annoying seeing how much more difficult it gets to obtain one. I've never had a gun before, or even shot one. Still, I feel highly at a disadvantage seeing an highly armed state cruze around and living in an area not unfamiliar with violent crime. Sure guns cause crime, but this country is huge and not as rich and pampered and all around '1st' world as capi sympathizers like to think. So crime is gonna be bad anyways. Also as far as heavy weaponry is concerned, I don't know anyone that has or wants those. But if they don't get it illegally, they'll make it. Anything like assault weapons and what not, it's pretty simple. Guns are tools, and assault weapons are constantly designed to work really well. Easy to see the appeal there.

[BIXX]

If people don't need guns, what would they use them for? Fun? If no one has practical use for a gun, it'll be used for bad, or simply not at all.

Or for fun. Or is fun bad? That would make sense.

Also yeah if someone feels the need to raid the fuck out of the commune with their weapons, that might suck for the commune, but we have to examine the underlying conditions within the commune that lease to the level of alienation and disenfranchisement that leads up to the raid, which I would suspect would shows that perhaps the commune wasn't so perfect after all. Of course I can't say for sure that anyone would raid the commune, but it seems to be the over all worry when discussing weapon ownership with commies.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

People raiding communes with weapons.

Can people make their minds up if we're talking about communism or Mad Max Australia?

[BIXX]

People raiding communes with weapons.

Can people make their minds up if we're talking about communism or Mad Max Australia?
Tbh I'll wage revolution for mad max world


But I mean I think that is the general worry with people having weapons, which is why I brought it up.

[Lily Briscoe]

I realise your post was not intended as a serious policy proposal. I was responding to the implicit - explicit in the subsequent post - argument that the bourgeois state is less of a problem than the various petit-bourgeois strata. I understand this position (I certainly have no great love for the petite bourgeoisie), but I think it's wrong. In the end it's not even a choice between the bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie. White elderly gun nuts in rural areas are going to be left alone by the state, no matter how much they think the black helicopters are coming for them. They are the sort of useful idiots that the bourgeois state needs. But, ah, if some Branch Dravidian weirdoes might have guns, that means the good bourgeois state needs to intervene - more so if there are children, the children need to be freed from the sinister people with guns, preferably by killing them. I think we should oppose gun control [...] because we should oppose expanding the police powers of the bourgeois state. Yes, that won't sit well with a lot of people who imagine themselves progressive and sophisticated, but when has that ever stopped us?
So by this logic, shouldn't communists also oppose the criminalization of spousal rape? How about the criminalization of employer fraud against undocumented immigrants? Both instances involve "an expansion of police powers", but that is kind of a stupid abstraction. There are instances where gun control legislation is e.g. racist, and in those instances, of course communists should come out against it. But it isn't universally the case. There was a ballot initiative here (in Washington state) recently to bar people with a record of domestic violence from legally purchasing firearms. Again, I suppose communists should have come out against this. It isn't enough to say "this doesn't get to the root of the problem", "the working class doesn't have a dog in this fight", "this issue is being used as a distraction"; it's apparently necessary to line up alongside the worst sort of anti-woman reactionaries and oppose measures designed to keep lethal weapons out of the hands of documented domestic abusers. I don't think "people who imagine themselves progressive and sophisticated" are the only ones who would find this appalling.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Except the criminalisation of spousal rape doesn't grant any extra powers to the police. At best, it prevents a specific exception from being used when a prosecution is already on the way. Communists have no business opposing such laws, true. But neither should we take them at face value. We all know that marital rape is practically legal. So that needs to be pointed out. The point is that the state is not this neutral instrument that can be used to benefit women, gay people etc. It always acts in the interest of the ruling class.

The ballot initiative you describe seems to have concerned firearms sellers. Like I'm not going to lose sleep if the cops bother some store owner. But overwhelmingly, the criminalisation of firearms just gives the police additional authority - and they aren't going to use it to help abused women, that's for sure. Every time the state portrays itself as helping minorities, it's grinding them down, from the anti-Klan Dies committee being used to persecute communists to laws ostensibly against people who protest abortion clinics being used against people defending abortion clinics.

[VCrakeV]

It's a fun way to learn how to shoot. If using a gun in such a way is to use it as a toy, then yes, they are toys, for the reason that that is how I use them. Have a little fun.

In a similar way, tools are also fun. Have you never used a sledgehammer? A sawzall? A jackhammer? Fucking shit up is enjoyable, and if you're being destructive for practical reasons, you might as well enjoy it.



My apologies, I can't say that I've enjoyed "fucking shit up" with a sledgehammer or similar tool.

[VCrakeV]

"Guns are fun". Paintball guns, airspft guns...? Or presumably it's more the 'lethal weapon' part that makes it appealing

http://static.thefrisky.com/uploads/2012/12/17/bushmaster-ad1-600x450.jpg



The closest thing to paintball that I've done would be water balloon fighting. That was both involuntary and far from fun. I've also heard that paintballs hurt a lot.



However, I'm quite sure I'm the oddball amongst a society who enjoys destroying, hurting, etc.

[Creative Destruction]

My apologies, I can't say that I've enjoyed "fucking shit up" with a sledgehammer or similar tool.

It doesn't seem like you have much joy in your life.

[BIXX]

The closest thing to paintball that I've done would be water balloon fighting. That was both involuntary and far from fun. I've also heard that paintballs hurt a lot.



However, I'm quite sure I'm the oddball amongst a society who enjoys destroying, hurting, etc.
Dude holy shit what is wrong with you

Are you a lizard

[Ele'ill]

honestly taking guns away leaves us pretty much with thunderdome

[mushroompizza]

I think you can own any gun as long as it fires rubber bullets. You can defend yourself and you cant kill a 5th grade classroom.

[BIXX]

I think you can own any gun as long as it fires rubber bullets. You can defend yourself and you cant kill a 5th grade classroom.
Ugh that's just as stupid. Rubber bullets lack the ballistic qualities of metallic bullets. They can't fly as far so a whole sport goes out the door (long range shooting competitions), plus they are affected by wind more, etc...

And I guarantee you if I wanted to kill a 5th grader with a rubber bullet I could. 5th graders are weak.

[VCrakeV]

It doesn't seem like you have much joy in your life.



I have some. I could have more if I had a relationship, clear career goals, and all that cool stuff. But I have hobbies and interests that I delight in.

[VCrakeV]

Dude holy shit what is wrong with you

Are you a lizard



I'm assuming that was a rhetorical question about being a lizard. However, I don't understand the connection, nor do I see what is wrong with me. Seriously, why is everyone so thrown off by what I said in this thread?

