Wednesday, January 9, 2013

"Dear Mr. Security Agent." A Cautionary Essay From Matt Bracken.

The conclusion:
So now we’re back to you, Mr. Security Agent, and your unique role in this high drama. Let me state this very clearly, both for you and for the liberal agenda-setting elites who might accidentally stumble upon this essay. Let there be no doubt about this. Let no one later say, “But we were just trying to improve public safety. We had no idea that all these disastrous unintended consequences would happen.”
I am telling you now that disastrous unintended consequences will happen if Congress passes new laws banning presently legal firearms. To make it very easy to remember, and in the spirit of our beloved Department of Homeland Security’s old color-coded security threat levels, let me spell out three lines of demarcation.
The Yellow Line:
The yellow warning line will be crossed with national gun registration laws, including laws forbidding private gun sales without government permission. When that law passes, millions of Americans will feel that they have been pushed directly to the edge of the abyss above the mass graves of history. Defenders of the Second Amendment know what happened in Turkey, the USSR, Germany, China, and other nations that fell under totalitarian rule: in every case a necessary preliminary step on the road to genocide was national gun registration, followed by confiscation. The Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust say, “Never again!” And so do we.
The Red Line:
The red line will be crossed with the passage of laws mandating that currently owned weapons, ammunition magazines, and ammunition quantities above a certain number must be turned in to authorities or destroyed, and thereafter their simple possession will be a felony. At that point, the nation will be on a hair trigger, with a thousand flaring matches nearing a thousand primed cannon fuses aimed directly at the next Fort Sumter.
The Dead Line:
The next line requires a bit of history to explain. In some primitive Civil War POW camps, where lack of funding or logistical constraints did not allow the construction of proper fences, a knee-high continuous railing of wooden slats encircled the prison grounds. Guards with rifles were positioned at the corners and in crude towers. If a prisoner so much as stepped over the narrow plank, he was shot dead without warning, obviating the need for a real fence to contain him. Hence the term “dead line.” Cross the line and people die, right now.
And this is what liberal utopians must understand: after passing the yellow line with national gun registration and transfer requirements, and the red line by making possession of currently legal firearms felonious, the dead line will be breached with the first SWAT raids upon citizens suspected of owning legal firearms made illegal by the new gun control laws. People will die resisting confiscation, in large numbers.
Confiscation crosses the dead line, make no mistake about it.
So this essay is really for you, Mr. Security Agent, because it won’t be elite Manhattan or Malibu liberals or Ivy League professors or politicians or columnists who will be ordered to strap on the sweat-stained body armor and enforce the new gun control laws at gunpoint. No, that grim task will fall to you.
But as long as you are an honorable agent of the people while an employee of the government, and as long as you honor your oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, then you will encounter no problems at all with gun owners. Why? Because you will refuse to take part in gun confiscation raids. Period. End of sentence, end of paragraph.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the leading American law enforcement agency, at least in terms of its long history and high prestige. Dear Mr. Security Agent, please consider that F.B.I. also stands for Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity. Soon, your fidelity to your solemnly sworn oath may be severely tested. It will take a lot of bravery to make your personal integrity a higher calling than following illegitimate orders, simply to maintain your steady paycheck and benefits.
On the other hand, if you no longer resemble the upstanding and honorable federal agents I have known in the past, if that whole oath-to-the-Constitution shtick was a big fat joke to you and you would accept a transfer to the old Soviet KGB or East German Stasi for a ten percent pay raise…then we are definitely going to have a problem. So that oath you swore really matters, one way or the other, and so does your personal sense of honor.
Dear Mr. Security Agent, let me spell it out. If you find yourself in the sub-basement of an annex to a secret intelligence center on the far end of town, waterboarding citizens into revealing the locations of suspected “illegal caches” of firearms, ammunition or ammunition magazines that were legally owned in 2012, then know this one simple fact: tens of millions of Americans will most surely consider you a betrayer of your sworn oath and a traitor to your country.
And so, if you find yourself silently dismounting a covert SWAT vehicle at zero-dark-thirty, dressed all in body armor, counting down to the time-coordinated explosion of battering rams and flash-bang grenades, on a raid against a sleeping household intended to result in the confiscation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition magazines that were legal to own in 2012, millions of Americans who also swore an oath to defend the Constitution will consider you their domestic enemy, and they will resist you with force of arms. Just as the soldiers of King George were resisted on another notable gun confiscation raid on April 19, 1775. It used to be called “The Shot Heard ’Round the World.”
You may consider the sentiments expressed above to be absurd, hyperbolic, dangerous, ridiculous, or simply wrong-headed. But please understand that tens of millions of Americans feel this way to their cores, and they will not be disarmed without a fight. Well-meaning but naive liberals should understand the certain-to-follow consequences of new gun control laws intended to disarm their fellow citizens in the name of “public safety.” LEOs and FLEAs should understand the dire consequences of participating in gun confiscation raids, in direct violation of their sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution, including the Second Amendment.
The unintended consequences of this misguided utopian fool’s crusade to ban guns would include a second civil war as agonizingly painful as the first one, if not more so, since there would be no front lines and no safe areas for anybody, anywhere. Every sane American wants to prevent such a calamitous outcome as a “dirty civil war” on United States soil.
But know this: those tens of millions will never be quietly disarmed and then later forced at government gunpoint onto history’s next boxcars. If boxcars and detention camps are to be in America’s future, then you, Mr. Security Agent, will have to disarm them the hard way first. Not Piers Morgan, not Michael Moore, not Rosie O’Donnell, not Dianne Feinstein, not Chuck Schumer.
You.
MBV Note: Not that such a war wouldn't have consequences for the war planners, enablers and leaders. They would end up just as dead under Bill Clinton's 1999 Serbian rules of engagement, either before or after the war crimes trials.
Julius Streicher, Hitler's favorite "journalist," after being hung at Nuremberg.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike, I have a question..seriously.
The first threat level, yellow, is actually..now think about this..the dead line. This is why.
IF, they pass legislation, requiring all owners of certain weapons to register them..please tell me exactly how they are going to know WHO refuses to comply, IF, they don't go door to door at that point to find the criminally non compliant gun owners ..right? If not, can you explain why? Thanks

