History teaches us that when the governments of the last couple of hundred years seek to control those they feel threatened by, they ended up banning all firearms possession by those people, except for those very few loyal party members who are of good standing (and usually wealthy).
Eventually, their guns get rounded up, too. Believing you can keep what are essentially mechanical antiques in exchange for having abandoned the more efficient semiautomatic firearms is, bluntly, delusional.
What on earth makes you think having a 50 year old pop gun with no paper on it is going to be overlooked by the Federales? They will go over our property with the best metal detectors out there, to peek inside our walls and beneath our gardens. If they allow revolvers and lever guns to stay, it will be at best, short term.
They’ll be happy with taking the semi autos for maybe 10 years, unless they’re able to consolidate power faster, in which case they’ll take our antiques, but we’ll also be rounded up (as reactionaries and counter revolutionaries), and be turned into worm food or chimney smoke.
Don’t delude yourselves into believing it is somehow logical you’ll be able to keep them. Please read your histories before you decide you’re going to be able to rely on the word of people who hate you and what you believe.
The Totalitarians will do anything they want, within the limits of their ability to impose their will on their populace and on conquered peoples. Generally, they're interested in ensuring they have a monopoly on armed force within their borders.
Europeans have long been used to being subordinated to their betters, with their rights being granted or taken away with little or no input from commoners. Well, except for the merchants who lent the King the money he needed to pay his troops, and their influence depended on persuasiveness more than demands.
The sticking point here in the US, as we all know, is the tradition of the armed citizen. Our totalitarian wannabes, who approximate perhaps 50% of our population and probably the preponderance of the "political classes," have gone rogue on us. Lots of them are licking their chops to impose their idea of Utopia on us, and many would glory in firearm confiscation. They'll do it if and when they think they can.
There's the rub. If we broadly decide to fight them for it, they'll find it too hard to do. Way too hard. It would be extremely difficult for the "confiscationists" to pass laws to ban guns across the board. As they've been doing since 1968, they're far more likely to progress in fits and starts towards their goals. The lowest-hanging fruit right now is "assault weapons," then semi-automatic weapons more generally. They can get lots of support for that, as we've long witnessed.
But not much of anybody is out there brandishing lever actions, long-barreled revolvers, and field grade pump shotguns as the "Evil Assault Weapons that No Civilian Can Legitimately Need."
If the American populace sells us down the river on assault weapons, but we draw the line there, we would receive increasing levels of support from some who had favored those initial confiscation efforts. This guy draws the line at .22's; the next guy says "nah, they shouldn't take shotguns"; the other guy says "leave 'em be with their old-school revolvers."
If you have only rifles, you don't get in a shootout with tanks blasting back at you with 120mm main guns, co-ax MGs, and thermal sights. You sit 300-600 yards away and snipe the track and tank commanders as they stand head and shoulders out of the hatch, drivers who aren't buttoned up, etc.
Many reading this served in Vietnam and/or SWA, or studied it, trained for war, even perhaps wrote books about it. Hell, just see what you're looking at when watching the news anytime since 1965, and see the messes our troops have struggled with when trying to fight enemies who use these asymmetric tactics. If we think morality, Hague and Geneva, and RoE have stayed our hand in those far-off places, just imagine how many American troops or cops would refuse to level an apartment building in Topeka or Cincinnati because an unseen rifleman picked off a few troops somewhere across town and then disappeared.
I don't want to really believe that American troops who swore the same oath that I did are broadly prepared to slaughter their fellow Americans on farms and in cities across their own country. People who bury guns on their own property can be targeted to some extent, but I have to tell you...America represents one helluva lot of targets in one helluva lot of places. It would take a tougher and more comprehensive investigative and oppressive effort, spread over a larger area, than any other military/police action in history.
All of this presupposes widespread resistance. (Which I believe would occur.) If nobody's willing to ignore the signs and walk on the grass, you can't have much of a revolution or resistance movement. But Americans have the guns, smarts, experience, communications, general prosperity, a Constitution, our national history, and holy scriptures that give us means and motive to resist tyranny, to believe there are authorities superior to our chain of command, if we decide we want to resist with lethal force. Many Americans have the attitudes our Founders sought to foster, and we'll prove a feisty opponent if our totalitarian neighbors try to push this.