[AdLeft]

Or for fun. Or is fun bad? That would make sense.

Also yeah if someone feels the need to raid the fuck out of the commune with their weapons, that might suck for the commune, but we have to examine the underlying conditions within the commune that lease to the level of alienation and disenfranchisement that leads up to the raid, which I would suspect would shows that perhaps the commune wasn't so perfect after all. Of course I can't say for sure that anyone would raid the commune, but it seems to be the over all worry when discussing weapon ownership with commies.

Unless the commune had weapons.

[BIXX]

I'm assuming that was a rhetorical question about being a lizard. However, I don't understand the connection, nor do I see what is wrong with me. Seriously, why is everyone so thrown off by what I said in this thread?
Just answer the damn question. Are you a lizard?

[Bala Perdida]

Just answer the damn question. Are you a lizard?
Hey, fuck off. All the lizards I know are cool. My little one doesn't sit in a tank. She jumps out and walks around the fucking home. She does what she wants. Also she's pretty old for her breed. Quit with the lizard bashing.

[Creative Destruction]

I'm assuming that was a rhetorical question about being a lizard. However, I don't understand the connection, nor do I see what is wrong with me. Seriously, why is everyone so thrown off by what I said in this thread?

is this a canadian thing?

[Creative Destruction]

Hey, fuck off. All the lizards I know are cool. My little one doesn't sit in a tank. She jumps out and walks around the fucking home. She does what she wants. Also she's pretty old for her breed. Quit with the lizard bashing.

Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't confirm or deny that he is a lizard. So,

[Bala Perdida]

Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't confirm or deny that he is a lizard. So,
That's some cultural appropriating bullshit. That is very offensive to the lizard community.

[BIXX]

Listen I think we should discuss whether or not VCrakeV is a lizard here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/vcrakev-lizard-t193030/index.html?t=193030

I've included the most popular theories in the poll.

[Creative Destruction]

That's some cultural appropriating bullshit. That is very offensive to the lizard community.

i dunno, man.

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2014/07/26/1227002/234563-154e0f7a-1423-11e4-bbaf-47cb7c4f86b3.jpg

dude looks like a lizard to me.

eta. of course, #notalllizards

[Palmares]

That's some cultural appropriating bullshit. That is very offensive to the lizard community.

This one reptilian I met, claimed to me to be "species-neutral".

[Invader Zim]

The argument here for hand guns, that they will be necessary come the revolution, is as foolish and ludicrous as the rightwing teabagger argument that they are necessary to protect people from the Federal Government. Your Glock 17 or even AR-15 is not going to be much of much help when faced with:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/M1A_Abrams_im_Taunus.jpg/440px-M1A_Abrams_im_Taunus.jpg

or

http://www.spectrose.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/cruise-missile3-300x225.png

The only revolution, in the technocratic west, that can succeed is one in which vast swathes of the armed forces join the revolt or one which has external military backing.

Your plinking rifles and pea-shooters are about as useful as a jelly dildo.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

This one reptilian I met, claimed to me to be "species-neutral".

The one who lives across the street from me claims to not know what I'm talking about. Like I'm gonna fall for that shit. This is exactly why guns are needed

[Cliff Paul]

The argument here for hand guns, that they will be necessary come the revolution, is as foolish and ludicrous as the rightwing teabagger argument that they are necessary to protect people from the Federal Government. Your Glock 17 or even AR-15 is not going to be much of much help when faced with

Duh, that's why we will use bricks

[BIXX]

The argument here for hand guns, that they will be necessary come the revolution, is as foolish and ludicrous as the rightwing teabagger argument that they are necessary to protect people from the Federal Government. Your Glock 17 or even AR-15 is not going to be much of much help when faced with:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/M1A_Abrams_im_Taunus.jpg/440px-M1A_Abrams_im_Taunus.jpg

or

http://www.spectrose.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/cruise-missile3-300x225.png

The only revolution, in the technocratic west, that can succeed is one in which vast swathes of the armed forces join the revolt or one which has external military backing.

Your plinking rifles and pea-shooters are about as useful as a jelly dildo.

So you're saying we should just roll over? Guns can and will be very useful.

[BIXX]

Hey, fuck off. All the lizards I know are cool. My little one doesn't sit in a tank. She jumps out and walks around the fucking home. She does what she wants. Also she's pretty old for her breed. Quit with the lizard bashing.

You're being spied on by the lizard forces. You don't have much time. Run.

[thebishop]

I don't have a strong ideological position on guns. I enjoy target shooting, I generally think guns should be legal.

But I don't take arguments about armed uprising very seriously. If municipalities feel gun control measures will reduce violent crime, I don't oppose them.

[Invader Zim]

So you're saying we should just roll over? Guns can and will be very useful.

Obviously, reading is not your strong suit. What I said, and this time pay attention, is that for a revolution to succeed in a state with powerful armaments and military forces at its disposal, it inevitably must have strong military backing. That can either be from a sizable section of the armed forces from within that state or from the military backing of external forces. To paraphrase Lenin in 1917, the only way that the forces of counter-revolution could be prevented from sweeping the revolutionaries aside was if the revolutionary militias were fused together with the mutinous elements of the well trained and well equipped Imperial Russian Army.

With the advancements in military technology over the last century, what was the case in Lenin's day is many more times more obvious the case today.

So, why don't you toddle off and try reading about what has happened in actual revolutions? It would save me the trouble of reading your stupid comments, addressing your idiotic questions, and filling you in on what should be blindingly obvious to one and all even without the benefit of Lenin's wise instruction. Your idea of revolution is clearly a load of romanticised fluff divorced from hard reality.

[Rafiq]

Those affected by gun control most are the petite-bourgeoisie and their running dogs. Arms as a means of self-defense for the working class simply do not factor into our present social epoch. A hundred years ago they certainly did, but after the process of urbanization as well as the revolutionizing of warfare and military power, the so-called "right to bear arms" only benefits either the lumpen, or more specifically an armed petite-bourgeoisie capable of terrorizing the masses. That is to say, armaments don't pose a threat to the state, but they certainly pose a threat to communities under the boot of the local petite-bourgeois filth. And why shouldn't the Left seize this opportunity, amidst the gun legislation laws, to expand them in order to restrict the weaponization of the police?

[Ele'ill]

Obviously, reading is not your strong suit. What I said, and this time pay attention, is that for a revolution to succeed in a state with powerful armaments and military forces at its disposal, it inevitably must have strong military backing. That can either be from a sizable section of the armed forces from within that state or from the military backing of external forces. To paraphrase Lenin in 1917, the only way that the forces of counter-revolution could be prevented from sweeping the revolutionaries aside was if the revolutionary militias were fused together with the mutinous elements of the well trained and well equipped Imperial Russian Army.

