Of martyrs and Wacos. "People aren't buying this stuff because they want to turn it in."

A friend forwarded me a link to this article: Obama Playing Chicken with American Men. He particularly drew my attention to this passage:

"Those who do not comply, on the other hand, will be a test case, at the very least. When the government is challenging a proud man's dignity, his natural rights, and his courage in the face of a tyrannical demand, they are daring him to become a martyr to his cause. In the authoritarian's mind, government wins either way. If the man gives in, subservience is reinforced. If he does not, then he can be made an example of, to serve as a stern warning to others."

Now as Mama Liberty and many other female readers of this blog can tell you, this is not just about "manhood," but about principle, property and liberty -- now and for our children's children. But the general thrust of the article is correct. The only miscalculation on the part of the collectivists is that "stern warning to others" crap. They tried that in the 90s with Waco and all it did was delegitimize their regime and lead to the formation of the constitutional militia movement. Today, twenty years later, their regime is even more illegitimate and even more people are arming at a faster rate, so much so that -- at the moment at least -- it is interfering with their resolve. (Hence the 23 presidential "suggestions" rather than draconian executive orders on inportation, etc.)

As one of my friends familiar with the inner workings of the District of Criminals wrote yesterday:

Thinking back to the 1989 AW ban--then-President George H. W. Bush asked the Treasury Department to ban imports of AWs, and ATF carried that out by ruling they had no "sporting purpose"--I've wondered why President Obama didn't do the same thing. I don't doubt that he WANTS to ban AWs.

If I had to guess--and this is just a guess--considering the fact that the AR-15 platform has become mainstream, and there's a wide variety of that firearm and others (i.e., the AK and the AK variants), in addition to millions of high-capacity magazines, President Obama ****MAY**** have concluded that getting ATF to instigate such an overnight halt to imports would:

(1) bankrupt a lot of people, and cause a lot of jobs to be lost, and

(2) incite such hatred against ATF and the Government that getting anything done, gun-control wise, would make a task that Obama already acknowledges is difficult--getting Congress to ban AWs--would make getting that done virtually impossible.

By not doing an outright ban on imports, or domestic manufacturing, yet announcing his intentions to ban the future production (and, by implication, importation) of "assault weapons," President Obama can rightly claim "cover" for his actions in that he clearly announced his INTENTIONS. Which, I think, shows how sensitive the topic is.

I imagine the run on guns and ammo and high-cap magazines is making him mighty twitchy. As (REDACTED) pointed out: "People aren't buying this stuff because they want to turn it in."

The regime, if it does screw up its resolve, will discover that one more Waco-like "example" will lead this time to a Fourth Generation civil war. As I wrote Eric Holder in 2009, there will be No more free Wacos.