Submission statement: this article argues that when politics get scary, buying a gun is a tempting but ultimately counterproductive individual solution that raises risk and offers false security, while confrontational but nonviolent collective action (protest, documentation, community monitoring/legal observing) has proven more strategically effective at constraining abuses of power. Relevant to r/neoliberal because it’s a concrete argument about liberal-democratic strategy under polarization and backsliding.
ONETRILLIONAMERICANS on
But what if I prioritize feeling safe over being safe?
Cyberhwk on
Conservatives backtracking on one of their most sacrosanct policy positions at protests proves what they’re actually scared of.
>Don’t Buy a Gun
No.
Fart-Knoquer on
I don’t own a gun to feel safe. I own a gun for hunting. But, also as a plan B to help sneak my family to the border and escape if regime forces go full Assad.
Plan A is definitely non-violent unarmed protest and disruption.
KingGoofball on
Buy a rocket launcher instead?
Resident_Option3804 on
What a bizarre article. Sure, argue against buying a gun or that it’s utterly ineffective currently to wield small arms against a military (that’s plainly and obviously false, by the way.)
But this entire argument:
Each narrative undergirds popular narratives about the Second Amendment. In sum: guns are for white people to kill ‘marauding’ brown people.
Every fiction spewed by 2A advocates in the U.S. flows forth from this point.
When they say the Second Amendment protects the First, they mean their right to kill non-white people with impunity guards their right to say anything they please without so much as the tiniest social sanction. Any statements they make about guarding against “tyranny” should be understood in the same light. Given that soccer moms and nurses have been the ones taking bullets for exercising their First Amendment rights, while our notional 2A activists are neither seen nor heard, the argument makes itself.
Is nonsensical and absurd.
First off, this *very article* links to the source of 2A “mythos – not the frontier. Not killing black people. The American Revolution, where local militia formed to become the Continental Army and form this nation. To a”
farfetchds_leek on
Too late dork
ImmortalAce8492 on
Gun go brrrrrrrrr ; akimbo glocks got me feeling like im in mw2
The_Crass-Beagle_Act on
I think that people who genuinely feel called to buy a gun should do it, as is their right. But they should do it because they’ve taken the time to understand the risks and responsibilities involved, have determined that it’s the right decision for themselves and the people around them, and are ready to take on the involved hobby of learning how to use and maintain it safely.
People should emphatically not buy a gun if their main rationale for doing it is because people on the internet told them it’s their civic duty and/or will make them safer, and all they need to do is keep it locked up as insurance in case shit hits the fan.
neoliberalforsale on
I heard a police officer describe owning guns to a civilian class this way “as long as you own a gun you have a perpetual responsibility to secure it. If you carry it with you every fight you get it immediately becomes a gun fight because even if you have no intention of drawing it you must defend it from being taken from you. If you are not willing to kill to defend your gun you will be killed with it.”
if you are committed to using a gun to kill another human being and are willing to have that mindset everyday, buy a gun. If not you are buying your murder weapon.
YuckyStench on
Okay. If society does break down at some point and there are extremism vigilante groups rolling around you will want a gun
The odds of that in the next decade are probably 5% but I would have told you it was 0% in 2015
PseudoCalamari on
Well now I’m gonna go buy another one
Bayley78 on
Im of 2 minds
As a Christian i dont see a world where i kill anyone, even in self defense.
As a liberal white southerner I dont want to hide behind my morals while white terrorists use violence as a last desperate attempt to preserve white America.
I do think theres a reality that violent resistance just gets more people of color killed than it helps. I also know that me owning a weapon does no good. I do think nonviolent resistance in Minnesota is working and hope that the election bears fruit. I quite frankly do not buy into American obsession with firearms.
altacan on
As much as I hate to quote him nowadays, Dave Chapelle had it right. The only way for America to enact reasonable gun control is for every person on the bottom half of the Family Guy OK/Not OK chart to go out and buy as many guns as they’re legally and financially able.