With the advancements in military technology over the last century, what was the case in Lenin's day is many more times more obvious the case today.

So, why don't you toddle off and try reading about what has happened in actual revolutions? It would save me the trouble of reading your stupid comments, addressing your idiotic questions, and filling you in on what should be blindingly obvious to one and all even without the benefit of Lenin's wise instruction. Your idea of revolution is clearly a load of romanticised fluff divorced from hard reality.

Do you not think an insurrectionary break could happen, avoid traditional military clashes, and be successful? Is the defecting of the military important to a sucessful revolution or is it important to specific praxis, in obtaining and officializing the positions of power within a new state backed by the new military and the new police, instead of its immediate destruction (and immediate destruction can mean a number of things I am aware)?

[VCrakeV]

Just answer the damn question. Are you a lizard?



Fine, you caught me. Nobody knows you're a lizard when you're on the Internet. Well, know you know.

[Invader Zim]

Do you not think an insurrectionary break could happen, avoid traditional military clashes, and be successful?
When has this actually happened?

And what is to stop the forces of reaction just sweeping back?

[BIXX]

When has this actually happened?

Why are you looking to the past for something that shouldn't have any sort of historical precedent?

[Invader Zim]

Why are you looking to the past for something that shouldn't have any sort of historical precedent?

Marxism and indeed revolutionary leftism is built on the tenets of historical materialism, and revolutions have huge historical precedence. Why do we need to look to that which has no basis in reality when we have a very lengthy catalog of actual evidence to inform us?

But your question fails to grapple with the key point - even if this hypothetical unprecedented form of revolution occurs, it must, by necessity, be inclusive of the military apparatus of state. Thus, again, what is the purpose of your pea-shooting plinking rifles?

But, back in reality, where revolutions tend to be long, bloody affairs in which well organised revolutionary militias are integrated with professional, and professionally armed troops fighting against their former masters, fight it out with the remaining rump of the old military establishment. You might as well be armed with a blunderbuss for all the good they will achieve against well armed and well trained standing armies brought to bare against the forces of revolution.

[BIXX]

Marxism and indeed revolutionary leftism is built on the tenets of historical materialism, and revolutions have huge historical precedence.

Um, no. When we are talking about destroying modes of production they really don't.

[Ele'ill]

When has this actually happened?

Why does that matter? When have we destroyed capitalism?



And what is to stop the forces of reaction just sweeping back?

I think we could talk for a very long time about the possible ways events could play out and I don't really find that terribly useful but I do think that if there was a break from pretty much everything we know now, that we take as a given things like work, school, and so on, and the situation was global of course, they would have nothing to sweep back to because of how the terrain has changed. It's not that I think there won't be armed clashes with some perhaps being very close to a clash of military forces but I see many other elements coming into play that aren't inherently armed clashes that work directly.

I wouldn't count on military and police (which are heavily militarized) defecting, simply because it has happened before.

[Luís Henrique]

We have discussed this some 3,783,023 times in the past.

The script is always the same: allegations of possible revolutionary use are made; the obvious counter-argument that handguns are useless against tanks and dive-bombers are also made, and dismissed because "guns are fun"; those who do not think that guns are fun at all are ignored at best, and regarded as some kind of weirdos from outer space, who for some reason don't care about being mugged. People are told that defending oneself's petty property against petty crime isn't revolutionary, and, on the contrary, fulfills a role in protecting the status quo. This is then dismissed because in the completely unlikely event of a popular uprising, we would use the guns that we have bought for fun and for personal defence against petty crime will then be used to defeat the State's tanks, military aircraft, bazookas and dreadnoughts. At times someone will posit that no, the State wouldn't use artillery against its own citizens. Then Waco and the Paris Commune, etc.

Rinse, repeat, and there we go again.

Luís Henrique

[Sewer Socialist]

The purpose of pea-shooting plinking rifles is to learn to shoot them, since they are similar to larger caliber rifles.

Also, wasn't the French Resistance an effective force, mostly equipped with small arms?

[BIXX]

Also why is everyone saying that only handguns are to be used?

[Comrade Jacob]

Basic background checks should be implemented for people's safety. For example it is irresponsible to give a gun to someone known to be suicidal or unstable in general. But the people need to be armed. You've got to take up the gun to put down the gun.

[Ele'ill]

We have discussed this some 3,783,023 times in the past.

The script is always the same: allegations of possible revolutionary use are made; the obvious counter-argument that handguns are useless against tanks and dive-bombers are also made, and dismissed because "guns are fun"; those who do not think that guns are fun at all are ignored at best, and regarded as some kind of weirdos from outer space, who for some reason don't care about being mugged. People are told that defending oneself's petty property against petty crime isn't revolutionary, and, on the contrary, fulfills a role in protecting the status quo. This is then dismissed because in the completely unlikely event of a popular uprising, we would use the guns that we have bought for fun and for personal defence against petty crime will then be used to defeat the State's tanks, military aircraft, bazookas and dreadnoughts. At times someone will posit that no, the State wouldn't use artillery against its own citizens. Then Waco and the Paris Commune, etc.

Rinse, repeat, and there we go again.

Luís Henrique

I think the state uses the guns against its citizens anyways regardless how they are armed- actual weapons or other tactics prompting the state response.

[Rafiq]

The purpose of pea-shooting plinking rifles is to learn to shoot them, since they are similar to larger caliber rifles.

Also, wasn't the French Resistance an effective force, mostly equipped with small arms?

The french resistance isn't a model for a revolutionary insurrection or civil war.

[Antiochus]

The French Resistance failed. I mean, what major city did they capture? What German division did they cut off? They were a propaganda tool and nothing more. I think they inflicted a total of ~2,000 casualties on the Germans :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

So if the French hired that Finnish guy that killed 500 Soviet soldiers, he could have done 1/4 of their work in 1/4 of the time. Though I don't entirely agree with some of your statements that small arms would be "useless" against military forces.

One need only look at the development of modern war in a modern setting, say Syria, to see this is a lie. First off, much of the fancy weaponry used by modern militaries: 5th generation fighters, MBT, armoured carriers, tomahawk missiles and so forth are designed for conventional warfare. Even a force as backwards as the Taliban has succeed in disrupting the most modern military in the world. You can't fly those F-22s if the fuel to refuel them isn't reaching the base.

And anyway there is the psychological aspect of guerrilla war. Clausewitzian theory dictates that guerrilla forces tend to become stronger and the conventional force weaker merely by the guerrillas not losing. Off course in the end, the war must be won by conventional means. But troops can be trained, equipment can be captured and turned upon the enemy.

