Sunday, December 4, 2011

The murderous presumption behind every citizen disarmament argument.


Malcolm Reynolds: Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back! Wife or no, you are no one's property to be tossed aside. You got the right same as anyone to live and try to kill people.


Back in July of 2008, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Madison Times in Wisconsin. The subject matter was the latest citizen disarmament scheme, and my advice was blunt:

Dear Editor:

Joe Bialek from Cleveland proposes the licensing and registration of all weapons currently in civilian hands. My question is, how exactly do you propose to do that, Joe?

There are some of us "cold dead hands" types, perhaps 3 percent of gun owners, who would kill anyone who tried to further restrict our God-given liberty. Don't extrapolate from your own cowardice and assume that just because you would do anything the government told you to do that we would.

Are you proposing to come yourself, or do you want someone else's son or daughter in federal service to take the risk? Are you truly prepared to stack up the bodies necessary to accomplish your plan? Seems a strange way to make a "safer society." More to the point, are you willing to risk your sorry hide to do it? No? I thought not.

Then quit proposing the next American civil war. We're done being pushed back from our natural rights without a fight. Be careful what you wish for.

Mike Vanderboegh

Pinson, Ala.


Now this made a number of people very put out, especially Sebastian of the NRA-friendly Snowflakes in Hell blog. He wrote on 23 July (my birthday):

Could we please not make gun owners look like lunatics in the media for all to see? You know what ends up happening when the majority of the people in this country who don’t own gun, and don’t care much about gun rights, start believing that gun owners are out to foment a civil war? They start agreeing to take our guns away.

Some may want an armed revolution, but I don’t want to see it come to that. It is not inevitable or necessary at this point in time. I’d prefer to solve this problem politically, and guys like this aren’t helping. We’re winning right now, both politically, and the hearts and minds. Could we please not do stupid shit like this to fuck it up? Thank you.


Later that day, Kevin Baker commented:

Mike Vanderboegh has adopted the position as the Malcolm X of the gun-rights fight. He’s as extreme and in-your-face as he can be, and he revels in “frightening the white people.”


"The Malcolm X of the gun-rights fight" who "revels in 'frightening the white people.'"

"Okay," as Forrest Gump said. I'll accept that moniker. I'm also the guy who said to the impatient gun confiscationist who demanded my "short answer" opinion of his scheme, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

But here's the thing. I'm "scaring white people" who have already proposed my murder by forces of the federal government. Oh, they don't admit it (perhaps not even to themselves), and they wrap their arguments in "public safety" and "for the children," but that is the hard core of the murderous presumption behind every citizen disarmament initiative. Just as it was behind the "individual mandate" of Obamacare which I reacted to the prospect of by calling for broken windows. As I wrote in March of last year:

Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act is within days of passage by devious means so corrupt and twisted that even members of her own party recoil in disgust.

This act will order all of us to play or pay, and if we do not wish to, we will be fined.

If we refuse to pay the fine out of principle, we will be jailed.

If we resist arrest, we will be killed.

They will send the Internal Revenue Service and other federal police to do this in thousands of small Wacos, if that is what it takes to force us to submit.

This arrogant elite pretends that this oppression is for our own good, while everyone else understands that this is about their selfish, insatiable appetite for control over our liberty, our money, our property and our lives.


I made the call, and a few folks answered, and it made all the papers. I was vilified for advocating violence against Democrat party property. A very few understood the humanity of the warning of the rattlesnake's rattle. The overwhelming majority did not.

If a man comes up to me on the street and tells me that he is going to come to my house, break in and steal my property, rape my wife and daughters and kill me, then how should I react? Since he has not yet crossed my threshold or committed a crime I will tell him: "If you try to do that I will kill you."

He will then shout to the nearest cop, "He threatened me!" On the contrary, I was just trying to explain to him what the unintended consequences of his action would be. The rationales of the individual thief and the tyrant are the same, the only difference being the size of the threat and the greater amount of violence that the government can visit upon its selected victim.

All liberty loving people want is to be left alone whether by the petty thief or the tyrant. The petty thief is generally content with merely stealing your property. The government thief comes to the party prepared to steal everything you have, including your life, in order to enforce its will with overwhelming violence.

This presumption is at the center of every citizen disarmament proposal. They understand that there are millions of us "cold, dead hand types," as I said in my letter to the editor. They understand, if they think it through, that the federal government will have to kill us before we submit to their wishes. They simply don't care. They don't believe that the unintended consequences of this tyrannical proposals will ever touch THEM.

