Where should Socialists stand on Gun Control?

[SocialismBeta]

This might seem silly at first. After all, why is this an important question to settle for socialists in particular?

I think determining "where we stand" may depend on the answer to the following question: How necessary are guns to a successful revolution? The idea of a revolution from below fundamentally changing society, is more central to socialism than any other political philosophy. As such, how firearms play a role seems like a good debate to be had.

The above question is answered by right-wing gun nuts with "they are absolutely necessary, but not just for revolution, but defending our freedoms from the government! If we lose our guns, they can do anything to the people!"

It is a bit more complex, obviously. First, restricting civilian access to automatic, 50-mag weapons does not mean the criminalization of all guns period. Secondly, even armed with machines specifically designed for killing as many people as possible, it would not make a huge dent against well trained, tank-equipped, stealth-drone assisted, standing armies (with machines even more able to kill masses of people). "The Founding Fathers" did not anticipate these dangers... or automatic weapons for that matter. Thirdly, resistance, combat, or sabotage need not be facilitated by firearms.

I don't want this to be a right-wing gun nut bashing fest, but I think that looking at the above answer and highlighting some complications might help clear the fog a bit. I believe that the third complication above points to a different answer altogether even. If one finds it plausible that mass, even nation-wide revolt can do damage without the need for the masses to be armed from the beginning, it leaves open the possibility of answering the first question with "Guns are not necessary for a successful revolution".

Considering that workers are everywhere, and legion, a revolt with workers united can put up significant resistance, combat, and even sabotage without automatic weapons.

So I would argue that socialists need not be overly concerned if and/or when their state issues tighter gun control regulation. But I would like to hear if anyone else has any thoughts about this.

[Guardia Rossa]

How tighter? In my nation we can barely own a .22 semi-auto rifle.
Weapons are absolutely necessary for both the revolutionary forces and the counter-revolutionary forces, but the counter-revolutionary forces, obviously, have a way greater access to them.

And please, arguing we should not attempt a revolution because they have tank, drones and a standing army?? This is worse than the other guy that said we should not attempt a revolution because it will kill innocents and make the image of communism ever worse on the eyes of people (Translating: Liberals and social-democrats.)

[Sewer Socialist]

Fully automatic (Class III) firearms are already highly restricted. You may be thinking of semi-automatic firearms, which are very easy to obtain.

I am not sure where I stand, but I think it is extremely likely that there will soon be a federal ban on private gun transfers. I wonder if socialists could successfully organize around the fact that law enforcement legally and without hesitation uses fully automatic weaponry and high-powered ammunition frequently in raids, during civil unrest, etc.

[ZrianKobani]

If the State has it, the people should have it. Arms are absolutely indispensable and every radical should take time to learn weapons proficiency (loading, aiming, shooting, cleaning, etc.).

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

"Any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." – Karl Marx

[BIXX]

Say no to gun control threads

[Hit The North]

I think if history shows us anything, it is that the last people who should be allowed to have guns is Americans.

....

[SocialismBeta]

How tighter? In my nation we can barely own a .22 semi-auto rifle.
Weapons are absolutely necessary for both the revolutionary forces and the counter-revolutionary forces, but the counter-revolutionary forces, obviously, have a way greater access to them.Sorry, I am taking an American perspective here so forgive me if there is confusion. However I think my arguments are applicable in most national contexts.


And please, arguing we should not attempt a revolution because they have tank, drones and a standing army?? This is worse than the other guy that said we should not attempt a revolution because it will kill innocents and make the image of communism ever worse on the eyes of people (Translating: Liberals and social-democrats.) If you actually read my OP you would know I am not arguing that.


If the State has it, the people should have it. Arms are absolutely indispensable and every radical should take time to learn weapons proficiency (loading, aiming, shooting, cleaning, etc.). So the people should have M1A1 tanks and death drones as well? Should civilians then have access to ICBM's? How would you pursue that legally, and if illegally, how would that help organize the workers?

Saying that the people should be armed sounds like a good idea if you don't think too much about it. But simply giving people weapons and training will not a successful revolution make.

Or so I argue. I await anyone to address the content of my arguments.


"Any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." – Karl Marx Even Marx said his words should not be etched in stone. :)


Say no to gun control threads Thanks for providing sound counterarguments to the content of my post, comrade. :glare:


I think if history shows us anything, it is that the last people who should be allowed to have guns is Americans.LOL Well, jokes aside, as an American myself (and one who is not a diehard gun-worshiper) I am both upset and afraid at the thought of me, my family, or my hypothetical children being gunned down by some quack in a theater.

If you happened to have kept up with American news recently, mass gun murders are depressingly common. Gun culture in America is, to not exaggerate, pure insanity.

[Guardia Rossa]

Guns are absolutely necessary for revolution.This is because a revolution leads almost certainly to a war, be it to destroy the Bourgeois State, be it a counter-revolutionary struggle against the proletarian dictatorship.

Also, the people will be more optimistic about the chances we have. If the people are unarmed they may even not join us because they can (rightly) think that there is no chance for a revolution. An armed people is a people with voice.

Of course, the reactionaries would also be well-armed and ready for a fight. But, most times, the government itself can supply the reactionaries with arms.

Another problem is the Army. Today, I highly doubt any Western army has big communist elements. Or even leftist elements. They will surely side with the State as they depend on it. We cannot fight them with flowers, or electric dildos, or something.

Sabotage? Resistance? A Revolution is taking control of the Nation, taking it back from the bourgeois forces. It's a war, and no wars can be fought without guns.

"Workers are a legion, they can do whatever they want because I want so" Can you spawn as many workers as can the bourgeoisie can spawn bullets from 20 soldiers armed with M4A1's shooting at the workers? If numbers were everything in war Russia would have overrun the whole Europe before even the WW1.

[Futility Personified]

On the fortunately rare occasions I hear of a complete arsehole with a gun I don't think "oh yeah he is so fucking empowered as a proletarian", I tend to worry about why they have it or what they would do with it.

I understand that American folks might feel differently, but I hear about someone else who has had a complete breakdown and decided that shooting a lot of people is their only viable option, and no, I don't think that is a terribly good thing to have going on. Worker on worker violence, yeah! If it came down to an uprising, the ruling classes are going to be better equipped anyway, so semi-automatics are not going to be the great leveller that some people might think they will be. An insurrection might be 'that' much harder, but as none of us seem to have synchronised our calenders yet I'd rather say in this completely abstract debate that people going around and murdering each other because of all the pointless pressures of capitalist society is not a positive thing.

After the revolution, millitias, why not? But for the present, this fetish for violence is just annoying.

[Guardia Rossa]

Please, do not lock this up at USA - Semi-automatics.
And do not think that a proletarian revolution is going to abide the law and use (Or buy in the black market) only semi-automatics.

And also please don't throw "liberal" (USA kind of "liberal") ideas into the pot.
Weapons are not equal to violence, weapons are weapons and violence is violence.

[BIXX]

Thanks for providing sound counterarguments to the content of my post, comrade. :glare:


Your post is nothing that hasn't been posted 10^89 times already.


The fundamental issue is that I don't see what business you have in whether or not I have a gun. The stats etc... from both sides are pretty irrelevant, cause frankly neither side actually cares about the statistics- it's just an attempt to feel like your emotionally backed arguments are more reasonable than someone else's emotionally backed arguments. The statistics don't affect the arguments at all.

[Lobotomy]

LOL Well, jokes aside, as an American myself (and one who is not a diehard gun-worshiper) I am both upset and afraid at the thought of me, my family, or my hypothetical children being gunned down by some quack in a theater.

If you happened to have kept up with American news recently, mass gun murders are depressingly common. Gun culture in America is, to not exaggerate, pure insanity.

Its more complicated than just gun culture tho. It's the mental health system. We don't have a lot of accessible resources for people suffering from mental illness. Also seeking help is frowned upon/stigmatized.

[willowtooth]

Gun rights in america are typically promoted by the right wing because they are currently the most militant, and most likely to achieve some kind of revolution. That however is just the current state of affairs, and could very easily change, Ronald Reagan was the first to pass major gun legislation as governor of california to help dismantle the black panthers, and other left wing groups.

In fact the first laws in america that banned guns in any fashion, were laws to ban black people from owning them. So while white supremacists are the most militant, most targeted by law enforcement groups like the ATF and the most vocal against gun laws currently, that doesn't mean things won't change in the future.