[BIXX]

So if the French hired that Finnish guy that killed 500 Soviet soldiers, he could have done 1/4 of their work in 1/4 of the time.

So, here's the deal. He was in such a specific area and had managed to get so much practice with that area that his killzone was 100% his. In a different killzone, it is unlikely that he would have been as effective. I mean, he knew exactly what the temperatures effect on his fingers would be, his heartbeat after hiking to the location, the elevation changes the temperature would make on his shot, etc...

He wouldn't have been nearly as effective in other circumstances.

[Antiochus]

It was a joke, not that it matters, there were plenty of snipers with hundreds of kills. It was meant to illustrate how pathetic the "Resistance" was as anything other than a feel good movement.

[Luís Henrique]

I think the state uses the guns against its citizens anyways regardless how they are armed- actual weapons or other tactics prompting the state response.

Yes, that is what the State does, isn't it?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

The french resistance isn't a model for a revolutionary insurrection or civil war.

If for no other reason, because the French (or Dutch, or Italian, or etc.) resistance only made sence as auxiliary forces for the British/American invasion or for the Red Army, which didn't rely on pistols or revolvers. Maybe I'm blind, but I'm not seeing that mighty army that will intervene on our side, and that we would be helping by keeping guns under our pillows and occasionally shooting them at Black neighbours who remotely look like the will steal our bycicles*.

* ie, "individual troop carriers"; let's not forget our sacred God-and-Founding-Fathers given right to keep and be carried by bycicles - they will be absolutely essential to our mobility in the case of a proletarian uprising.

Luís Henrique

[Comunero]

If anything the Yugoslav partisans are a better example than the French resistance.

[General Lamontagne]

In contemporary, pre-revolutionary society, I am wholly against all forms of gun control. In post-revolutionary society, I am for the collectivization of all means of perpetuating violence. In the words of Karl Marx, "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary."

Take that as as you will.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I like how this has turned into an amateur discussion of military tactics, complete with taking propaganda about the French resistance and Finnish snipers seriously. Invader Zim's post should have settled that debate - the revolution proceeds, not by defeating the imperialist army, but by splitting it along class lines. But the revolution is not a military operation, and the social power of the proletariat is not military, but lies in its relation to the means of production - that the proletarians are direct producers.

That said,


Then Waco and the Paris Commune, etc.

I think Waco is important because it shows what actually happens when you give the bourgeois state more police power. They certainly won't use it to protect black people from being shot by racist neighbours. Gun control laws are drafted by bourgeois politicians, interpreted by bourgeois judges and enforced by bourgeois cops, and to expect anything good for the workers and minorities to come out of this unholy trinity is a bit too much.

[Invader Zim]

The purpose of pea-shooting plinking rifles is to learn to shoot them, since they are similar to larger caliber rifles.

Also, wasn't the French Resistance an effective force, mostly equipped with small arms?

The point is that virtually all the types of arms we are discussing are, in effect, plinking rifles at best when juxtaposed against military grade armaments.

And no, the French Resistance was not an effective force. The Allied troops that invaded Normandy were an effective force.

[Ele'ill]

Yes, that is what the State does, isn't it?

Luís Henrique

as a point against the utility of guns why even bother bringing up that it will use artillary against insurgence when cops currently gun down unarmed civilians with assault rifles/multiple handguns/etc.. on a regular basis

[Palmares]

Also why is everyone saying that only handguns are to be used?

http://themarketingmentors.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/KillBusiness.jpg

Because hands are killaz.

[Luís Henrique]

If anything the Yugoslav partisans are a better example than the French resistance.

Much better - but then they certainly weren't an army armed with handguns, much less handguns bought at legal shops as means for "fun" or defence against petty criminals.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

as a point against the utility of guns why even bother bringing up that it will use artillary against insurgence when cops currently gun down unarmed civilians with assault rifles/multiple handguns/etc.. on a regular basis

Because, as Xhar-Xhar Binks says,


Invader Zim's post should have settled that debate - the revolution proceeds, not by defeating the imperialist army, but by splitting it along class lines.

What you keep doing is trying to find a way to defeat the State militarily, which is impossible. It has to be defeated politically, dividing or neutralising its armed forces, so that its technically superior power isn't used against us, but against the State itself, or at least remains idle.

Luís Henrique

[Ele'ill]

Because, as Xhar-Xhar Binks says,



What you keep doing is trying to find a way to defeat the State militarily, which is impossible. It has to be defeated politically, dividing or neutralising its armed forces, so that its technically superior power isn't used against us, but against the State itself, or at least remains idle.

Luís Henrique

I am not saying anything about defeating the state militarily and I even said that I wasn't talking about a clash of militaries, however I do think weapons still have utility during insurgency. I'm not sure I see events unfolding in the same manner that you and a few others in the thread do, who knows maybe I actually do, but I think activity taking place before or duing a mass falling out of the military and police is possible, i have no scenarios in mind but I don't think I'll write it off so easily. I also don't trust that anything close to a majority of either the military or police would defect.

[Frid]

Gun control is another form of control for this period of human history. After all bourgeois propaganda is eliminated people will voluntarily give up their guns to go to waste. Imagine what would happen if Jewish People had guns in Nazi Germany. Imagine what would happen if anti-state anarchists had guns in the $oviet Union.

[BIXX]

Gun control is another form of control for this period of human history. After all bourgeois propaganda is eliminated people will voluntarily give up their guns to go to waste. Imagine what would happen if Jewish People had guns in Nazi Germany. Imagine what would happen if anti-state anarchists had guns in the $oviet Union.
I doubt everyone would voluntarily give up their guns.

[Invader Zim]

Imagine what would happen if Jewish People had guns in Nazi Germany.


What, you mean like in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? I don't know whether you're particularly historically well read, but a word to the wise: it didn't make any difference.

[Ele'ill]

"they should have waited for the nazis to defect"

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

"they should have waited for the nazis to defect"

It's more like, unless German soldiers ("Nazis", just like we call American soldiers "Demoncrats" and "Republicans", right?) split from their officers and joined a workers' insurgency against fascism and against imperialism, that workers' insurgency would not have a chance in hell of succeeding.

[BIXX]

It's more like, unless German soldiers ("Nazis", just like we call American soldiers "Demoncrats" and "Republicans", right?) split from their officers and joined a workers' insurgency against fascism and against imperialism, that workers' insurgency would not have a chance in hell of succeeding.
I can't really tell what you're trying to say here. They obviously wouldn't have defected so why are we even discussing defecting?

