Guest post by B. Chandler from Australia
As a preface I will note that I was in high school in 1996 when our laws came down, and at that time owned no guns for anyone to pry from my cold, dead hands.
The common conception of how an assault weapon ban will pan out in America usually follows the same inscrutable logic. The Feds will ban the weapons and the citizens will revolt. Truth, Justice and the American way will be restored. The end.
I would offer an alternative. It’s less patriotic, there’s no swelling crescendo of “from sea to shining sea”, and there’s no happy ending. Thus it’s completely impossible. I offer it none-the-less.
After some run of the mill atrocity “that happens nowhere in the world but the USA” the Feds manage to pass a law banning “assault rifles”. There is a generous buyback included, paid for by the federal money spigot. They know only a few guns will be handed in initially so it’s more than affordable.
A thousand legal battles will be launched but they will take time to come to fruition and the government is not bound to wait until the result comes out in the wash.
Meanwhile there will be a groundswell of protest. People will march in the streets with their ARs and AKs. No matter. The buy-back amnesty runs for six months. Nobody is breaking the law. Meanwhile other more important factors are coming into play.
Immediately noticeable is the disappearance of online trading in the banned articles. The guns themselves. Magazines for said guns. Etc. Companies like Cheaper Than Dirt can be easily bankrupted by court orders to cease and desist trade. They will not martyr themselves. Gun ranges, also typically being business entities, will no sooner allow you to arrive with banned assault weapons than they would allow you to bring in a pound of cocaine. “Just give the courts some time work it out, Joe”, they’ll say. Some ranges will shrug off the rules. Nothing will come of it. Not until later.
Similarly, larger companies that manufacture such guns are now either forced to go back to building bolt action rifles or go to work for the government. Back room deals will be made. Nobody will be out so much as a dollar. “Just go along quietly. After all. If the American people want freedom then it doesn’t fall to Remington to drag them to it kicking and screaming.”
The months will tick by. The protests will start to dwindle in number and attendance. The amnesty is still in effect and many are starting to wonder how this thing is going to go down. After all. Nobody has started shooting so far, at least as far as the mainstream media is saying, and can you really trust those Alex jones types?
Joe Average is starting to wonder if he really wants to bury several thousand dollars of guns. After all, they’re fetching top dollar in private sales. Consequently many Joe Averages divest themselves of any skin they had in the game. In any case, they still have their deer rifle and their .45, and that’s enough to fight tyranny, right?
The hour draws nigh. The amnesty is drawing to a close. Finally, federal tyranny will have to bare it’s teeth and be put down like the monster it is. The protests fire back up. Cold, dead hands, etc etc!
The amnesty is extended for another three months. The cycle begins anew. By the second extension of the amnesty the assault rifle owners have become quite drawn and haggard. Nobody is kicking in their doors and they’re getting tired of perpetually attending protests or talking tough on the internet. By the time the final extension peters out the protests are lackluster.
True enough, there are still a LOT of assault rifles in circulation. The majority of them in fact. Many have since been buried. Many sit by bedsides or other handy locations, awaiting the inevitable jack boot of tyranny to come stomping. Their owners grimly await a valiant death in defense of liberty.
They are left waiting.
Protests continue, albeit on a smaller scale. People photographed at such gatherings with illegal weapons start to lose their jobs or their contracts. “Can’t be seen to associate with people flaunting the law, you understand.” No crackdowns required.
Meanwhile trade in the guns and their parts is closed save for the black market. What breaks or wears down has to be replaced by hand or not at all. Internet forum moderators studiously ban all talk of such things. They can be shut down easily if they were seen to be aiding and abetting lawlessness. Videos on Youtube and other video hosting websites that contain footage of the weapons in anything other than a blatantly historical context are removed, “just to be on the safe side”.
Only a few brave bloggers are left to post such content as they are able, and they will later be rounded up by their internet service providers as would be someone caught posting risque pictures of children. No top-down federal tyranny required. The SWAT teams continue playing cards to pass the time.
