It's a good sentiment, but also...
Please don't trivialize how police respond to an armed black man.
Yeah, in a modern police state, owning a firearm isn't gonna help once you're in their sights. If you think it will, that just means you're being brought in cold rather than doing time.
I'm all for self protection, though, and ensuring that it isn't only the right who's armed.
Like most things, this kind of thing works at scale. You're not going to have a shootout with police and FBI and drive away like GTA, but we've seen time and again from both sides of the political spectrum that police will change their behavior when a community or protest is full of guns.
No matter what the action is it needs to be collective action. This is why organizing is the most important thing, more than guns, more than theory, more than protest.
I agree, but counterpoint. If you're carrying a gun for political protection/self-defense, you also need to be trained and organized on gun safety, community protocols with guns, and collective action.
Argument being that if you do those things, it can just make them come at you even harder rather than the alternative.
This is why it is important to form a community. As individuals we are weak.
Thats very true. And the start of stricter gun laws in California was under Ronald Regan when he was governor, in response to groups like the black panthers arming themselves
While its true Reagan was governer then and supported it, all he really did was sign a veto proof bipartisan bill from the California Legislature. Lets not forget those others like Don Mulford and John Knox.
Always loved the saying "If you go far enough left you get your guns back", always gives my friends a chuckle
I think it's important to let the powers that be understand that guns don't belong to one monoculture.
If the police have them, we should too.
I mean you could remove the "minorities" from the post and it would be just as accurate.
An armed population is harder to oppress.
Look how dictatorship 101 starts with removing any easy ways for the people to defend themselves.
That's true, but one of the biggest hallmarks of fascism is framing a minority population (or several) as the villains responsible for all that ails the nation, and often times there's no one to stand up for them save for themselves, ultimately resulting in that old addage:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
If you're a minority and no one will protect you, it's important to consider what means you might have of protecting yourself, and other minorities. If you're willing to stand up for one another, their safety is yours, and yours is theirs.
You're definitely not wrong though. I just think it's perhaps especially important for vulnerable populations
Unless you go full Syria on your government, the oppression will continue as usual.
What are you talking about? All those idiot gun nuts who voted for trump are oppressed as shit. They have them around their finger, no matter how many guns they have. In fact they use their gun ownership to feed the cycle.
Guns don't protect white Americans from State violence. What TF are guns going to do for minorities?
They only work if you organize, and the only white folks with guns who have organized aren't exactly experiencing state violence right now.
They also probably have more potential to protect you from violence that doesn't come from the state. Like, for instance, the kind that comes from those white folks who organized, and have lots of guns.
Literally every single one of you gun-obsessed buffoons is oppressed by a handful of billionaires, minority or not.
And only one person actually did anything about it.
Absolute cowards 😂
"You people are idiots; you're oppressed already and aren't making it even easier to continue the oppression. Dumb. Cowards." - some French twat
Says the person who is also not doing anything about it.
"You bet " ~ Israelis
"You bet" ~ Nazis, USA, Vietnamese, North Korea, South Korea, Black people, White people, leftist, maga, All the good guys, All the bad guys.
Everyone.
Thanks!
While that is a very fair point, I do think the guns are probably still making it harder 😅
Made it easier for them to justify the way they've gone about their oppression, but the alternative if no one could protect themselves hardly seems like a better outcome