You will also find that these right wing groups in america are completely hypocritical and oblivious to any kind of actual universal philosophy when it comes to gun rights, as they often promote declaring war, over another country simply acquiring nuclear weapons

Liberals on the other side of the coin, will simply use gun legislation as an excuse for not promoting any actual social change, whether just something simple like increasing access to mental healthcare, or a more complex thing like addressing the fact that these shooters are almost always working class social outcasts, and are just a reflection of a classist society.

The recent mass shooter in oregon, was 26 years old lived in a 1 bedroom apartment with his mother, had no freinds, never had a girlfriend, was unemployed and had a gun fetish

All those things, had alot more to do with what he did, more so, than if then if they just had stricter gun laws or gun enforcement, especially since all the guns used were purchased legally, and he was in rural oregon where people need guns, because every now and then, a grizzly bear shows up in your back yard

[Emmett Till]

Sorry, I am taking an American perspective here so forgive me if there is confusion. However I think my arguments are applicable in most national contexts.

If you actually read my OP you would know I am not arguing that.

So the people should have M1A1 tanks and death drones as well? Should civilians then have access to ICBM's? How would you pursue that legally, and if illegally, how would that help organize the workers?

Saying that the people should be armed sounds like a good idea if you don't think too much about it. But simply giving people weapons and training will not a successful revolution make.

Or so I argue. I await anyone to address the content of my arguments.

Even Marx said his words should not be etched in stone. :)

Thanks for providing sound counterarguments to the content of my post, comrade. :glare:
LOL Well, jokes aside, as an American myself (and one who is not a diehard gun-worshiper) I am both upset and afraid at the thought of me, my family, or my hypothetical children being gunned down by some quack in a theater.

If you happened to have kept up with American news recently, mass gun murders are depressingly common. Gun culture in America is, to not exaggerate, pure insanity.

I am in favor of gun control laws if they apply to the police too. I am also in favor of pigs flying if they happen to possess wings.

As for military grade stuff, only in the US do police possess them, and even Obama is slightly nervous about that, not that he'll do anything about it. Only armies generally have that kind of thing, it's abnormal for anyone else to. It is a very good thing that North Korea has nukes, otherwise it would be a bloody pile of rubble like Iraq and Libya. For civilians to possess "weapons of mass destruction" means unregulated potential mass destruction, no state can allow that, and rightly so when you get right down to it.

Giving people guns will not turn them into revolutionaries. Denying legal access to guns however is a good way of preventing the possibility of revolution.

To understand what gun control in America is all about, you have to understand the history. Until the 1960s there was very little gun control in America, probably the majority of American workers owned guns, just as they still do in Canada. But then the civil rights movement and then Black Power came along, the ghettos were in a state of rebellion, and all of a sudden gun control laws were passed.

The first major gun control law in America was passed in California and signed by that famous liberal reformer, Ronald Reagan. The Black Panthers staged a gun-carrying march on the Capitol to protest. That's how they became famous, before then they were a tiny obscure grouplet in Oakland.

[Emmett Till]

On the fortunately rare occasions I hear of a complete arsehole with a gun I don't think "oh yeah he is so fucking empowered as a proletarian", I tend to worry about why they have it or what they would do with it.

I understand that American folks might feel differently, but I hear about someone else who has had a complete breakdown and decided that shooting a lot of people is their only viable option, and no, I don't think that is a terribly good thing to have going on. Worker on worker violence, yeah! If it came down to an uprising, the ruling classes are going to be better equipped anyway, so semi-automatics are not going to be the great leveller that some people might think they will be. An insurrection might be 'that' much harder, but as none of us seem to have synchronised our calenders yet I'd rather say in this completely abstract debate that people going around and murdering each other because of all the pointless pressures of capitalist society is not a positive thing.

After the revolution, millitias, why not? But for the present, this fetish for violence is just annoying.

Gee, is there anyone here who actually thinks that random mass shootings of innocent people are a Good Thing? Well, this is Revleft, probably somebody does.

Nah, it's a Bad Thing. Does it happen because there aren't enough gun controls, or that they aren't enforced enough? Don't be silly.

They happen because America is a declining capitalist society, where oppression and social contradictions are rapidly mounting. It's a symptom of capitalist breakdown, and since the disease is capitalism, the cure is socialism.

Seeing gun control laws as a cure is like trying to cure cancer with bandaids.

[Hit The North]

The recent mass shooter in oregon, was 26 years old lived in a 1 bedroom apartment with his mother, had no freinds, never had a girlfriend, was unemployed and had a gun fetish

All those things, had alot more to do with what he did, more so, than if then if they just had stricter gun laws or gun enforcement, especially since all the guns used were purchased legally, and he was in rural oregon where people need guns, because every now and then, a grizzly bear shows up in your back yard

When bears show up in the backyards of England we give them a pot of honey.

.......

[Comrade V]

It is a bit more complex, obviously. First, restricting civilian access to automatic, 50-mag weapons does not mean the criminalization of all guns period. Secondly, even armed with machines specifically designed for killing as many people as possible, it would not make a huge dent against well trained, tank-equipped, stealth-drone assisted, standing armies (with machines even more able to kill masses of people). "The Founding Fathers" did not anticipate these dangers... or automatic weapons for that matter. Thirdly, resistance, combat, or sabotage need not be facilitated by firearms.

Except that history shows this to be blatantly untrue. Look at Vietnam, first they kicked out Imperial China, the French, the US. Hell, the States two recent Imperialist wars just fell through because of persistent guerrilla warfare. No government no matter how well armed can keep down a determined movement so long as the people are behind it. No body would argue that you could take on a column of Abrams in open combat with with less tech, but that's not how you fight that sort of fight.

As far as the actual gun control aspect of it, keeping weapons out of civilian hands, would only serve to further push the totalitarian agenda of our capitalist overlords. With the surveillance state, black van style arrests without trial, and the wanton level of police brutality/military esq training/billions in old equipment they're sent annually.... I'm against keeping guns out of the population's hands.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Even Marx said his words should not be etched in stone. :)
Maybe not, but that doesn't really refute Marx's statement against gun control, either.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

When bears show up in the backyards of England we give them a pot of honey.
Wild bears don't exist in England.

[willowtooth]

Wild bears don't exist in England.

I know right A.A. Milne is a fucking lying piece of shit

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I know right A.A. Milne is a fucking lying piece of shit
Nah, he just had a stash of the good drugs. :laugh:

[Recke410]

People who like to roll out the whole "You can't beat the state which has tanks and drones with your AR-15 or AK, don't be ridiculous" line of arguement, look at pretty much every insurgency ever.

In an American context, hundreds of millions of people armed with semi-automatic weapons, with millions and millions of guns in circulation, a population that big, that armed and reasonably motivated could destroy any occupation and resist any government.

Peasant insurgencies have done it with less arms, less experience with them, less popular support. When you bring this up the gun control people then go to the predictable absurd position of "if you are at war with the government they will just nuke you", which is so silly it is a Pierce Morgan soundbite.

The yahoo chest thumping "patriots" do annoy me too, as do the nRA, but if you factor in the gun crime rate and factor in the percentage of those crimes that are committed by gangs, the legal gun owner's that are involved in gun crime is staggeringly low.

I don't think the state should be able to use gang violence commited with unlawfully held unregistered guns, to take away law abiding peoples guns. I also think it is rather odd the left is jumping on that bandwagon.

[Recke410]

I think if history shows us anything, it is that the last people who should be allowed to have guns is Americans.

....

This obnoxious anti-Americanism so irritating. I wish Europeans would cut it out, even the right over here in Europe all of a sudden sound like Marxists when talking baout "American imperialism" despite the fact they get defensive as hell when anyone brings up our nations historical and current imperialism.

For a continent with a history of Genocide, pogroms, slavery, imperialism, still existing Monarchy to gleefully rejoice in populist anti-Americanism is so bloody irritating. Europe and America are both imperialist, at least the American's don't have monarchy, they don't have an irrational EU nannystate which sends 70 year old farmers to prison for shooting burglars who break into their home armed with knives.

As Europeans with our history you would think we would have the sense to shut the F up.