By this stage the various cases have wound their way through the Supreme Court. If the ban is overturned then a few words in the legislation will be tweaked and it will be passed again. The slowing of momentum would require sophisticated equipment to detect. In any case, no company is going to bet the farm on retooling to ramp up supply of guns that might be illegal in another six months.
As time ticks by we will see an all too familiar story recurring across the nation.
An anonymous call from a concerned neighbor will have the police knocking on Joe Average’s door at 3 in the morning. “Domestic dispute”, they’ll say, “you have to let us in”.
“I live alone”, he might reply.
“We have to verify that”, they will counter.
The rest is inevitable. Either Joe has hidden his gun(s) exceptionally well at short notice or he’s going to find himself dead to rights. Maybe he’s buried his guns in preparation for the day when he get’s the memo from the ghost of Guy Fawkes instructing him to dig them up and RSVP for the revolution scheduled for Tuesday-week. Those guns thus buried will be fodder for future archaeologists.
Most likely, Joe will long have come to hate that gun. It will burn in his presence like the beating of Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell-tale Heart. Chances are he’ll toss it in the river or sell it to some shady character down at the bar, if not by his own determination then by the insistence of his wife.
“Anonymous tip leads to discovery of illegal weapon cache” will be the mainstream media cliche for a decade. The inference will be that the person in question is either a terrorist or a gang member. Their life will be turned upsidown. If they plead guilty then they get to go home and live out their lives as a convicted felon with a suspended sentence.
The few that try to fight the charges will end up in federal prison as an example to the rest. Their fate will be lamented by internet patriots for five minutes per occurrence, during which many will tout the fact that they’ll never give up their deer rifles, such being the necessary tool to defeat Federal tyranny.
Others will shrug their shoulders.
“We may not like it, but it’s the law…
We live in a democracy…
Yadda yadda yadda…”
By the 20 year mark a new generation will come of age wondering how it was ever possible for people to legally own such deadly and dangerous weapons.
The odd AR or AK will turn up in grand-dad’s wardrobe after he shuffles off this mortal coil and the lawful ownership of such weapons in the USA will end not with a bang but with a whimper.
Nobody has a crystal ball but you can reliably bet that while you have clean(ish) water, electricity, beer and television that the second amendment will only be diluted further. Ask the typical infantry grunt back from Fallujah how much of his kit he’d be allowed to legally own off-base without special federal permission slips.
One of the arguments the anti gunners try to make about *”assault rifles” is that their only purpose is to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible.
To them I ask: Should we then allow the police to have them? After all, is it the police department’s purpose and duty to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible?
Ask any anti gunner you meet what gun control laws they want that Mexico doesn’t already have. (you probably won’t get an answer, they won’t be able to understand the question and will try answering some other question you didn’t ask or changing the subject by asking a counter question in place of an answer)
* A term most of them couldn’t define accurately it they had to, the “assault rifle being a longer range and more powerful weapon that bridged the gap between the pistol caliber sub machine guns introduced in WWII and the heavier machine guns that were difficult to carry and use by fast moving troops.
This article is not really a ‘what if’ projection, it is actually happening now, just not everywhere. New York and Connecticut, have done exactly this after Sandy Hook. It’s playing out just as hypothesized above. I believe New Jersey has been in the same boat, even more prohibitive, for a long time now.
Weather these listed examples of mine or the authors example of Australia will play out on a National scale is more tenuous. For sure, much of what he asserts will come to pass and become normalized, but once a National scale is proposed, many more Wild Cards are introduced.
Here in the West, a much greater affinity for Assault Weapons exists, than in the East Coast or Australia. If we examine the attitudes in Montana or Texas one can begin to see his assertions lose validity, there might be open rebellion to such a law at the State level, let alone county levels.