[Invader Zim]

"they should have waited for the nazis to defect"

It is difficult to know where to begin in reply to this dishonest garbage.

Frid asked us to conceive of an historical scenario in which the Nazis were met with armed Jewish resistance. Well, we don't have to speculate, it actually happened in Warsaw in 1943 and if you require another example you need only fastforward to Warsaw on 1 August 1944. Do you actually know anything about the Second World War? You see, the Holocaust was brought to a close by the force of arms - the arms of numerous external economic superpowers and their allies. Resistance by pockets of isolated, untrained, and underarmed Jews did not. Those are the facts, your attempt to strawman my position is pathetic - which precisely confirms what I said in my opening statements in this thread. The issue is not one of what Jews, and other oppressed groups should have done or did do, it is about what they could have done to prevent the fate that the Nazis had orchestrated for them. And the answer is nothing.

[BIXX]

It is difficult to know where to begin in reply to this dishonest garbage.

Do you actually know anything about the Second World War? You see, the Holocaust was brought to a close by the force of arms - the arms of numerous external economic superpowers and their allies. Resistance by pockets of isolated, untrained, and underarmed Jews did not. Those are the facts, your attempt to strawman my position is pathetic. The issue is not one of what Jews, and other oppressed groups should have done or did do, it is about what they could have done to prevent the fate that the Nazis had orchestrated for them. And the answer is nothing.
Um, any dead Nazi is cool in my book. They couldn't have prevented the genocide, but they can protect themselves, even if it's just for a while I imagine its better than nothing.

[Invader Zim]

Um, any dead Nazi is cool in my book. They couldn't have prevented the genocide, but they can protect themselves, even if it's just for a while I imagine its better than nothing.

Except, they didn't protect themselves. They still died in their thousands and exacted a cost of 17 Nazi troops to the Third Reich. There might have been more dignity in being able to die in resistance - but again, the actual conclusion of the Holocaust was the product of massive external military force.

[Ele'ill]

It is difficult to know where to begin in reply to this dishonest garbage.

I read your reply once. The answer to your above post is next time just don't because your reply was about as bad as your original post that I commented on. Now that the obligatory invader zim/mari3L 'start your reply posts to each other with windups' is over, I dont' think you understand why I posted 'they should have waited for the nazi's to defect'. If your entire position is that 'armed' struggle means guns against guns in traditional military clashes yes there is very little that can be done aside from total self annihilation. However I think this is a very very small part of what would actually take place during an insurrectionary break and my conception of what 'armed' means isn't 'armed struggle' in the traditional, military, sense. This aside, I wouldn't bank on anywhere close to a majority of the military and police defecting, that isn't something to wait for because basically that would be really stupid imo. There are an infinite amount of scenarios that will take place and a lot of opportunities that would be emergent. Things will go horribly wrong at times, bad tactics, timing, whatever it might be but that doesn't put 'armed' resistance, as the physical engagement of your enemies, into a category of "impossible unless they abolish themselves or join you in their self-destruction".

[BIXX]

Except, they didn't protect themselves. They still died in their thousands. There might have been more dignity in being able to die in resistance - but again, the actual conclusion of the Holocaust was the product of massive external military force.
Not en masse no, but individual lives probably seemed like a pretty big deal to those who survived.

[Invader Zim]

I dont' think you understand why I posted 'they should have waited for the nazi's to defect'.

I know precisely why you made that post: to strawman my argument because you have no actual serious retort to my underlying thesis, that major revolutions only succeed with serious military backing. At no point did I argue, as you mendaciously suggest, that the Jews should have waited for the Wehrmacht of the Waffen SS to defect and nor did I condemn the legitimacy of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I stated a fact, that armed resistance to the Nazis could not overturn the Nazi monopoly on force within Occupied Europe.


If your entire position is that 'armed' struggle means guns against guns in traditional military clashes yes there is very little that can be done aside from total self annihilation. However I think this is a very very small part of what would actually take place during an insurrectionary break and my conception of what 'armed' means isn't 'armed struggle' in the traditional, military, sense. This aside, I wouldn't bank on anywhere close to a majority of the military and police defecting, that isn't something to wait for because basically that would be really stupid imo. There are an infinite amount of scenarios that will take place and a lot of opportunities that would be emergent. Things will go horribly wrong at times, bad tactics, timing, whatever it might be but that doesn't put 'armed' resistance, as the physical engagement of your enemies, into a category of "impossible unless they abolish themselves or join you in their self-destruction".

This is vague fluff, because you give us no examples of "what would actually take place during an insurrectionary break". And it would appear that your idea of revolution is one in which the ruling class's manopoly on force somehow evaporates without explaination. But if we return to sanity for a moment, then it is clear that the only way that the ruling class manopoly on force can only be neutralised if: A. they lose control of the physical manifestations of that force (i.e. the armed forces) because they have joined the revolution, B: an external military power backs the revolution.

Either way, please explain the place of small arms in the hands of untrained citizens provides a third scenario - after all that is the discussion here.

[Invader Zim]

Not en masse no, but individual lives probably seemed like a pretty big deal to those who survived.

Indeed, and I don't dispute that - but you are making an argument about dignity, morale, and the choice to resist even in the face of the unassailable. I have no argument against that. My point is, was, and remains, that Frid's latent suggestion is that armed resistance by Jews would have altered the outcome of the Holocaust is incorrect, and that such an argument rests on a failure to understand the material conditions of Occupied Europe and the extent of the Nazi's massive monopoly of force. It rests on the assumption that if the Jews had access to small arms that massive monopoly of force would have been overturned - well, the historical facts tell us that this hypothesis is false.

[Ele'ill]

I know precisely why you made that post - because you were trying to strawman my argument rather than actually address it honestly.

The intention of my post was to contrast your 'wait for external help that might never arrive or wait for your enemies to defect and join you' with that warsaw post of yours.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I can't really tell what you're trying to say here. They obviously wouldn't have defected so why are we even discussing defecting?

Of course they might have defected. A lot of German soldiers were former KPD sympathisers; some of them engaged in fraternisation with French and Belgian revolutionaries from the Trotskyist and communist left groups, and a lot of those were shot by the Nazi authorities.

Or maybe you think Germans are genetic Nazis and your programme is hate the German, kill the German.

[Invader Zim]

The intention of my post was to contrast your 'wait for external help that might never arrive or wait for your enemies to defect and join you' with that warsaw post of yours.