[SocialismBeta]

I would like to clarify to all the people posting that I am not merely suggesting the banning of guns. Regulation does not equal banning. Automobiles are regulated. You need a license and need to take a safety test to drive one. You need to be in sound mental health to have an operators license.

I don't know where people got the "taking the guns away from the people" idea, but I'm sorry if I implied that.

[SocialismBeta]

Another problem is the Army. Today, I highly doubt any Western army has big communist elements. Or even leftist elements. They will surely side with the State as they depend on it. We cannot fight them with flowers, or electric dildos, or something.

Sabotage? Resistance? A Revolution is taking control of the Nation, taking it back from the bourgeois forces. It's a war, and no wars can be fought without guns.

Sure, no wars will work without guns, but you also need an army, an organization, and a will to fight. All I am saying is that organizing and mobilizing the working class is far more important to a successful revolution... than having a gun in every home.

And, again, what difference will civilian arms make against standing armies? That can't be the only component. If what you say about the necessity for weapons is true (I am willing to agree with you on that) then a revolutionary moment will necessarily involve the appropriation of better weapons by the people. This may require assistance from leftest or sympathizing elements in the army. See? Organization matters.


The fundamental issue is that I don't see what business you have in whether or not I have a gun. The stats etc... from both sides are pretty irrelevant, cause frankly neither side actually cares about the statistics- it's just an attempt to feel like your emotionally backed arguments are more reasonable than someone else's emotionally backed arguments. The statistics don't affect the arguments at all.

What nonsense is this? The statistics show quite clearly that US gun violence is a phenomenon all it's own. The United States is the only economically developed western "democracy" that has the frequency of gun violence it does. What makes the difference?

And, again, I am not "wanting to take your guns". As I stated already, regulation =/= removal.


Its more complicated than just gun culture tho. It's the mental health system. We don't have a lot of accessible resources for people suffering from mental illness. Also seeking help is frowned upon/stigmatized.

I am willing to agree with you on that. But, as an American I can tell you with complete confidence, that many Americans, literally, worship guns. To many of them the thought that "freedom" can exist without guns is a foreign concept.



Giving people guns will not turn them into revolutionaries. Denying legal access to guns however is a good way of preventing the possibility of revolution.

Alright, I can understand this logic. For now I am unwilling to dispute it, Gaurdia said a similar thing.

However, the main point of my post was not that the revolution should never have guns (and if I gave that impression, forgive me) but rather that in this current historical moment it is more important to focus energy and time on organizing the working class.

We must avoid the trap in thinking that having a gun = being a revolutionary. Plenty of diehard gun lovers in the US are far from revolutionaries. A true revolutionary must be willing to organize along class lines and must have a practical vision for the future.


They happen because America is a declining capitalist society, where oppression and social contradictions are rapidly mounting. It's a symptom of capitalist breakdown, and since the disease is capitalism, the cure is socialism.

You can't just say "It's capitalism... cure it with socialism!" That is an incredibly useless statement. It is like saying "Lets cure the bad with the good". Well duh. But what is the bad, and what is the good, and what is the context?

And lets be clear, broadly speaking, I agree with you. But we cannot communicate that so vapidly.


Except that history shows this to be blatantly untrue. Look at Vietnam, first they kicked out Imperial China, the French, the US. Hell, the States two recent Imperialist wars just fell through because of persistent guerrilla warfare. No government no matter how well armed can keep down a determined movement so long as the people are behind it. No body would argue that you could take on a column of Abrams in open combat with with less tech, but that's not how you fight that sort of fight.

OK, you know what? You got me. I have no good response to that.

But as to your second comment, regulation =/= confiscation.


Maybe not, but that doesn't really refute Marx's statement against gun control, either.

True. I guess I would respond by suggesting that the harm to revolution, from regulating arms in a similar fashion to automobiles, would be miniscule to the gains made by keeping arms out of the hands of the mentally ill. Does that make sense?

[Emmett Till]

When bears show up in the backyards of England we give them a pot of honey.

.......

In England, should we defend our right to arm bears?:grin:

[Emmett Till]

I would like to clarify to all the people posting that I am not merely suggesting the banning of guns. Regulation does not equal banning. Automobiles are regulated. You need a license and need to take a safety test to drive one. You need to be in sound mental health to have an operators license.

I don't know where people got the "taking the guns away from the people" idea, but I'm sorry if I implied that.

There are good regulations. For example, I recall in Ohio some NRA fanatics pushed through rescinding an Ohio regulation banning gun ownership for the blind. I must say I think that is a good regulation, all considered.

In Switzerland, the most armed to the teeth nation in Europe, I've heard they have gun education in the public schools, just like we used to have driver education when I went to high school. No doubt that is one reason why you don't hear about as many accidental gun deaths there as in America.

[Guardia Rossa]

Sure, no wars will work without guns, but you also need an army, an organization, and a will to fight. All I am saying is that organizing and mobilizing the working class is far more important to a successful revolution... than having a gun in every home.

And if you have an army, organization and a will to fight, and no guns, you have an group of perfect idiots. Or you have a future social-democratic party. Don't falsely dichotomize this discussion. Revolutions need both revolutionaries and the weapons of those revolutionaries.


And, again, what difference will civilian arms make against standing armies? That can't be the only component. If what you say about the necessity for weapons is true (I am willing to agree with you on that) then a revolutionary moment will necessarily involve the appropriation of better weapons by the people. This may require assistance from leftest or sympathizing elements in the army. See? Organization matters.

Yes, how will you appropriate better weapons from the army without first having worst weapons? Asking? Throwing eletric dildos at the cops? Whatever...

And you still think we are all going to be law-abiding citizens until the revolution starts. An AK is less than two thousand...

In the Brazilian urban guerrillas, in a group of 6, the leader carried an SMG. Not legal, but it was the most effective weapon in urban guerrilla warfare. (That's why I like the PP-19 Bizon. AK + 9mm = awesome)


And, again, I am not "wanting to take your guns". As I stated already, regulation =/= removal.

Yes, first they "regulate" the .50, then the .45, then the semi-autos, in ten years you have only a Makarov.


However, the main point of my post was not that the revolution should never have guns (and if I gave that impression, forgive me) but rather that in this current historical moment it is more important to focus energy and time on organizing the working class.

You still give that impression. In this current historical moment, the one of the 2008 crisis, we need to be ready at any time for a window of time when revolution becomes possible. This are crisis times, not a fucking capitalist golden age.


We must avoid the trap in thinking that having a gun = being a revolutionary. Plenty of diehard gun lovers in the US are far from revolutionaries. A true revolutionary must be willing to organize along class lines and must have a practical vision for the future.

A practical vision is giving the revolutionaries guns so when revolution occurs (AND REVOLUTION IS NOT 500 YEARS IN THE FUTURE, it can happen in six months. Look at Ukraine and Syria, for fucks sake!) they can fight the army and not do the peaceful protests you seem to think win wars.


You can't just say "It's capitalism... cure it with socialism!" That is an incredibly useless statement. It is like saying "Lets cure the bad with the good". Well duh. But what is the bad, and what is the good, and what is the context?

And lets be clear, broadly speaking, I agree with you. But we cannot communicate that so vapidly.

What the fuck is this line? He said exactly what you are asking him.


OK, you know what? You got me. I have no good response to that.

Hallelujah!

Now, quit being the trapped wild animal, we have got you, and we know you don't bite.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

People on RL sometimes have this quaint idea that socialists can fight an army with civilian firearms (not "a modern army"; even in 1917 one armoured car would have meant the end of their guerrilla roleplaying). That's not our perspective. We want to split the imperialist army, to have the proletarian and poor peasant element turn the guns on its officers.

But the right to own weapons is a democratic right. It can be subordinated to the struggle for a socialist revolution, but it is something we support in the main. All gun control laws do is provide the police a pretext when it needs to go after a given group. The elderly racist gun nuts are going to get their guns either way.

Also, how about we not demonise people with mental illness? I know it's fashionable to pretend murderers are not the product of social conditions but are possessed by demons, but someone with mental illness is much more likely to be a victim than perpetrator of violence.

[Emmett Till]

Sure, no wars will work without guns, but you also need an army, an organization, and a will to fight. All I am saying is that organizing and mobilizing the working class is far more important to a successful revolution... than having a gun in every home.