Further, reflect upon the happenings at the Bundy Ranch, a small incident concerning grazing rights almost erupted in armed insurrection, where ‘Militia’ members had a visible stand off with Federal Agents.
If the Fed’s try and pass this type of Law, its easy to imagine many “Bundy Stand-offs”, even ‘Militia’ groups going proactive, some with tacit support of local Sheriffs and Representatives. This would not be good, it could conceivably herald a much larger conflagration than the Author presupposes.
In light of this, Grandfathering is the only viable National proposal, as the recent Assault Weapon Bill lay’s out. Passage of this will more closely have the downstream effects the author illustrates.
This is somewhat counterfactual since there actually was a federal “Assault weapons ban” from 1994-2004. The enactment of that ban cost the Democrats control of Congress for a decade, which they will not soon forget. It also had no benefit regarding crime, and other than the magazine capacity limit, had very little effect on the type of firearms people bought. It seems that it actually increased public interest in buying “evil black guns” or military-looking firearms, and also increased interest in large calibers, particularly in handguns. Ironically, that ban seems to have jump-started the US firearm industry from a somewhat dull and moldy business to something far more dynamic.
As ottomatik points out, this is close to the real situation in some states. Incidentally, states which have more of a violence problem than the states which don’t ban guns. Significant parts of the public are waking up to that fact, though mostly in the relatively free states of the middle.
This is meant to be an application of the Australian experience, but there is a major cultural difference between Australia and the USA on this issue. While this is a reasonable guess of what might happen or has already happened in some coastal states, I don’t think it’s anywhere close to what would happen in the deep south, most of the midwest, or most of the Rockies.
Nobody seem to recall that Assault weapons were banned by Bill Clinton, and the un-banned by the next guy (Bush Jr.). If they attempt another ban, it will eventually be overturned, as the population punishes the politicians who vote for this.
Also, the caliber shot by the standard military rifle is not designed to kill, the purpose is to injure, and thus create a burden to fighting forces, to respond to casualties. this is modern war.
In 5000 years of civilization we have not figured out how to peacefully co-exist, I don’t expect anything to change in my life span.
The attempt to ban weapons is nothing more than a power grab by the global elite who fear blow back from a well armed population, against their efforts to globalize and financialize every aspect of modern life
In other places like Australia and UK, where there is no history of revolution or civil war, only a long history of respect for rulers, it is easy to remove weapons, but look who still has guns in those populations?
Criminals and terrorist, and of course, the ruling class.
Many Americans don’t take kindly to rulers, or ruling class types.
It is not in our DNA.
And we are coming to the conclusion that nobody will help us or protect us, we are on our own.
thinking that passing laws will change minds, won’t work, it will just change behaviors, and force normally law abiding folks to engage in activities that are illegal.
To see what a US federal “ban” on “assault weapons” would look like, one need only look at the history of the previous law that lasted from September 1994 to September 2004.
What actually happened was that the few companies that manufactured firearms such as the AR-15 type rifles – Then Colt, ArmaLite, Olympic Arms, and Bushmaster – all quickly retooled their products into “post-ban” configurations that complied with the letter of the law. There was some profiteering on used “pre-ban” firearms, but the net result was a tremendous increase in popularity of that type of rifle. Sales of post-ban rifles were brisk throughout the duration of the ban. Numerous new manufacturers sprung up to meet the ever-growing demand. And one more thing happened: People began making their own lower receivers (that being the serialized part, legally it is the firearm) in home workshops and garages. Vendors started selling partly completed lowers that were not legally firearms, and could be finished in a few relatively simple steps by anyone who is handy with tools.
The 10-year sunset clause in the law had nothing to do with anything that President George W. Bush did or did not do – It was a negotiated compromise without which the law could never have passed both houses of Congress. GWB actually stated that he would sign a renewal of the ban should a bill reach his desk – Not a particularly bold thing to say considering the makeup of Congress in 2004. The Democratic Party did lasting damage to itself by supporting the ban. There is still a remaining hard core of authoritarian “progressives” who put out a call for a renewed and expanded ban every year, and every year it goes nowhere.