Which, again, strawmans my point. The point was that Frid suggested that armed resistance by Jews would have prevented the Holocaust - and the fact is that they tried and it did not alter the outcome. And, of course, help did arrive - sadly, not in time for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The Holocaust was successfuly put to a stop before the Nazis successfully exterminated the hundreds of millions they ultimately planned to slaughter. It was ended because the Nazis lost the manopoly on military force in occupied Europe.

http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/photo/wlc/image/74/74456.jpg

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Auschwitz/OldPhotos/AuschwitzLiberation.jpg

http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/photo/lc/image/74/74938.jpg

[Frid]

The only thing I say is this. I am Jewish-Greek, well, I wouldn't like to let my daughter or sister be raped, experimented on, and killed by Nazis. Better to die with a gun in your hand than being an inmate in Nazi-controlled death camps. Am I wrong?

[Ele'ill]

They took a chance, armed with weapons, because they weren't going to wait for something to happen for them, that something might have never happened. To simplify, guns are a tool, they are a type of weapon and they can be used in a handful of different tactics at many different times, just like fire, bricks, cobble stones, the clipboards that the broader left will carry around and the xanax they will take when nobody is listening to them.

[Invader Zim]

They took a chance, armed with weapons, because they weren't going to wait for something to happen for them, that something might have never happened. To simplify, guns are a tool, they are a type of weapon and they can be used in a handful of different tactics at many different times, just like fire, bricks, cobble stones, the clipboards that the broader left will carry around and the xanax they will take when nobody is listening to them.

Indeed they did take a chance, and they failed as was inevitable given the conditions in which they found themselves. That is not a criticism of the victims of one of the most appauling episodes in human history, it is a statement of fact and merely adds emphasis to the fact that armed resistance by untrained and outgunned civilians rarely succeeds. Again, the central point is that armed resistance and revolution succeeds when it subverts the ruling classes monopoly on force. Xhar-Xhar Binks basically outlined what anybody with half a brain or even a modicum of historical knowledge should already be aware of: "the revolution proceeds, not by defeating the imperialist army, but by splitting it along class lines. But the revolution is not a military operation, and the social power of the proletariat is not military, but lies in its relation to the means of production - that the proletarians are direct producers. "

My second problem with your position is that you act as if these "tools", as you put it, are necessary or worthwhile and proposing a speculative revolutionary situation to justify your crass, ignorant and utterly reactionary position. You are misusing and abusing history to justify a short-sighted position. And my problem with your strategy oif debate is that rather than honestly discuss the issue, you instead try to paint the obvious critique of your ahistorical claptrap as somehow a criticism of the armed resistance against Nazism. Not only do you abuse and misuse the past, but you trivialise it.

And my third problem, is that in your defence of the proliferation of fire arms, you essentially reinforce a situation that exists to oppress the working class. It is not white, middle class, suburbanites who suffer the brunt of the ruling class agenda to proliferate fire arms - you should consider why that is.


The only thing I say is this. I am Jewish-Greek, well, I wouldn't like to let my daughter or sister be raped, experimented on, and killed by Nazis. Better to die with a gun in your hand than being an inmate in Nazi-controlled death camps. Am I wrong?

You didn't say anything of the sort, you made a cretinous and ahistorical claim that if the Jews of occupied Europe had guns then events would have turned out differently, a false and ahistorical claim designed to lend weight to your deeply reactionary position on the proliferation of fire-arms.

[Ele'ill]

Man I've said about 6 times that military operations against the state aren't a thing but/and that guns can play a role. You stated that armed struggle can't or shouldn't be utilized without a majority military having defected and I am shitting on your conception of armed struggle, and might as well extend it to your conception of the working class. With this in mind your responses are not very coherent but I am not surprised or anything.

[Sewer Socialist]

Mari3L - even if it's lost on Invader Zim, can you elaborate on what might constitute an alternate form of armed struggle? I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I am interested in reading it.

Also, there are many well-armed reactionaries in the USA, just waiting for a chance to unload. If any radical changes occur, they too will be a force to deal with.

Indeed, Yugoslavia seems like it might be a more successful example. I am unfortunately pretty ignorant on that subject.

[Rafiq]

Let us play the devil's advocate: Should guns be necessary for armed insurrection, there is no need to maintain their legality under present conditions. If the conditions arise wherein a mass of revolutionaries are willing to use arms to defeat the bourgeois state, then they should have no problem expropriating weapons from local businesses, as the mass looting of supplies, food and aid would inevitably follow as well. From this, raids would probably be conducted on arms warehouses, military bases and so on. Even if less than a quarter of the American military is on the side of the working people, and judging from the demographics (solely from income) of recruiters at the very least half could potentially, this would be more than enough.

The real problem stems from the obsession of the legality of the revolution. The revolution will not be legal. So why should the bearing of arms be? The insistence on the legality of weapons is reactionary because the only legal employment of weapons is a fetish of the petite-bourgeoisie. The communities of working people no longer possess the capacity to defend themselves from the organs of state power, merely by nature of the demographic, and societal changes in the way life is distributed.

[Sewer Socialist]

Yes - I realize that arms have been typically siezed in popular insurrections, but I am saying that knowledge in the usage of arms seems like it would be important. Experience in actual combat surely trumps all else, but simple proficiency in the operation of small arms would help towards their actual usage, wouldn't it?

The legal status of guns has not armed the proletariat so much as the petty bourgeoisie, especially extremely reactionary parts of it, but if guns are already legal, knowledge in their usage seems useful.

[John Nada]

The only revolution, in the technocratic west, that can succeed is one in which vast swathes of the armed forces join the revolt or one which has external military backing.

Your plinking rifles and pea-shooters are about as useful as a jelly dildo.First one, I think it needs some gas and plantfood. Second one, I'd run up and give their friends on land a big hug, taking them to hell with me. Pioneered in Stalingrad and Vietnam.
Invader Zim's post should have settled that debate - the revolution proceeds, not by defeating the imperialist army, but by splitting it along class lines. But the revolution is not a military operation, and the social power of the proletariat is not military, but lies in its relation to the means of production - that the proletarians are direct producers.
This is vague fluff, because you give us no examples of "what would actually take place during an insurrectionary break". And it would appear that your idea of revolution is one in which the ruling class's manopoly on force somehow evaporates without explaination. But if we return to sanity for a moment, then it is clear that the only way that the ruling class manopoly on force can only be neutralised if: A. they lose control of the physical manifestations of that force (i.e. the armed forces) because they have joined the revolution, B: an external military power backs the revolution.Apparently it seems the only way for a revolution to even get started in a 1st world country is:

A. Wait for a professional career military(not conscripted proletarians and peasants), maybe even cops too, to start feeling bad about being bourgeois tools and join the poorly armed/unarmed insurgents.
B. Have the support of a non-existent socialist country or even rival capitalist countries. All willing to risk nuclear war, if said first-world country is nuclear armed.