This is, as history has shown, utter foolishness and unfounded conceit. But whatever happens to them, they should understand that it was they, not us, who first plunked the gun of government violence on the table between us, in the wrong-headed idea that we would be as frightened by it as they are.

As all collectivists of every stripe have been throughout the centuries, they are perfectly willing to see millions of folks who disagree with them dead in order to achieve their purposes. Unfortunately for them, such people do not yet understand that Malcolm Reynolds' First Law of Societal Interaction applies to them: "Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back."

If the citizen disarmament advocates get what they want, they will.

Understand, I mean.

16 comments:

Dedicated_Dad said...

Something's REALLY got your site screwed up!

I'm getting the columns about 1" wide on my screen!

J. Travis said...

I'm sure many people reading this might have a firearm with no "paper" record, or might know some shady character at the bar who specializes in providing firearms to those who can't pass an NICS check.

And I'm sure most people know some loudmouth "liberal" who cheers for the victim-disarmament lobby, and secretly hopes that "people like you" get taken out by the "Authorities".

When the laws for widespread confiscation come down, a lot of our would-be government informers can be cleared out by clever placement of an illegal gun, and an anonymous call to the secret police.

Of course, you might only need the anonymous call, since it seems every single anti-gunner I've ever heard of seems to have his own guns.

Doc Enigma said...

Everything's fine here...

Anonymous said...

My favorite exchange from "Firefly":

Alliance Commander: "Seems odd you'd name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of."

Mal: "May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

Anonymous said...

JPFO does a good job of showing exactly what is behind "gun control" from a historical standpoint with the film "Innocents Betrayed".

From Stalin to Hitler to Mao,"gun control" has been a BIG part of their agenda.

Why is it such a big part of the agenda of the socialist progressives?

Because like Stalin,Hitler,and Mao,they know that TOTAL CONTROL is a government monopoly on the use of force.

And what were the CONSEQUENCES of those bloody regimes in innocent human lives?

More death then any single instance of virulent plague.

The attitude displayed by Mike V. and other like him is what COULD save America from going down that path......

Anonymous said...

Dedicated Dad--everything appears fine on my screen.

drjim said...

Beautifully put, Mike!

Kent McManigal said...

That's why this pic is my computer's desktop.

Anonymous said...

Mike,
This post of yours is a fine example of why I read your blog daily. You have a way of stating in plain english the way I feel. I just aren't as good with the words!
Dixie Dennis

Mt Top Patriot said...

What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

Yes indeed, careful what you wish for...

Anonymous said...

I've always wondered why some believe gun owners are winning this war. Every single year the federal government has grown in size and scope.. but because the leviatan has not pushed gun control hard for a few years freedom lovers imagine they are winning. They are delusional, at best.

Confining your outlook to this one issue, after already being saddled with thousands of infringements, and than telling folks like Mike, don't rock the boat or the boss might whip us harder... Sebestian is more vile than the enemy. Go ahead, continue celebrating the priviledge YOU have to go get YOUR permit... but don't try convincing honest countrymen we should do the same. And stop claiming YOU are exercising your right... YOU were PERMITTED.

Oakenheart said...

@ Dedicated_Dad - did you accidentally zoom out with your browser? Hold ctrl and repeatedly hit numpad plus. See if that fixes it for you.

Bad Cyborg said...

"The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90MPH, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20."
- Sam Cohen; inventor of the neutron bomb


A fundamental distinction between subjects and citizens can be made:
subjects — individuals upon whom government forces are allowed to act, but who are not allowed to react upon governmental forces;

citizens — individuals upon whom government forces are allowed to act, and who are allowed to react upon governmental forces.


Someone else expressed it thusly:Citizens have clearly defined rights - and obligations - under the law, often as part of a written constitution.

Subjects are ruled by the Head of State, and are at the mercy of his, and his favourites, whims.


It would seem that the real difference between a citizen and a subject is the right to keep and bear arms, else how would one have the ability to keep from being at the mercy of the Head of State and his favorites.

Paraphrasing/updating Franklin: Those who sell their guns to buy farming tools will farm (or anything else) for those who kept their guns.

For my money, the difference between a subject and a serf (slave?) is mostly semantics.

Anonymous said...

"Guns? I don't have any guns."

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine had a great comment...

"If you think it's time to hide your guns, it's time to get ready to use them."

Paul X said...

Malcolm X was actually a very cool dude. They paid you a compliment.

As to scaring the white folks and making them want more gun control, that's ass-backwards. The only reason gun control has gotten off the rails lately is because enough white folks believe we really are as crazy as they claim we are. They don't want to kick the hornet's nest.