And, again, what difference will civilian arms make against standing armies? That can't be the only component. If what you say about the necessity for weapons is true (I am willing to agree with you on that) then a revolutionary moment will necessarily involve the appropriation of better weapons by the people. This may require assistance from leftest or sympathizing elements in the army. See? Organization matters.

Oh, sure. Only on Revleft do you find people who believe gun ownership is some sort of magic cureall. But is that what anyone here has argued? Maybe I missed a postingl.


What nonsense is this? The statistics show quite clearly that US gun violence is a phenomenon all it's own. The United States is the only economically developed western "democracy" that has the frequency of gun violence it does. What makes the difference?

And, again, I am not "wanting to take your guns". As I stated already, regulation =/= removal.

I am willing to agree with you on that. But, as an American I can tell you with complete confidence, that many Americans, literally, worship guns. To many of them the thought that "freedom" can exist without guns is a foreign concept.

The difference is American history, in two ways. On the one hand, you have the American Revolution, which like all revolutions alters the national character. The Brits were indeed trying to take our guns away, this was an issue, and so you get the Second Amendment to the constitution, historically seen as the ultimate protection against arbitrary government authority.

Don't be confused by the wording about militias in the amendment, this is because it was understood that all white men had guns, but if you want to rebel against the British or any other oppressive government authority successfully, you need a properly organized militia after all (like the Black Panthers?).

The Anti-Federalists who opposed the Constitution as they thought it gave too much power to the federal government as opposed to the states were pacified by the Bill of Rights, which originally applied only to the federal government, not to the states. They did see state militias as the guardians of freedom, among other things of the freedom of states to keep slavery legal even if a northern dominated federal government felt otherwise.

The American colonists were after all a colonial settler society, where all white males were armed to conquer the Indians and keep the slaves in line. In colonial South Carolina, where slaves were the majority and fear of slave insurrection was deep, you actually had a law *requiring* all whites to bring guns with them to church on Sunday, as that was everyone's day of rest and the obvious day for slave insurrections.

Until the Civil War, the Second Amendment most certainly did not apply to blacks. Dred Scott, you know?



Alright, I can understand this logic. For now I am unwilling to dispute it, Gaurdia said a similar thing.

However, the main point of my post was not that the revolution should never have guns (and if I gave that impression, forgive me) but rather that in this current historical moment it is more important to focus energy and time on organizing the working class.

We must avoid the trap in thinking that having a gun = being a revolutionary. Plenty of diehard gun lovers in the US are far from revolutionaries. A true revolutionary must be willing to organize along class lines and must have a practical vision for the future.



You can't just say "It's capitalism... cure it with socialism!" That is an incredibly useless statement. It is like saying "Lets cure the bad with the good". Well duh. But what is the bad, and what is the good, and what is the context?

And lets be clear, broadly speaking, I agree with you. But we cannot communicate that so vapidly.

Actually, in this context is is an incredibly useful statement, because there genuinely is absolutely no solution to gun violence short of a revolution, period. It is simply too ingrained in American society and culture for anything else to do any good whatsoever. Phony solutions like gun control and filling the prisons are cures worse than the disease.

Let's be clear, these mass shootings will continue and will probably get worse, until the day comes that capitalism is overthrown. That is reality.




OK, you know what? You got me. I have no good response to that.

But as to your second comment, regulation =/= confiscation.



True. I guess I would respond by suggesting that the harm to revolution, from regulating arms in a similar fashion to automobiles, would be miniscule to the gains made by keeping arms out of the hands of the mentally ill. Does that make sense?

Well, sure, nobody except NRA extremists thinks that the insane should be allowed to possess guns, and most states have laws forbidding that. And if care for the mentally ill were improved, and if America spent far more money on that then it does now, that would actually help. But that's not the direction of American society, the trend is to cutting back social services not improving them.

Why? Because capitalism is in trouble.

[Emmett Till]

People on RL sometimes have this quaint idea that socialists can fight an army with civilian firearms (not "a modern army"; even in 1917 one armoured car would have meant the end of their guerrilla roleplaying). That's not our perspective. We want to split the imperialist army, to have the proletarian and poor peasant element turn the guns on its officers.

But the right to own weapons is a democratic right. It can be subordinated to the struggle for a socialist revolution, but it is something we support in the main. All gun control laws do is provide the police a pretext when it needs to go after a given group. The elderly racist gun nuts are going to get their guns either way.

Also, how about we not demonise people with mental illness? I know it's fashionable to pretend murderers are not the product of social conditions but are possessed by demons, but someone with mental illness is much more likely to be a victim than perpetrator of violence.

Good point, somebody taking lithium for depression should not be banned from gun ownership. Paranoid schizophrenics, well, that may be another matter.

Be it noted that in 1917, the fact that revolutionaries in the civilian population did manage to get some access to guns played an important role in bringing the troops over to the revolution.

Trotsky describes in his history of the Russian Revolution how at the key moments, when an officer was about to issue the order to the troops to fire on a demonstrating crowd, not infrequently what enabled the soldiers to refuse and turn their guns around was a revolutionary in the crowd shooting said officer.

[Comrade Jacob]

Is this really up for discussion? Anyone who doesn't think the workers' should be armed is a dafty.

[Comrade V]

Is this really up for discussion? Anyone who doesn't think the workers' should be armed is a dafty.

Or a plant.

[Comrade Jacob]

Or a plant.

Fucking cabbage plants' tryin' to taek are guns

[Comrade V]

Fucking cabbage plants' tryin' to taek are guns

"You're part eggplant."

"Well you're a cantaloupe."

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Hit The North]

Wild bears don't exist in England.

No shit. So who have I been giving all that honey to :confused:

As for Marx's quote on gun control, the only people the armed proletariat of the United States are shooting is each other so I think even the old man would be tempted to review his position.

...

[blake 3:17]

Get the guns off the streets. Two school shootings today in the US. WTF? Senseless loss of life. Very sad.

The fetishization of guns as a revolutionary tool is a pretty foolish one. Obviously for a revolution to succeed there will be either open armed struggle or such a huge break in the state apparatus -- either way we'll need large sections of the police and military on our side or at least to drop their weapons.

[Emmett Till]

Get the guns off the streets. Two school shootings today in the US. WTF? Senseless loss of life. Very sad.

The fetishization of guns as a revolutionary tool is a pretty foolish one. Obviously for a revolution to succeed there will be either open armed struggle or such a huge break in the state apparatus -- either way we'll need large sections of the police and military on our side or at least to drop their weapons.

Police on the side of a revolution? In America? What are you smoking?

Now, the military, that's another matter. But as I pointed out previously, or rather as Trotsky pointed out in his book, it's a lot easier for soldiers to turn against their officers if you have some civilians with guns too. Disobeying orders in the military can get you shot, so it is a lot easier if somebody else shoots the officer telling you to fire into a crowd.

As for getting guns off the street, just how do you imagine that could possibly happen? Only by turning America even further into a police state, with the cops breaking down doors at midnight and shooting up whoever they suspect own guns, and guess just who they would suspect to own guns?

The American working class by and large is and traditionally always has been armed, and disarming them would require killing them in large numbers.

[Sewer Socialist]

Police on the side of a revolution? In America? What are you smoking?

Now, the military, that's another matter. But as I pointed out previously, or rather as Trotsky pointed out in his book, it's a lot easier for soldiers to turn against their officers if you have some civilians with guns too. Disobeying orders in the military can get you shot, so it is a lot easier if somebody else shoots the officer telling you to fire into a crowd.

As for getting guns off the street, just how do you imagine that could possibly happen? Only by turning America even further into a police state, with the cops breaking down doors at midnight and shooting up whoever they suspect own guns, and guess just who they would suspect to own guns?

The American working class by and large is and traditionally always has been armed, and disarming them would require killing them in large numbers.

Yeah, stopping sales and production might conceivably be possible, but what about the hundreds of millions of guns that are already privately owned? A huge "buy - back" might get some or even most of them, but the most reactionary elements of society would not participate, and would even stockpile more in reaction to any anti - gun efforts. An outright ban would probably lead to reactionary violence, the exact opposite thing you're trying to achieve, Blake.

I think we'll just see an increase in regulation, paperwork, a private sale ban, that sort of thing.

Miserable material conditions are of course behind most shootings, but wouldn't better access to health care alleviate some of this? Obviously, we should demand it even if it's not the only factor. The bureaucracy in health care in the US is downright awful, and people who need help getting their shit together are the people who have the hardest time accessing it.