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...I think the dead line comes well before SWAT raids to seize guns. Why wait for the inevitable when an offensive posture makes more sense. Seize the initiative strategically, don't just respond defensively and tactically.

Making an enemies list and checking it twice--

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/01/the-big-list-of-who-hates-guns

SWIFT said...

Excellent article and I agree with it except for one statement. "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the leading American law enforcement agency, at least in terms of it's long history and high prestige." I'm 65 and I do NOT remember the FBI having "high prestige", ever! I remember murder, arson, bombings, black bag jobs, burglary, official oppression, creation of a KKK clan in Texas, perjury, manufacturing of evidence, fabrication of testimony, planting evidence. I remember murder and attempted mass murder at Pine Ridge Lakota Sioux Reservation in 1973. I remember murder at Ruby Ridge and mass murder and arson at Waco. I remember the attempted murder of an Eagle Scout in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. WTF is so prestigious about that? The way I see it, employees of the FBI would be interchangeable with employees of the Ton Ton Macoute.

Anonymous said...

Agreed. Absolved. Thanks.

J. Travis said...

It seems that wars never start when people expect. And as they go on, the warring factions get progressively savage.

A question for people weighing the moral choices:

When the war starts, when police, and Federal agents, and National Guardsmen start to raid the homes of your friends, neighbors, and fellow shooters, what are you willing to do?

Let me ask this, when the ATF waterboards your wife and children, to make them tell where you've hidden your guns, who will you consider to be legitimate targets?

Elected politicians?
Media cheerleaders?
CEOs of anti-gun foundations?
Office staffers of government offices?
Family and friends of those targets?

Remember, this is AFTER the regime is effectively waging a war with NO REGARD for non-combatants.

Mike, you have tried your utmost to persuade the hot-heads from precipitate action: "No Fort Sumters" And I agree.

Does ANYBODY think there will be ANY "rules of engagement" once this thing kicks off?

The left is very squeamish about civilian casualties, and "sensibilities" of the locals in Iraq, and Afghanistan, but you and yours they want EXTERMINATED. Just listen to how they talk, these days.










Charles N. Steele said...

Well reasoned and well said.

If we reach the red line, it will become necessary for the Feds to silence blogs like this one, and all other media that do not parrot the leftist party line. I mention this b/c the First Amendment will go just as fast as the Second, and we should be prepared for it.

By dead line we won't have the freedom of discussion & information we have now.

MikeH. said...