This shit is not going to happen like that. Russia's military was made up of conscripts fighting against their will. The Tsar's regime was going down the gutter. The workers and peasants were willing to rise up against capitalism for a socialist revolution. The proletariat and oppressed masses wouldn't let the capitalist go back to the old ways, and the capitalist were unable to rule in the old way they wanted. Many of those conscripts were poor peasants and workers, so they said fuck this shit. This is what Lenin meant about uniting the masses to fight with the proletariat.

Many modern ones are career soldiers. A lot are not stationed close to home but in other parts of the world. It's more like being a cop or mercenary, though IMO they have higher revolutionary potential than those two. In fact a lot of the traditional military is being replaced by "private contractors". Some would join a proletarian revolution, but I wouldn't bank on them being the leading or decisive force of that revolution. Many are proletarian or from oppressed peoples, many proletarians are vets. They'd be more likely to be revolutionary than others currently in the armed forces and can help train new cadre. But I don't think the professional soldiers are the most revolutionary strata by which the global proletarian revolution hangs in balance.

What I think is more likely is the state, private organizations and military would break into different factions with infighting. It won't be so much defecting to revolutionaries as desertion and fratricide. Some people will support one faction or another of the counterrevolutionaries from the pro-capitalist, more will support the revolutionaries, but the largest share won't give a fuck. The economy will tank, more people will move to whatever side. Foreign nations will either run to recuse their capitalist ally, or abandon it like a sinking ship. All this will occur in any order.

It'll involve small arms(defensively at first, mostly useless against tanks but adequate against rightist death squads), but mostly through non-violent resistance and boring "soft power", and can happen quickly but will likely be over a protracted period of time. Over this time if a sizable part of the military hasn't joined, a separate one will be built.
Mari3L - even if it's lost on Invader Zim, can you elaborate on what might constitute an alternate form of armed struggle? I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I am interested in reading it.

Also, there are many well-armed reactionaries in the USA, just waiting for a chance to unload. If any radical changes occur, they too will be a force to deal with.

Indeed, Yugoslavia seems like it might be a more successful example. I am unfortunately pretty ignorant on that subjectAlbania successfully fought off the fascists with even less support than Yugoslavia. And in China the PLA sometimes literally fought with spears till they could loot some guns and ammo. Also they weren't having friendly chats with ex-JCP conscripts and getting them shot, but convinced Japanese fascists to defect to the Communists and shoot "their own" side.

I think there's a difference on theory There's the insurrection type, closer to what happened in Russia, with strikes, duel power, deserting soldiers and rebellion in major cities. Focoism, closer to Cuba, with a small group doing quick attacks, building support by exposing the state's incompetence and unpopularity, and snowballing into a mass revolution. And people's war, closer to China or Vietnam, defend and build up forces in a base area, spreading out from there, reach a level of parity with the enemy, then launch an offensive. Some combined or don't neatly fit into any type.

Thing is, a lot of this shit is untested in the first-world. When it's succeeded, it was often with the backing of places like the USSR and PRC fund it. Going at it alone, with any past strategies, against a powerful military-police state the likes of which the world has never seen is unprecedented.
Yes - I realize that arms have been typically siezed in popular insurrections, but I am saying that knowledge in the usage of arms seems like it would be important. Experience in actual combat surely trumps all else, but simple proficiency in the operation of small arms would help towards their actual usage, wouldn't it?

The legal status of guns has not armed the proletariat so much as the petty bourgeoisie, especially extremely reactionary parts of it, but if guns are already legal, knowledge in their usage seems useful.IMO the US 2nd amendment should be viewed like any bourgeois democratic right. There's enough guns to arm every single person in the US, couldn't ban them even if anyone wanted to. It might have a reactionary intent, but can be used to one's advantage. Even if they do all get taken away, the workers can still make/confiscate more, though this is more work.

However, even if the revolutionaries had conventional capacities, it's a fight over the people. It's political, social and economic. Building up dual power, spreading propaganda, logistics, and running mundane shit isn't as exciting or romantic, but even more important. Small arms would just be a tool to help protect this. In fact, the overall logic behind these revolutionary theories need not be applied to some violent war. Like that saying "War is politics by another means".

But keep in mind that anything that can benefit one side, can also benefit another. That the left can get guns, so to can the right. If the right can't get guns, neither can the left. Kind of like how free speech protects leftists, but also protects the far right.

Shit that could make a revolution possible can also make a counterrevolution possible. Remember that the Spanish Civil War was technically the left-wing Republicans waging a counterinsurgency against the fascists insurgents.

[Ele'ill]

Mari3L - even if it's lost on Invader Zim, can you elaborate on what might constitute an alternate form of armed struggle? I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I am interested in reading it.

Most of the time when people talk about armed struggle they're talking about formally organized military groupings, military clashes, trying to match-up against conventional military forces of the state (either police or the 'actual' military including national guard etc..),official 'guerrilla' groupings going underground etc... I am not talking about that type of linear path and am more interested in informal and autonomous diffuse action complimenting an actual insurrectionary break instead of the seize-to-remanage the status quo. By armed I simply mean that within a more emergent form we are armed with an array of options within the capacity to desert, destroy, and create.

[Luís Henrique]

Indeed, Yugoslavia seems like it might be a more successful example. I am unfortunately pretty ignorant on that subject.

http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/424566-4/1270873210057

This may explain why it was a more successful example.

Luís Henrique

[BIXX]

Mari3L - even if it's lost on Invader Zim, can you elaborate on what might constitute an alternate form of armed struggle? I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I am interested in reading it.

I know that this question was not directed at me but I would like to answer.

Mari3L and I have discussed this question many times. Essentially we start with a discussion of possibilities and move into a discussion of requirements for those possibilities. This conversation turns into the likelihood of those requirements. The discussion always ends with the fact that we aren't clairvoyant, and can not consistently make accurate predictions with the information we have.

So, I can not see the future, but there are many ways it could go (assuming an insurrectionary situation), however I will expand on the way I expect to be most likely.

Judging by the way capital has restructured since the '60s, workers (and I don't mean workers as a class) have moved into positions of less and less stability, resulting in more and more people making the transition from worker to criminal. And while I don't have the ability to see for sure, I doubt that the restructuring of capital will stop any time soon, and in fact I find it extremely likely that it will accelerate. So, I think that more and more people's existence will be criminalized (starting of course, with queers, minorities, women). The usage of weapons in crimes is obvious. I believe the generalization of crime against the state and capital is the most likely scenario, and that is how I think weapons are going to be used. It won't be a mass movement but a bunch of friends saying "shit I need money let's go vault fuck this bank'. This is the most realistic way I see non-military clashes with the existent occurring.