[SocialismBeta]

I'm sorry Gaurdia Rosa, did I hit a nerve?


Yes, first they "regulate" the .50, then the .45, then the semi-autos, in ten years you have only a Makarov.Slippery Slope arguments are real funny.


What the fuck is this line? He said exactly what you are asking him.I was criticizing his oversimplification. And also, where did he answer my question? He basically said what we all already agree upon which is not productive.


Hallelujah!

Now, quit being the trapped wild animal, we have got you, and we know you don't bite. Who is this "we" you are referring to? I was speaking to the poster who made that comment, and I thought it was a good example. You did not make that comment, so don't take credit for it.

And if recognizing a good argument when you see one and giving the poster their due is "being the trapped wild animal" then what is human? Being a stubborn arse? In that case I can name a few posters here who are quite human. :lol:

[SocialismBeta]

Is this really up for discussion? Anyone who doesn't think the workers' should be armed is a dafty. Just like I said that the workers should not have cars?

Of course people should be allowed to own guns. But should any moron be able to acquire and use a gun without any training on safety or any evaluation of their responsibility as an adult? I say no.

Really, it might just come down to what cultural currents exist. For example:


In Switzerland, the most armed to the teeth nation in Europe, I've heard they have gun education in the public schools, just like we used to have driver education when I went to high school. No doubt that is one reason why you don't hear about as many accidental gun deaths there as in America. And if civilians do have arms what do they think they are for? It is one thing to be armed and have a sense of loyalty to the working class... it is quite another to be armed and have a loyalty to "the white race". You get the jist of the problem.


Miserable material conditions are of course behind most shootings, but wouldn't better access to health care alleviate some of this? Obviously, we should demand it even if it's not the only factor. The bureaucracy in health care in the US is downright awful, and people who need help getting their shit together are the people who have the hardest time accessing it. This. As I re-think my position just a little, I think maybe it might be best for socialists to concentrate efforts of these systemic cracks... and argue, forcefully, that it is in relieving these cracks that people will be less motivated towards violence.

[Obviously, part of the argument will be the need for socialism. But how we are able to communicate and educate that idea effectively is a topic for another discussion perhaps.]

[Comrade V]

I'm sorry Gaurdia Rosa, did I hit a nerve?

Slippery Slope arguments are real funny.

Are they? Are they really? You give government an inch they take a fucking mile. Which is once again, historically backed.

Anyone advocating to disarm the populace at this juncture in history isn't really paying attention to what the fuck's going on in the world right now. Authoritarian Technocratic Capitalist ideology is the agenda of a growing number of world leaders. You can roll over and assimilate with the rest of the sheep, or (advocating your unarmed resistance) have fun charging a man wearing Level IV Kevlar Inserts, a helmet, and is armed with an assault rifle when they roll down your street rounding up "dissidents".

[ComradeAllende]

While it is obvious that guns are necessary for an armed uprising, I still don't buy the (American) right-wing contention that they are a deterrent against a despotic state. Historically speaking, mass gun ownership does not equate mass resistance to tyranny: in Germany, for instance, Hitler's dictatorship had mass support and little armed resistance (aside from some left-wing militias) despite relatively lax gun laws. The resistance fighters in occupied nations (especially during the Warsaw Uprising) tended to use arms smuggled from overseas or raided from German armories, or they simply used handmade weapons. The PLO got their weapons from Czechoslovakia, not from a "citizen's militia."

In addition, it must be noted that the Second Amendment only protects gun ownership; it does not entail a right of revolution. The argument that revolution requires lax gun laws only applies to conservative "revolutions"; i.e. overthrowing a "radical left-wing" government trying to expand health insurance coverage or protect public land from illegal grazing (see the Bundy fiasco). Few (if any) conservatives and/or libertarians shed a tear for the many crackdowns on left-wing protesters and/or causes, whether they be striking workers fighting off company goons or oppressed minorities asserting their rights (like the Black Panthers).

Finally, in the event of a left-wing revolution, most of the privately-owned guns in America would be deployed for personal means of protection against marauders (assuming the situation resembles that of the Russian Civil War), and much of the rest will be used against the revolution by far-right militias and religious fanatics.

[Comrade V]

While it is obvious that guns are necessary for an armed uprising, I still don't buy the (American) right-wing contention that they are a deterrent against a despotic state. Historically speaking, mass gun ownership does not equate mass resistance to tyranny: in Germany, for instance, Hitler's dictatorship had mass support and little armed resistance (aside from some left-wing militias) despite relatively lax gun laws. The resistance fighters in occupied nations (especially during the Warsaw Uprising) tended to use arms smuggled from overseas or raided from German armories, or they simply used handmade weapons. The PLO got their weapons from Czechoslovakia, not from a "citizen's militia."

In addition, it must be noted that the Second Amendment only protects gun ownership; it does not entail a right of revolution. The argument that revolution requires lax gun laws only applies to conservative "revolutions"; i.e. overthrowing a "radical left-wing" government trying to expand health insurance coverage or protect public land from illegal grazing (see the Bundy fiasco). Few (if any) conservatives and/or libertarians shed a tear for the many crackdowns on left-wing protesters and/or causes, whether they be striking workers fighting off company goons or oppressed minorities asserting their rights (like the Black Panthers).

Finally, in the event of a left-wing revolution, most of the privately-owned guns in America would be deployed for personal means of protection against marauders (assuming the situation resembles that of the Russian Civil War), and much of the rest will be used against the revolution by far-right militias and religious fanatics.

If the weapons are more readily available from the jump, it will be easier to facilitate a revolution. Can you arm yourself from raids on enemy armories? Yeah. Is it easier to start out armed and semi organized? Yes. I think that all the horseshit the Right throws out turns off a lot of leftists to firearms, with they themselves being tools, are useful.

On the Hitler comment, if enough of a population supports a totalitarian regime, any resistance will immediately be minimized, without the backing of the people, mislead as they may be, it's hard to establish a populist movement. Guns or no.

No State that establishes itself allows for any revolution, it's never a right to be given by the State, but taken by the people.

How many tears do we shed when a radical right wing group suffers? None. Our ideologies are so opposed to the other that unless it's based on another principle (I.E Individual freedom vs State oppression) I don't see anyone being too sympathetic on either side.

I agree with you on the last point, but the right militias will always be an issue in a revolution, whether we're armed or not. I'd rather be armed.

Our opposites won't just lay down their arms because Big Daddy government tells them too.

It's also pretty difficult to eliminate guns from a culture that has such a warm spot for them. I doubt that'll change in America anytime soon, no matter your personal opinion on it.

[ComradeAllende]

If the weapons are more readily available from the jump, it will be easier to facilitate a revolution. Can you arm yourself from raids on enemy armories? Yeah. Is it easier to start out armed and semi organized? Yes. I think that all the horseshit the Right throws out turns off a lot of leftists to firearms, with they themselves being tools, are useful.

Yes, mass gun ownership can make a revolution easier to facilitate. But then the question devolves to the distribution of guns. According to Pew, white conservatives are more likely to have guns as opposed to urban blacks and Hispanics; in addition, many of these gun-owners lean towards the right, so the distribution of guns doesn't exactly lie in our favor.


It's also pretty difficult to eliminate guns from a culture that has such a warm spot for them. I doubt that'll change in America anytime soon, no matter your personal opinion on it.

My position on guns is rather ambivalent, to be honest. The empirical data is somewhat spotty as to whether or not "mass shootings" are on the rise, and homicides are declining (although they are still a few orders of magnitude larger than the industrialized average). Nevertheless, I do appreciate my ability to purchase a handgun (I was a huge fan as a little kid), although if I did it would be more for personal interest rather than, say, self-defense. And I agree that the individualistic culture of the US tends to discourage gun control measures; sadly, this also bodes poorly for broad revolutionary change, especially given the demise of the labor movement and the absence of any recognizable institution for radical change.

[Comrade V]

Yes, mass gun ownership can make a revolution easier to facilitate. But then the question devolves to the distribution of guns. According to Pew, white conservatives are more likely to have guns as opposed to urban blacks and Hispanics; in addition, many of these gun-owners lean towards the right, so the distribution of guns doesn't exactly lie in our favor.