I am a sixty year old diabetic with emphysema. I do not want to fight the government, nor any authority charged with the confiscation of privately owned firearms.

On the other hand; Outside of a few years, and a no doubt painful end, I have nothing to lose. Molon Labe!!!

MikeH.
III

Chuck said...

I love the picture of the Federale.

Seriously, it's the perfect blend of thug and jackass. That guy is a soup sandwich.

My prayer is that in the coming unpleasantness, if I must face these guys kicking in my door at 0230 that the caliber of jack booted thug is that of the moron in the picture.

ebola131 said...

I beg to disagree.
This is not just some disagreement on whether the government can make you buy Health Insurance.
The 2nd is inviolable...Shall not be Infringed...in order to disuede a totalitarian government.
As soon as they pass and sign a piece of legislation that violates the Devine Right of the 2nd Amendment, they become totalitarian and traitors to the Constitution and the Republic.
As such, they also become legitimate targets.
Waiting for some Federal or Local grabber to come to your door is folly; you will comply or die.
I suggest being proactive; prepare for survivability. It will be a long war that they cannot win.

WisconsinDan said...

This is perfect, clear and concise. Please all read this article!

Anonymous said...

I’m proud to be a freeman who has never served in any unit the Standing Army.

And no, the Standing Army isn’t necessary for freedom, and doesn’t protect it. It’s just a shakedown operation, as retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler puts it in his book War is a Racket.

Prevention of service in a standing army is what the Second Amendment is all about.

“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty….”

~Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789

“And call no man your [roman PATRON, i.e., Boss, Commanding Officer, or any other hierarchical title of authority] upon the earth.”

~Jesus, verse 9, chapter 13, The Jefferson Bible

Anonymous said...

These words are not absurd. Indeed, they are instead "well said'.

CPB

Anonymous said...

AMEN!

rustynail said...

Read the whole article (accessed from the link beneath the photo) to better understand the final paragraphs. I've read Bracken's first novel and understand why he takes the position he does.

Anonymous said...

http://heartlandrevolt.squarespace.com/blog/2012/11/15/why-arent-all-the-military-and-all-law-enforcement-officers.html

Anonymous said...

I read the whole thing over at WRSA the other day during lunch. Very succinct. And every word true. Trying to make people stop, listen, and think before jumping any further into the fire. Unfortunately, I think the Big Boys over at BATFEces are so full of their own hubris, their ears are stopped and all they can hear, like the old RCA Victrola (showing age here) dog (Sparky??), is the sound of their master's voice (guess who?).

Well, I just wish they'd either shit or get off the pot. I'm tired of waiting. All so I can tell some bureaucratic asshat "NO".

B Woodman
III-per

Anonymous said...

Just let try and come get our toys

Anonymous said...

Do the mostly clueless low level politicians, i.e. state legislators and congress creatures realize that they are the bluegills in the pond. The big bass are hard to catch. Little bluegills are easy to locate and catch all day long.

Anonymous said...

boxcars and detention camps are to be in America’s future

boxcars, detention camps - and more realistically, then 2010's equivalent --- drones with IR & Microwave radars & Hellfire missiles are here in America's Present

It's unlikely to be a ATF agent knocking at your door - it's going to be a predator slotting a Hellfire.

Which is why Alito argued Stingers are constitutional: we need them more than almost anything.

J. Travis said...

I expect that the enforcement will begin in places like California, NY, NJ, and Connecticut, and Maryland. They already have registration, and most gun-owners in the rest of the country will feel relatively indifferent.

Those places are already behind enemy lines.

Did we get very worked up about corpses picked off the Berlin Wall? Do we really give a rip about the prison camps in North Korea?

Not so much.

Anonymous said...

Its very difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

That "quote" is so on the mark that it has been said by and/or been attributed to many. But as we are drawn by events into a future we cannot predict it's important to keep the following question in mind: "Who fired the first shot at Lexington?"

Extensive interviews with the participants on both sides failed to come up with a definitive answer. One likely possibility was that the "shot heard round the world" was accidently fired by someone who had been drinking his breakfast inside the local tavern.

My point is this, no sane person wants to have another eight or so years of a bloody civil war. But all of us must realize the possibility of one being started, quite by accident, by something as random as an unintentional discharge whether anyone wants one or not.

"Stand your ground. Do not fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!" -- Capt. John Parker