Before I Begin I want to say that I believe that every human being has the right to self defense.  Self Defense, in my view, does not include preemption.  You or I do not have the right to attack some one or aggressively defend ourselves against the notion of a potential threat.  This aggressive form of self defense also know as preemption isn’t really self defense.  Its aggression, its an attack, we would be going on the offensive.  We can’t just run around attacking people because we don’t like the way they look, that they make us nervous, have different beliefs or look at us funny.

None the Less I support an individual or a populations right to defend themselves by any means once they are under attack, once the lead starts flying as it were.

This is about understanding power and this first installment is about simple power.  I began this post with the statement that I believe in a person’s right to self defense because to a considerable extent simple power deals with the second amendment.  I am 51 years of age and the debate around the second amendment, gun control, has been going on as long as I can remember.  People older than me yet remember this debate as a sort of a back ground noise of their life.  First I’d like to admit that I support the second amendment.  This of course has caused me some concern as I have listened to the last round of debate on the issue of gun control.  It seems to me that the bulk of the people supporting the amendment and resisting any form of gun control make all gun control advocates look like lunatics.  There has been this phrase I have been hearing, now it may have been said in the past and often but this is the first time that I have heard it, and that phrase is “Gun Culture.”

What the Fuck does “Gun Culture” mean?  When I hear the term used, whether the speaker is a citizen of our fair country or a foreign devil, it sounds like some kind of a slam, an insult.  I really had to think on the term for a while to try and get a handle on it.  The internet as a tool for enlightenment was useless in this endeavor and there was no hard copy dictionary definition.  It was frustrating and annoying, all those grinning jar headed, glassy eyed, slack jawed idiots grinning and muttering the word “gun culture” left me with the same putrid feeling as some other pudding for brains, soft bottomed, over privileged turd using the term “White Culture.”

What were these phrases?  Where they some kind of a code, an inside joke, or the result of a group of demographers with a few carefully selected focus groups and their careful search for a phrase that would have some desired effect even though it didn’t actually mean anything?  The thing was, though it kept nagging at me something terrible, that the phrase “Gun Culture” does mean something.  We need to come to grips with the fact that if the citizenry of the United States did not possess military grade firearms in the distant past then our country would, in all likelihood, bear little resemblance to what it is today.  The destruction of the Native population, Genocide if you will, would have been impossible with out an armed citizenry.  The institution of Slavery, which went a long way to making the U.S. a rich country as only free labor can, also would have been impossible with out an armed citizenry.  I realize that these ideas may make people uncomfortable or uneasy but to say otherwise would be grossly unfair and dishonest.

The U.S. expansion into South and Central America after the Spanish American war, our participation in WW I and WW II would have been far less spectacular without a populous that was familiar with the use of fire arms.  Just imagine how quickly forces could be mobilized and fielded when the population already know how to use a gun then when they have to be trained from scratch.  Then of course there is F.D.R and the great depression.  Doctor Richard Wolf has a very interesting interpretation of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and why they occurred.  It seems that the depression had brought our fair nation to the brink of civil war.  Back then not only where we armed we were also organized.  That’s a damn scary combination.  There were labor unions, political parties, progressives, Communists, Socialists, Antichrists and they shared members, meaning one person could be a member of more than on group union or party.  So when we retell the tale we simple talk about what a Commie FDR was because we most certainly don’t want to encourage the population of our fine nation to organize for a better life.  Maybe these kind of ideas are what is meant by the phrase “Gun Culture.”

In the past these far Left organizations use to scare the shit out of the government but decades of propaganda appealing to individual enrichment and anti union sediment have left our country with out a left wing any longer.  Now the concern is the far right, The Militia, Radical Religious Groups. and Anti Governmental organizations.  When I hear the media discuss these groups, which is rare since I don”t get cable in my home, they fix their side of the argument around the criminal threat and the threat of Terrorism if they are in favor of gun control and if they are against Gun Control them the argument revolves around protecting national sovereignty, defending our boarders (Illegal immigration) and being able to resist the government if it should get to big for its britches.  Then of course there are all the conspiracy theories around the NWO, Agenda 21, Chemtrails, death camps and the coming economic collapse and lets not forget about the Apocalypse although I am not sure what good guns will do a person if the world is ending.  At some point, when the debate turns serious it becomes simply, gun control prevents crime versus an armed citizenry prevents crime.  This is known as framing the argument.  Setting the terms of the debate so that no concept out side of the accepted spectrum of conversation can be discussed.  What is it they don’t really want to talk about?

The more I think about it the more its seems to be true.  What is it that guns represent to most people?  IN the simplest term guns, rifles or pistols represent power.  A firearm is the simplest form of power that any person can grasp.  It is power over your own life, power over other peoples lives, it is your independence and it is your ability to affect your world if you should feel the need.  We in the United States are an Nation of individuals so we lack the large organizations that other developed or Western nations have to affect change in their countries, all we have is fire arms.  It was while I sitting and thinking about this that I realized another very powerful tool we littel people have at our disposal.  That other powerful tool is the ability to say NO.  It is true that first few of us who say NO may pay with our lives.  It is also true that it is hard to say NO, especially to something or someone you care about.   Maybe it is just easier to pop a couple rounds off into a crowd.  Remember that the next time you decide to, or see footage of, somebody walking down the street with an AR 15 over their shoulder to protest for their right to bear arms.  I guess in the end its a lot easier for us to kill each other then it is to negotiate or organize or to simply say NO and stop participating.  Remember this the next time you witness a debate, whether in person or on television, as the discussion devolves into some ridiculous sensationalist piece of political theater that turns your stomach, because it should.

Those jar headed grinning idiots are trying to marginalize the whole of us because what the debate is about is power and taking away yours.  If you can’t own a fire arm legally, a weapon competitive with military hard ware, you can’t work up the courage to say NO and you refuse to organize, Well, what are you gonna do?  Where will you find your power?