My experience has been a mixed bag, a large majority of the entire population of my hometown had some sort of firearm. I've lived in the gun heavier parts of the south though most of my life :p

[blake 3:17]

Police on the side of a revolution? In America? What are you smoking?

Tobacco.


Now, the military, that's another matter. But as I pointed out previously, or rather as Trotsky pointed out in his book,

Which book? I've read many books by Trotsky. Are you referring to his Hisortory of the Russian Revolution? I'm just guessing.


it's a lot easier for soldiers to turn against their officers if you have some civilians with guns too. Disobeying orders in the military can get you shot, so it is a lot easier if somebody else shoots the officer telling you to fire into a crowd.

OK. Fair enough in some abstract way. What we want is for not a single soldier to fire a shot on the oppressed & exploited, and if they do take a shot it's at the oppressor.


As for getting guns off the street, just how do you imagine that could possibly happen? Only by turning America even further into a police state, with the cops breaking down doors at midnight and shooting up whoever they suspect own guns, and guess just who they would suspect to own guns?


Three immediate demands which would help stop the violence would be the abolition of the death penalty, elimination of three strikes laws / mandatory minimums and decriminalization of marijuana.

As to who owns guns in the US the demographics are pretty what's expected: rightwing and white http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/


The American working class by and large is and traditionally always has been armed, and disarming them would require killing them in large numbers.

It's not a question of taking guns away. It's more a question of should there be more put out there and should ammunition be available.

[Emmett Till]

Tobacco.

Cancer sticks! Well, no wonder, being soft on cops is the cancer of the labor movement.:)


Which book? I've read many books by Trotsky. Are you referring to his Hisortory of the Russian Revolution? I'm just guessing.

OK. Fair enough in some abstract way. What we want is for not a single soldier to fire a shot on the oppressed & exploited, and if they do take a shot it's at the oppressor.

Yes, you have the right book. To get what we want, as you describe, a disarmed populace is definitely an obstacle.


Three immediate demands which would help stop the violence would be the abolition of the death penalty, elimination of three strikes laws / mandatory minimums and decriminalization of marijuana.

Sure. Is there anyone here who would actually disagree? Pretty much anybody likely to show up on Revleft would agree to all that, and most liberals too. Even Obama makes occasional gestures in that direction.


As to who owns guns in the US the demographics are pretty what's expected: rightwing and white http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/

Yes, ever since the ghetto rebellions of the 1960s all wings of the ruling class, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, you name it, have been on a tear to get guns out of the hands of black people. This needs to be reversed, and the first step is to stand up against gun control laws. If at first the right wing is so blinded by their own propaganda that they help out on this, fine.

[QUOTE=blake 3:17;2853638]
It's not a question of taking guns away. It's more a question of should there be more put out there and should ammunition be available.

Ammunition and more & better guns will always be available for people with money under capitalism. And of course the fascists and racists will get all the ammo they need from their friends in blue. Greece is not the only country where the police are deeply infiltrated by fascists, America notoriously is another, especially but not only in the South.

[SocialismBeta]

Are they? Are they really? You give government an inch they take a fucking mile. Which is once again, historically backed.

Anyone advocating to disarm the populace at this juncture in history isn't really paying attention to what the fuck's going on in the world right now. Authoritarian Technocratic Capitalist ideology is the agenda of a growing number of world leaders. You can roll over and assimilate with the rest of the sheep, or (advocating your unarmed resistance) have fun charging a man wearing Level IV Kevlar Inserts, a helmet, and is armed with an assault rifle when they roll down your street rounding up "dissidents".

Yes, because that is exactly what I am suggesting....

Uh, oh wait...No! Obviously my views on revolution and working class organizing are a wee bit more complex than "Hey, lets get a bunch of people in a big group and charge at the military, head on!"

...I suppose we should give up on a revolution in Europe and Australia forever, because those countries have a little more gun regulation than the US?

Oh please.

[ZrianKobani]

Arms are absolutely necessary in every situation. Do lax gun laws guarantee revolt? No. What they do is keep the population armed should they ever desire a revolution. We need firepower, we need to be able to use that firepower. Granted, the Right holds weight in issues of democratizing weapons, that doesn't mean they're wrong. Lenin, Mao and Castro were able to retain what they had because they possessed the arms, and I say this as a stubborn anarchist; anti-gun rhetoric is for social democrats and has no place in class struggle.

[BIXX]

Man I just like to shoot things

[Luís Henrique]

Wild bears don't exist in England.

Nor, apparently, wild humans.

Perhaps because they are given honey pots in England?

Luís Henrique

[Hatshepsut]

The first U.S. gun legislation actually predates the Civil War, partly in connection with keeping them out of the hands of "negroes" but also away from city streets; goals after Reconstruction then extending to limits on access by potentially militant immigrant groups. These laws were passed almost exclusively at the state or local level. Federal regulation began in 1934 with a $700 tax & permit for machine guns, followed in 1968 with a requirement that all interstate gun shipments go through federally licensed dealers.

Clearly no revolution will ever be prosecuted without firearms; it were the epitome of silliness to think overthrow of the state a benign event. Yet given the sophistication of modern military, police, and surveillance organs, a future Western revolution can never rely on being better-armed, as was still possible in the Russia of 1918. Unless the loyalty of a substantial part of the state's enforcement personnel base is converted to the revolutionary side, failure is certain. After all the classical Slavic insurgents famously courted sailors. Marusya Nikifora's echelons simply confiscated armories in the Ukraine as they traveled about; this is out of the question for outsiders today.

Any connection between gun control & personal violence is beyond the scope of the revolutionary problem. We note that gun control seems to cut the number of impulsive, one-on-one homicides, with Britain having only 650 per year vs. the USA's 18000, but that Germany also now has frequent school shootings. Massacres by troubled individuals are carefully planned well in advance, thus harder to deter. One can get weapons if the mind is fixed on it.

[blake 3:17]

What about gun control for cops? This brother rocks it.

Disarm most police officers: Peter Rosenthal’s Big Ideas
If fewer of Toronto’s police officers carried guns, many lives would be saved.

By: Peter Rosenthal Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, Published on Thu Feb 27 2014

What if . . .
. . . only specially trained police officers carried guns?
In Ontario, police officers are allowed to draw or discharge a firearm only where it is necessary to protect against serious injury or death. Fortunately, such situations arise rarely in Toronto. The question is: in those circumstances, should ordinary officers use their firearms or should they call for help and use other means to try to contain the problem?

Let’s look at the context. It is unrealistic to expect officers using handguns to be able to aim very accurately; shooting a knife out of someone's hand can only be accomplished in the movies. Thus officers are taught to aim for the “centre-mass” and keep firing until the threat has been neutralized. This results in the deaths of most people who are fired upon.

How would your big idea transform the city?

Overwhelmingly, the victims of police shootings are in an emotional crisis and have a weapon, usually a knife. They are not “bad guys”; they are people who don't really want to hurt anyone. In my view, generally, officers could have made greater efforts to speak to the person in crisis and often could have defused the situation without guns.
The Emergency Task Force is a specialized unit within the Toronto Police designed to deal with high-risk situations. Its officers are trained negotiators, and are equipped to disarm people. They have rifle-armed sharpshooters who could shoot to wound rather than kill. Why don't they suffice?
Unfortunately, there is only one team of the ETF on duty at any time, and Toronto is a large city. If there were five or six teams across Toronto, it would be realistic to expect them to arrive quickly. However, lack of funding has precluded this.

How would your idea be funded?

It is very expensive to provide firearms to all officers. The guns are costly. Thousands of bullets are fired and many hours expended during annual officer retraining. The money saved by disarming most officers would likely be much greater than is required to fund sufficient coverage by the ETF.
It appears that no city in North America restricts firearms to specially trained officers. Toronto should take the lead.

http://www.thestar.com/bigideas/experts/2014/02/27/disarm_most_police_officers_peter_rosenthals_big_i deas.html

[Antiochus]

People take a super-naive view of firearms. Both those that claim that they would be useless in a revolutionary situation and those that think they will be paramount. It is somewhere in the middle.

Listing all sorts of military technologies available to the state means FUCKING WHAT? Nothing. The disparity in weaponry in the 21st century between the common man and the state is less than it was in the 16th or 15th century, this is a readily verifiable fact. In the 16th century your average person had no access to armor; horses trained in warfare; muskets (quite expensive); steel swords; ammunition of any sort; training (or availability) in siege tactics and equipment and most importantly, bulk of the armies in that time period were composed of the nobility (particularly the cavalry squadrons), so any chance of 'dividing the army on class lines' was generally out of the question. Did that STOP anyone? No.