I imagine there are infinite possibilities, and they will emerge whether or not we act. In fact I think the less leftists or activists or post-leftists or nihilists or communists etc... act the better, seeing as all action orchestrated by radicals or whatever we call ourselves always seems to be directed at organizing "the working class" (which to an extent I dispute the existence of, at leat the way classical analysis interprets it) into recognizable item, which isn't engaging in hostilities, rather developing the new tools for capitalism to save itself.

Kinda rambling but whatever.

[Ele'ill]

Regarding non-military clashes, I think criminality is an example I also think that more politically, sabotage, when it is directed at the functioning of the metropolis/civ, and the non crimethinc variant of desertion and 'immediate communist measures' are too.

[John Nada]

I know that this question was not directed at me but I would like to answer.

Mari3L and I have discussed this question many times. Essentially we start with a discussion of possibilities and move into a discussion of requirements for those possibilities. This conversation turns into the likelihood of those requirements. The discussion always ends with the fact that we aren't clairvoyant, and can not consistently make accurate predictions with the information we have.

So, I can not see the future, but there are many ways it could go (assuming an insurrectionary situation), however I will expand on the way I expect to be most likely.Same with me. Not psychic, all hypothetical.
Judging by the way capital has restructured since the '60s, workers (and I don't mean workers as a class) have moved into positions of less and less stability, resulting in more and more people making the transition from worker to criminal. And while I don't have the ability to see for sure, I doubt that the restructuring of capital will stop any time soon, and in fact I find it extremely likely that it will accelerate. So, I think that more and more people's existence will be criminalized (starting of course, with queers, minorities, women). The usage of weapons in crimes is obvious. I believe the generalization of crime against the state and capital is the most likely scenario, and that is how I think weapons are going to be used. It won't be a mass movement but a bunch of friends saying "shit I need money let's go vault fuck this bank'. This is the most realistic way I see non-military clashes with the existent occurring.IMO the idea that proletariat, if it's even real, no longer exists today, is a myth. Workers have always gone between working shitty unstable jobs, and unemployment, possibly hustling to survive. The post-war boom in the US(1920's, WWII to the 1970's), propped up by imperialism, is a deviation from the capitalist norm. A fluke in history, that really only benefited a small minority of the petty-bourgeoisie and workers globally.

And oppressed peoples have always been criminalized, even(especially) during this imaginary era of a stable proletariat.

Also what differentiates a large group/groups of people thinking,"Shit's fucked up, left tear this motherfucker down!" and a mass movement of people thinking,"Shit's fucked up, let's tear this motherfucker up!"?
I imagine there are infinite possibilities, and they will emerge whether or not we act. In fact I think the less leftists or activists or post-leftists or nihilists or communists etc... act the better, seeing as all action orchestrated by radicals or whatever we call ourselves always seems to be directed at organizing "the working class" (which to an extent I dispute the existence of, at leat the way classical analysis interprets it) into recognizable item, which isn't engaging in hostilities, rather developing the new tools for capitalism to save itself.

Kinda rambling but whatever.Seems the classical misinterpretation of the working class has been that:

A.Only the most manly of men in the labor aristocracy are the real proletariat. Then get shocked when they start doing racist, jingoist, bigoted shit(ie the "hardhats" beating the shit out of anti-war protesters during the 60's).
B.The poor, oppressed peoples and those with precarious employment, are the lumpenproletariat, as if the proletariat wasn't always poor, disproportionately among oppressed peoples, and with precarious employment.:rolleyes: They're also somehow the same as organized gangsters, who also beat the shit out of them(leftists) like the labor aristocracy did. Conversely that the lumpen is the only "real" proletariat in the first-world, so until we're all out of work or imprisoned no revolution.
C.That those in the service sector, intellectuals, or contract laborers are among the petty-bourgeoisie. Because working in a store, restaurants, or office is somehow not like an assembly line in a factory. It's not "real" manly work, apparently doesn't count.
D.The intellectuals are either petty-bourgeoisie, or just intellectual workers. It's apparently not cross-class. Then wonder why intellectuals who write books and lecture at universities aren't at the forefront of a revolution like Lenin and shit.:confused:
E.Somehow oppressed people are all the real proletariat, there's no bourgeoisie among them that profits off aiding super-exploitation. Also that among the oppressor people there's no proletariat being exploited, let alone a majority.
F.The "real" proletariat lives in the third-world. First-world is petty-bourgeoisie, who'll have to wait for the third-world proletariat to snap them out of their social democratic spell. Conversely that the "real" revolutionary proletariat is in the first-world, with the third-world being mostly peasants, lumpenproletarians, and maybe some proletarians that will have to wait for the global first-world revolution for salvation.
G. There is only the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Various other strata, divisions and classes don't exist. They aren't really divided(especially the bourgeoisie), but have some secret unity that's just waiting to come out.
H.That classes are static and defined quantitatively. Ten years of a good economy with a relatively better-off proletariat, a larger petty-bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy, means this is how it always is. When the reverse is true, it going to stay that way or get worse.
I.That class traitors and class allies don't exists. One class being the leading revolutionary force somehow precludes other classes.
J.What's happening in one's country or another is universal, and all that really matters. That the global revolution will not be led by "your own" revolutionaries isn't accounted for. Or the possibility that it might isn't either.
K.The proletariat(or maybe the lumpenproletariat and peasantry), if identified, has some magical revolutionary essence that causes them to spontaneously get an urge to fuck shit up and start revolutionizing. Other classes have a counterrevolutionary essence that seals their fate too.
L.The revolution must be for the working class alone, and not for all of humanity.
M.That the leftists or whatever are for some reason outside of this whole class system. Worse still, the leftist are the "intelligentsia", which is really just a nice way of saying nerds. The proletariat and oppressed masses somehow aren't think for themselves or at least agreeing or disagreeing with these "leftist intellectuals"(who are likely workers or petite-bourgeoisie too).

I disagree that the left is hold back the masses from revolution. Presumably these revolutionaries organizing(does not have to be a vanguard hierarchy) the masses are also part of the oppressed masses. And the masses have people that happen to agree with some revolutionary ideas. IMO this idea of revolutionary Rapture that will just pop out of nowhere is a fairytale. A byproduct of a nuclear, computerized, automated age.<br /><br />However I do agree that the capitalists are recuperating a lot of leftist's shit for their own ends. What's a critique of capitalism and a guide to combat it can become a how-to playbook for reactionaries. See this in academics, business management and even policing/war.