Now, fighting for 50 years to feed the family amidst post-Apocalyptic scenes, using resources stashed right now? Some could, few would want to or be able to. But that's a different thing than resisting gun confiscation, which would not be any 50-year civil war.
So gents, my take on this is simply stay flexible. I'm concerned far more about things like inner-city riots than knock-down, drag-out civil war. Also, about rogue lawmakers, radicals, Deep State types, etc., continuing to undermine our Constitution, laws, and rights like voracious termites.
They can cause a heckuva mess, even widespread violence, but downtown Baltimore is never going to be marching westward along the Missouri River basin. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Berkeley will not be down here fighting in the hollows of West Virginia or in the Ozarks to take your guns.
The Left can't succeed by trying to throw the frog into the deep fryer. It's that slow boil we have to watch out for. Keep your old-school guns. But if the USA slides that far down the rabbit hole, we can choose to draw the line there if we wish, and those weapons would do a perfectly fine job of it.
Worst case?
BLUF: Private firearms ownership will be outlawed, followed by aggressive confiscation and prosecution of non-compliance. This will occur the next time the left wing statists have control of the offices of national power.
Why might I conclude that?
- Affordable Care Act as a Supply and pricing control tool
- Mandatory embracing of ******** lifestyle as equal or superior to traditional families
- Resurrection of classic communism: high marginal taxes, central planning and distribution, etc
- Momentum towards neutralizing or eliminating the electoral college
- court packing schemes
- toxic masculinity
-white privilege
The common thread is centralized control, by any means necessary.
Cicero warned of the democracy-monarch-oligarchy-anarchy cycle. It continues to hold true. We are in the oligarch stage; the end of the republic at least as it happened in Rome.
The Oligarchs need to maintain control. Their long march through the institutions has been largely successful in the indoctrination mission. More young people are willing to defer to government authority for safety and justice; the classic appeal to authority when one has no personal convictions.
So the oligarchs have mobilized a left wing coalition and feed its insecurities to remain in power. Bread and circuses are demanded by the masses. So they are given bread (EBT cards) and circuses (see any mainstream TV programming along with persecution of white males). The Oligarchs will continue to consolidate power by creating fear and then offering common sense measures to allay those fears in ways that increasingly centralize power. It’s not at all different from early Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.
A compounding factor is the current outrage culture (which is just an extension of the victim/learned helplessness indoctrination). The country is divided like 1850 and unwilling to live and let live. The outraged protected groups just won’t tolerate any deviation from their orthodoxy, especially if it involves a religion beyond moral relativism. A dangerous bunch, especially the professional criminals among them who deal in violence daily. The BLM crowd could be made effective shock troops, along with their gang banger friends. They are organized. They are funded with public welfare, private donations, and led by the outrage elite like Sharpton, Farrakhan, and Rahm Emmanuel.
In opposition are the unorganized conservatives. Most are just too damned busy making a living, running businesses, leading families, and generally making society work well. So they don’t have time or energy to oppose the leftists in the streets. They have a vested stake in society so most will comply with the inevitable confiscation laws. They have too much to lose by refusing. Some that play on the margins will rat out their non-compliant associates in order to avoid prosecution.
The law will be well crafted. Probably with carve outs for licensed private hunting clubs, approved security companies, and state-sanctioned organized militia outside the National Guard. These provisions will allow the court to find the law constitutional. It will also provide loopholes to arm the shock troops and enforcers of the revolution.
Some military and some sheriffs will refuse to enforce it. Most won’t think much about the underlying issue and simply go about the business of their assigned tasks. The private security companies will get contracts to clear out the strong holds of non-compliance, and will do so with great enthusiasm.
Lots of scores will be settled during this adjustment period. That’s the simple logic of violence in civil war. Ugly business: diversity + proximity = war.
Some regional enclaves will probably emerge in opposition to central authority. They may or may not endure. Crystal ball is too foggy on that point.
How might this be avoided? Some high profile treason trials might help calm things down a bit.
Timing would matter a lot. If the law is passed at the beginning of a recession it has a good chance of succeeding. If it’s passed when a lot of men with families are unemployed there might be a fight. People with nothing to lose tend to hang onto their principles a bit longer.
That’s the bulk of my assessment anyway. Each man has to make his own decisions on where to draw lines and what price to pay to see another sunrise. I made my choice and have reconciled the consequences of that choice with my God. I pray that every man finds clarity on the rights and responsibilities of manhood.