Like I said, the disparity is far less today than it is in the past. I can cite dozens of examples where determined resistance was able to successfully stem a better armed foe. Even in the Winter War, the Finns defeated better armed, better trained and infinitely more modern Soviet forces (yeah ok, this is not the example you guys want mentioned). In Vietnam, same story. No, a pea shooter destroy a tank, but it can kill a tank operator quite easily.

That isn't to say something foolish like 'technology doesn't matter'. It simply states that, given the will of the working class, few things in the military realm are impossible. The Zulus defeated teh British with fucking spears at the battle of Isandlwana. Off course dividing the armed forces is key, but it won't be easy either. Many armies today are no longer conscript forces, and many of them purposely draw in reactionary elements of society into them.

[willowtooth]

People who like to roll out the whole "You can't beat the state which has tanks and drones with your AR-15 or AK, don't be ridiculous" line of arguement, look at pretty much every insurgency ever.


thats just because we live in a "post atom bomb era" if various states truly wanted any insurgency wiped out it could do so with the push of a button, people worked long and hard too make sure the USA and the USSR didn't blow up planet earth and wipe out the entire human race in the 70's and 80's

[Invader Zim]

"Any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." – Karl Marx

Which was written in 1850 -- before: the invention of the Lefaucheux Revolver (1854); the invention of the Henry Rifle (1854); the invention of the Armstrong Gun (1858); the launch of the Gloire (1859); the invention of the Gattling Gun (1862); the value of the Dreyse Rifle was shown in the Austro-Prussian War (1866); the invention of the Whitehead Torpedo (1866); the invention of the Maxim Gun (1884); the invention of the Motor Scout (1898); the Sims Simms' Motor War Car (1899); the launch of HMS Dreadnaught (1906); the first flight of the Bristol T.B.8 (1913); the invention of the Stokes Mortar (1915); the design of the Mark 1 Tank (1915); the first flight of the Avro Lancaster (1941); and finally the dropping of Little Boy on Hiroshima (1945).

Each of these, in turn, (and there are many, many more to choose from) helped to revolutionise military power in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. Each, in turn, made armed citizenry capable of seriously engaging in a revolution that much more difficult. We are now at the point in which modern advanced military powers can call upon the destructive power of weapons such as this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_n7RltmTdk-g/TVHb8gZ77PI/AAAAAAAAaF8/WjV8DWtrD-Y/s1600/predator-uav.jpg

And this:

https://tiananmenstremendousachievements.files.wordpress.c om/2015/09/df-5b-icbm.jpg

Meanwhile, even in the most heavily citizen armed country in the world, workers are likely to possess access to weapons such as this:

http://www.kygunco.com/prodimages/29245-DEFAULT-L.jpg

In other words, military fire-power has grown disproportionately to that of civilian fire-power at a breathtakingly unprecedented rate. Thus, supplying or denying small arms to citizens today will have negligible impact on their military potential as revolutionaries.

No, as I have argued before, revolution now requires concerted military participation.

[Emmett Till]

What about gun control for cops? This brother rocks it.

Disarm most police officers: Peter Rosenthal’s Big Ideas
If fewer of Toronto’s police officers carried guns, many lives would be saved.

By: Peter Rosenthal Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, Published on Thu Feb 27 2014

What if . . .
. . . only specially trained police officers carried guns?
In Ontario, police officers are allowed to draw or discharge a firearm only where it is necessary to protect against serious injury or death. Fortunately, such situations arise rarely in Toronto. The question is: in those circumstances, should ordinary officers use their firearms or should they call for help and use other means to try to contain the problem?

Let’s look at the context. It is unrealistic to expect officers using handguns to be able to aim very accurately; shooting a knife out of someone's hand can only be accomplished in the movies. Thus officers are taught to aim for the “centre-mass” and keep firing until the threat has been neutralized. This results in the deaths of most people who are fired upon.

How would your big idea transform the city?

Overwhelmingly, the victims of police shootings are in an emotional crisis and have a weapon, usually a knife. They are not “bad guys”; they are people who don't really want to hurt anyone. In my view, generally, officers could have made greater efforts to speak to the person in crisis and often could have defused the situation without guns.
The Emergency Task Force is a specialized unit within the Toronto Police designed to deal with high-risk situations. Its officers are trained negotiators, and are equipped to disarm people. They have rifle-armed sharpshooters who could shoot to wound rather than kill. Why don't they suffice?
Unfortunately, there is only one team of the ETF on duty at any time, and Toronto is a large city. If there were five or six teams across Toronto, it would be realistic to expect them to arrive quickly. However, lack of funding has precluded this.

How would your idea be funded?

It is very expensive to provide firearms to all officers. The guns are costly. Thousands of bullets are fired and many hours expended during annual officer retraining. The money saved by disarming most officers would likely be much greater than is required to fund sufficient coverage by the ETF.
It appears that no city in North America restricts firearms to specially trained officers. Toronto should take the lead.

http://www.thestar.com/bigideas/experts/2014/02/27/disarm_most_police_officers_peter_rosenthals_big_i deas.html

I hear the gentle flap, flap, flap of porkers in flight, decorating the sky with pirouettes and promenades.

[willowtooth]

Why do people think that military families in 1st world countries are automatically right wing?

[TheRadicalAntichrist]

No disarmament of the revolutionary proletariat.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I've never liked the idea of giving up guns or knives or any weapons, willingly, to the bourgeoisie/lawn enforcement.

[Red Baker]

Restricting access to arms has historically been the method whereby ruling classes maintain their ability to rule. It shouldn't be surprising that some of the first gun control laws in the U.S. were aimed at disarming freedmen in the South after the Civil War (the Black Codes), and the first federal legislation restricting gun ownership was passed in 1934, a year in which three general strikes (Toledo, San Francisco, Minneapolis), all lead by ostensibly communist parties, ended with the organization of militant industrial unions with heavy communist presence.

Likewise, it should also come as no surprise that the last big ticket federal gun legislation was passed in 1968, when the Black Panthers were carrying guns openly and riots shook major U.S. cities, as well as when the U.S. was engaged in the hated war in Vietnam.

Gun control should be resisted by socialists as fiercely as we would resist attempts to shut down our organizations' newspapers or otherwise jail or silence us. That guns are used for ill purposes by certain persons should not impact our opinion on the matter anymore than the knowledge that some people use hammers or knives to murder or harm individuals. A gun is a tool, nothing else, nothing more. We should learn how to use those tools to protect ourselves and educate ourselves in using guns safely.

The bourgeois state cannot and will not save us, nor will it ever act in any interest (even that of "the children," they always plead with us to think about when enacting gun bans or attempting to censor pornography, 'violent' videogames, etc, etc.) but its class interest. We can no more trust it to enact gun control than we can trust it with the ability to make war or conclude peace.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I live in the UK.

I 100% support gun control and the abolition of all weapons, both of mass and minor destruction. I also support abolishing the police, for what it's worth. Both are necessary for a society that is both just and peaceful.

[Comrade Jacob]

I live in the UK.

I 100% support gun control and the abolition of all weapons, both of mass and minor destruction. I also support abolishing the police, for what it's worth. Both are necessary for a society that is both just and peaceful.

If the workers are to give up their guns so must the state. (That will never happen)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

If the workers are to give up their guns so must the state. (That will never happen)

We don't have guns so that demand isn't really relevant to us.

[Emmett Till]

We don't have guns so that demand isn't really relevant to us.

Used to be, "bobbies" didn't carry guns either. Since Britannia ruled the waves for so long, and Britain was the great imperial power of the world, Britain used to have the largest and most loyal-to-the-ruling-class labor aristocracy world over. Circa 1900 or so, the British ruling class really wasn't worried about outright labor insurrections.

But now that Britain's imperial days are long over, the cops have guns. But the workers still don't. Not a good thing.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Used to be, "bobbies" didn't carry guns either. Since Britannia ruled the waves for so long, and Britain was the great imperial power of the world, Britain used to have the largest and most loyal-to-the-ruling-class labor aristocracy world over. Circa 1900 or so, the British ruling class really wasn't worried about outright labor insurrections.