ThatSpencerGuy on
Guns are tools for killing people. Every time I see or hear a liberal talk about buying a gun because of what’s going on, I think, “…to kill an ICE agent?” Because that’s the only thing a gun can be used for in the current situation. And I fail to see how that is a desirable outcome–it will only lead to other very bad things.
15 Comments
Submission statement: this article argues that when politics get scary, buying a gun is a tempting but ultimately counterproductive individual solution that raises risk and offers false security, while confrontational but nonviolent collective action (protest, documentation, community monitoring/legal observing) has proven more strategically effective at constraining abuses of power. Relevant to r/neoliberal because it’s a concrete argument about liberal-democratic strategy under polarization and backsliding.
But what if I prioritize feeling safe over being safe?
Conservatives backtracking on one of their most sacrosanct policy positions at protests proves what they’re actually scared of.
>Don’t Buy a Gun
No.
I don’t own a gun to feel safe. I own a gun for hunting. But, also as a plan B to help sneak my family to the border and escape if regime forces go full Assad.
Plan A is definitely non-violent unarmed protest and disruption.
Buy a rocket launcher instead?
What a bizarre article. Sure, argue against buying a gun or that it’s utterly ineffective currently to wield small arms against a military (that’s plainly and obviously false, by the way.)
But this entire argument:
Each narrative undergirds popular narratives about the Second Amendment. In sum: guns are for white people to kill ‘marauding’ brown people.
Every fiction spewed by 2A advocates in the U.S. flows forth from this point.
When they say the Second Amendment protects the First, they mean their right to kill non-white people with impunity guards their right to say anything they please without so much as the tiniest social sanction. Any statements they make about guarding against “tyranny” should be understood in the same light. Given that soccer moms and nurses have been the ones taking bullets for exercising their First Amendment rights, while our notional 2A activists are neither seen nor heard, the argument makes itself.
Is nonsensical and absurd.
First off, this *very article* links to the source of 2A “mythos – not the frontier. Not killing black people. The American Revolution, where local militia formed to become the Continental Army and form this nation. To a”
Too late dork
Gun go brrrrrrrrr ; akimbo glocks got me feeling like im in mw2
I think that people who genuinely feel called to buy a gun should do it, as is their right. But they should do it because they’ve taken the time to understand the risks and responsibilities involved, have determined that it’s the right decision for themselves and the people around them, and are ready to take on the involved hobby of learning how to use and maintain it safely.
People should emphatically not buy a gun if their main rationale for doing it is because people on the internet told them it’s their civic duty and/or will make them safer, and all they need to do is keep it locked up as insurance in case shit hits the fan.
I heard a police officer describe owning guns to a civilian class this way “as long as you own a gun you have a perpetual responsibility to secure it. If you carry it with you every fight you get it immediately becomes a gun fight because even if you have no intention of drawing it you must defend it from being taken from you. If you are not willing to kill to defend your gun you will be killed with it.”
if you are committed to using a gun to kill another human being and are willing to have that mindset everyday, buy a gun. If not you are buying your murder weapon.
Okay. If society does break down at some point and there are extremism vigilante groups rolling around you will want a gun
The odds of that in the next decade are probably 5% but I would have told you it was 0% in 2015
Well now I’m gonna go buy another one
Im of 2 minds
As a Christian i dont see a world where i kill anyone, even in self defense.
As a liberal white southerner I dont want to hide behind my morals while white terrorists use violence as a last desperate attempt to preserve white America.
I do think theres a reality that violent resistance just gets more people of color killed than it helps. I also know that me owning a weapon does no good. I do think nonviolent resistance in Minnesota is working and hope that the election bears fruit. I quite frankly do not buy into American obsession with firearms.
As much as I hate to quote him nowadays, Dave Chapelle had it right. The only way for America to enact reasonable gun control is for every person on the bottom half of the Family Guy OK/Not OK chart to go out and buy as many guns as they’re legally and financially able.
Guns are tools for killing people. Every time I see or hear a liberal talk about buying a gun because of what’s going on, I think, “…to kill an ICE agent?” Because that’s the only thing a gun can be used for in the current situation. And I fail to see how that is a desirable outcome–it will only lead to other very bad things.