The net result of the past ban on “assault weapons” is a tremendous increase in their popularity and the number of scary-looking firearms in circulation. Alcohol prohibition was a failure in the USA. A gun prohibition would be no different. We don’t like being told what we can and can’t do.
As a thought exercise, this is completely pointless and totally irrelevant. We are less than 10 years away from semi-autonomous drones with mounted gunbarrels and computerized targetting systems that can be built for less than $1000 worth of COTS parts. There are so many threats on the horizon that render old fashioned rifles obsolete. It will be curious to see, when more and more incidents occur involving the use of new technology, will they respond each time with the same old gun bans?
Been a cop for two decades. I know more about the reality of violence than B. CHANDLER from AUSTRALIA will ever know. And I can say that both his premise and scenario are bullshit. A Leftist fantasy. A lie.
Hey
We have a real live second responder on TBP arguing for gun confiscation so him and his union buddies feel safer. Let’s all hail liemonger.
One thing about that Clinton ban was the restriction of magazine capacity to 10 rounds and its unintended consequences.
With the trend in pistols at the time going to higher capacities (such as the 17 round Glocks and double stack 1911’s to mention a few) it no longer made a lot of sense making large pistols that could only hold a few rounds.
This led manufacturers in the direction of developing much smaller -and easily concealable- high quality pistols with smaller capacities. Prior to the Clinton administration small concealable pistols were pretty much limited to a few snubbie .38 revolvers and some (mostly) Saturday night special type bottom end .25 and .32 autos.
With the advent of these new high quality small auto’s in potent calibers the market was increasingly oriented toward them and as their ownership grew and grew people wanted to start (legally) carrying them for personal defense since they were of sizes that almost any person could easily carry and were a better fit for women’s hand size than the larger high capacity ones were. Further many new buyers were attracted to firearms ownership since the smaller lighter guns were much less intimidating to new purchasers than, say, a double stack 1911.
The growing desire of the people to carry their pistols with them led to the push for CC laws that have increased to almost universal availability of them in at least a limited manner across the nation. (FWIW, this growth of CC is also correlated with a decreasing violent crime rate).
So, in an unintended roundabout sort of way, we actually have Clinton and his assault weapons ban to thank for both readily available CC permits and the drop in violent crime that has resulted from the people having the ability and right to shoot back when subject to a violent thug attack in public.
Wonder what the next round of bans will bring if they -the leftists- are successful at implementing them? I’ll wage it certainly won’t be what was allegedly intended and will in one way or another be the opposite of it.
The best slaves are the ones that don’t need chains. As long as our masters control the airwaves , it doesn’t matter which sheeple own scary rifles.
An increasing number of Americans no longer care what laws are enacted by the traitorous government. A civil war isn’t going to start, it’s already started – people are just going to become aware of it, as the killing ramps up.
You seem almost gleeful about the prospect of massive disappointment amongst patriotic Americans. Or just trolling?
optimism abounds in the read, doubtful we survive another year
truthmonger could you expand on that comment please? Thick headed redneck here.
btw, just bought my daughter a CZ Rami, in 9mm. Very happy with it, shoots where you point and appears to be extra reliable. Also it’s a double action/single action…carry with hammer down and first shot is double action, subsequent shots are single action.
She’s a smart kid, smart enough to decide she wants to carry, but not smart enough, yet, to get the hell out of So Calif
I hope he’s wrong. I suspect there’s more truth to his scenario than we would prefer to admit. Time will tell.
Bunch of shit.
First sentence, 2nd paragraph: “The common conception of how an assault weapon ban will pan out in America usually follows the same inscrutable logic.”
First sentence, 13th paragraph: “True enough, there are still a LOT of assault rifles in circulation.”
When did an “assault weapon” magically become an “assault rifle“??