But now that Britain's imperial days are long over, the cops have guns. But the workers still don't. Not a good thing.

Not sure the thousands of suffrage-seeking working women would agree with you, nor the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Your claim is historically in-accurate.

[Emmett Till]

Not sure the thousands of suffrage-seeking working women would agree with you, nor the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Your claim is historically in-accurate.

The Tolpuddle martyrs were before British imperialism really ruled the world, Cecil Rhodes hadn't been born yet, the scramble for Africa hadn't begun, and absolutely none of the profits of British imperialism had trickled down to the working classes, whose truly horrid situation was described so well by Engels.

And things would *definitely* have gone differently at Peterloo if the people had been armed. That's why the "physical force" Chartists wanted to arm the workers. And the Luddites liked to blow things up.

Don't know why you drag the suffragists in here. It had a working class left wing, Sylvia Pankurst, but it was a by and large a thoroughly bourgeois movement, most of which, like Dame Christabel and Conservative MP Emmeline Panhurst, were loyal to King and Country during WWI.

It was exactly the horrible example of the English suffragists that led most socialists and communists to dismiss the suffrage movement as a bourgeois affair.

[Invader Zim]

The Tolpuddle martyrs were before British imperialism really ruled the world

It is certainly true that the climax of British imperial ambition of the early 20th century before tide decisively turned towards decolonialisation in the wake of the First and Second World Wars came after the Tolpuddle Martyrs, I think your main point is still wrong. Though the 'red'sections of the globe were fewer in the first decades of the 19th Century, they were, nevertheless, extensive.



Don't know why you drag the suffragists in here. It had a working class left wing, Sylvia Pankurst, but it was a by and large a thoroughly bourgeois movement, most of which, like Dame Christabel and Conservative MP Emmeline Panhurst, were loyal to King and Country during WWI.

This is partly true, but also partly false. The suffragettes were a fairly broad church, focus on the Pankhurst's is misleading.

It is also worth thinking about the situation in 1914, really the suffrage movement was in very difficult position regardless of what they did. The national emergency provoked by the war left them with zero political options. If they failed to support it they would lose significant support and the burning of any political capital they had accumulated, if they did support it then it meant an at least temporary suspension of activity and delay in achieving their aim.

Really, it was lose lose for them. Though I think that the real damning point for the leadership actually came in 1918 and the drop off of middle-class support following the Representation of the People Act. It is worth noting that Millicent Fawcett pointed out this failure in fairly withering tones.

I know a bit about the suffrage movement by dint of my primary interest in gender history a little later in the century, but I always wish I knew more. I keep meaning to read up on it, but never get round to it. Which is a bit of a shame because I've been pretty lucky to have met some of the experts in this field, many of whom were significantly involved in second and third wave feminism back in the 60s-90s. Pretty inspirational people in their own way some of them. Sheila Rowbotham, for instance, was really something else. I met her when she gave a talk about Edward Carpenter (for all his faults, a minor hero of mine) which was really impressive.

[Red Baker]

It is certainly true that the climax of British imperial ambition of the early 20th century before tide decisively turned towards decolonialisation in the wake of the First and Second World Wars came after the Tolpuddle Martyrs, I think your main point is still wrong. Though the 'red'sections of the globe were fewer in the first decades of the 19th Century, they were, nevertheless, extensive.

I was under the assumption at Emmett Till was referring to imperialism in the Marxist sense, in which case is assumption would indeed be true, given that imperialism didn't emerge as distinct phenomenon (i.e., monopoly capitalism had yet to replace competitive capitalism) until the 1870s or so.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

We don't have guns so that demand isn't really relevant to us.

Cops in UK have weapons, so does the British military; whom would be called in the event of an actual revolution. Putting aside nation states, nuclear weapons, etc. what's the point of getting rid of firearms in general? If I want to kill someone, it's gonna happen whether I use a gun, knife, blunt object, seduce you until I can get close enough to poison you, strangle you with your own tshirt, I mean, there's 1,000 ways to commit murder, all disarming does is change the how I do it, not the fax that I'm doing it or the underlining psychological/economic reasons as to why I am doing it.

[Comrade Jacob]

We don't have guns so that demand isn't really relevant to us.

The government does. If they have it so do we and if we don't they don't either.

[blake 3:17]

Cops in UK have weapons, so does the British military; whom would be called in the event of an actual revolution. Putting aside nation states, nuclear weapons, etc. what's the point of getting rid of firearms in general? If I want to kill someone, it's gonna happen whether I use a gun, knife, blunt object, seduce you until I can get close enough to poison you, strangle you with your own tshirt, I mean, there's 1,000 ways to commit murder, all disarming does is change the how I do it, not the fax that I'm doing it or the underlining psychological/economic reasons as to why I am doing it.


Guns don't kill people, their own T shirts do? But somehow manipulated by murderers. Is it worse if you're killed by your own shirt or soneone else's? Why not organize overthrowing the repressive apparatus with T-shirts? They're easier and cheaper to get than guns, and also very functional.

[Khalistani]

We believe that weapon control is tantamount to slavery, and any form of attempting to render us harmless is strictly against our tenets.

[Citizen]

~75% of the guns used by drug cartels in Mexico and Central America came from the United States. Even though nationally gun stores have been on a downward trend, they have increased along the border states. The U.S. firearms industry resists any attempt to require pretty basic record-keeping. Meanwhile, thousands are killed by U.S. firearms south of the border. From what I understand of how guns flow in and out of the U.S., adopting the "principled" position that guns and their distribution shouldn't be restricted in any situation, not even in the U.S. context, is not a good one.

[xtrmntr]

i used to be in favour of really restrictive gun laws for the US because of the amount of school/random shootings and because those who were steadfast in their opposition to gun control were crazy right-wingers, the NRA and neo-con hillbillies.
the absurd idea that if everyone had a gun then it would deter shooters is also rather fanciful.

though gun culture in the US bewilders me a little, including the fetish of hunting animals -- which i abhor, i now firmly believe in the conspiracy theory that many of the lone shooters (and bombers) were under some sort of mind control influence in order for the government to promote the agenda of disarming US citizens. this has been their plan for a long time. many other shootings are said to be hoaxes/staged.

the bottom line is you just can't trust the word and agenda of a capitalist government under corporate rule who are slowly but surely pushing for the working class to be pacified and subdued in any given scenario, never mind in a revolution where arms are necessary.

[Khalistani]

i used to be in favour of really restrictive gun laws for the US because of the amount of school/random shootings and because those who were steadfast in their opposition to gun control were crazy right-wingers, the NRA and neo-con hillbillies.
the absurd idea that if everyone had a gun then it would deter shooters is also rather fanciful.

There was a massacre at one of our Gurdwaras (Sikh temple) in Wisconsin in which a lone gunman killed 6 worshipers by a White racial nationalist.

The overwhelming consensus in my community is that if worshippers were permitted to bring guns into the temple as we do our kirpans, this would have been prevented, leading to some Gurdwaras to review their rules about guns (I already know that most Gurdwaras in hostile places like Kabul are already like armed compounds more than typical places of worship. Sometimes, such drastic measures are needed.

[Emmett Till]

I was under the assumption at Emmett Till was referring to imperialism in the Marxist sense, in which case is assumption would indeed be true, given that imperialism didn't emerge as distinct phenomenon (i.e., monopoly capitalism had yet to replace competitive capitalism) until the 1870s or so.

Just ran across this, sorry if this is reawakening a dead thread, but this is the history forum and therefore points about history are generally useful.

Red Baker is quite right, but that may sound like abstract dogmatism, as indeed circa the 1820s England was the dominant imperial power of the world in the conventional sense. But early 19th century imperialism was different from the kind Lenin talked about, and the difference is relevant in this context.

In the 1820s, the British working class was one of the most brutally exploited working classes in the world, indeed it was pretty much the first and only industrial proletariat on earth. There was absolutely nothing like what you had later, with some of the surplus sucked out of the Third World by the kind of imperialism Lenin describes shared with a labor aristocracy, indeed no such animal really existed at that point in England. To understand the atmosphere of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Chartists, etc. just read Engels's famous book on the condition of the working class in England.

By the 1880s, Marx even before Lenin was talking about how England had a "bourgeois proletariat" of whom his opinion was rather low. Engels especially preferred the Irish, not least in his personal life.