1. There is NO SUCH FUCKING THING as an “assault weapon” – the term has a murky beginning, but one agitating motherfucker named JOSH SUGARMANN (an Eskimo, most certainly) is credited with popularizing the term in 1988. Eskimo Sugarmann founded the “Violence Policy Center” – a thinly disguised anti-gun propaganda machine populated by agitating fucksticks.
2. An “assault rifle” is a genuine, select-fire, fully automatic shoulder fired weapon of small to medium caliber and of light weight, issued to the military’s of various countries around the world…
– No genuine military of any country anywhere in the world issues “assault weapons” to its troops. And even if they did, they wouldn’t “assault” anything with them because they’d get their asses kicked…
– Alleged “assault weapons” are superficially similar to their genuine military counterparts – but function differently. They are incapable of fully automatic fire by default and to get one to fire fully automatic, one has to seriously fuck one up and get it to malfunction – or one has to break Federal Law and do some serious surgery on the innards….
All of which means:
– MISTER Chandler is so incompetent and/or ignorant he fucked up and is using these two terms interchangeably.
– MISTER Chandler damn well knows the difference between the two and is using them interchangeably – this would be on the order of calling a prop-driven Cessna and a F16 Fighter both “fighter jets” because they can both leave the ground using the basic principals of flight….
BOTH of which – incompetence/ignorance or intentional mis-statement – leads me to seriously question why I should listen to ANY FUCKING THING this guy has to say with regards as to what may or may not happen here in the US….
So fuck you Chandler…
Educate yourself or GTFO…
I doubt that there will ever be an actual insurrection by citizens whereby they grab their weapons and actually put their life on the line for freedom, at least any movement of any size. Talk is cheap. Too often I see guys with huge beer bellies that could not do one pushup bellowing about how they would have to prey their weapons “form their dead cold hands”. The only thing they will ever have to pry from their dead cold hands is a cold beer.
Police Seize $63,530 From Veteran Because He Kept It In Grocery Bags
Written by: Daniel Jennings Current Events April 21, 2015 122 Comments Print This Article Print This Article
I source: Baltimore Sun
Simply carrying a large amount of cash in a grocery sack in your car is now sufficient grounds for a police officer to seize your money, a US circuit court has ruled. A panel of the Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals found that all a deputy has to do to seize cash from a person is say it is drug money.
The court refused to return the $63,530 that Deputy Dave Wintle seized from a disabled veteran named Mark A. Brewer during a traffic stop in 2011. Brewer was never charged with a crime or even given a traffic ticket. Yet the decorated Air Force veteran lost his savings when a drug-sniffing dog smelled marijuana on it, even though no cannabis was found in Brewer’s car or his home.
I live in ny. Article jives well with current events.
Go ahead, ban them. They won’t go away. It’s ancient technology and it’s so easy to manufacture now, you can 3d print them, crank them out in machine shops, over blacksmiths’ forges, or with tabletop CNC machines. The Vietnamese, Afghans, Filipinos, Iraqis, Russians, etc have all shown how easy it is to manufacture them from practically nothing. They’re never going away.
All the Klinton gun ban did was to drive manufacturers to come up with new creative ideas. Anyone remember when KelTec innovated the idea of a folding gun after folding stocks were banned? Remember the bullet button? How about the Tac Trigger, Hellstorm Trigger, or the SlideFire Stock? How about those weird NY-legal AR stocks?
BTW-the 10 round limit doesn’t stop anything. First, magazines are easy to make if you have basic machine tools. You can pretty much form a rifle mag with a block of wood and some sheet metal. Second, there are millions of them already out there. Third, I used to know an Armenian guy with mafia connections who explained to me in Russia he just carried multiple Makarov pistols in his track suit. All the mafiosi did. You pulled out your Makarov, emptied 8 shots at your enemy, threw the gun away and grabbed another one and emptied those 8 shots. Essentially, they carried a brace of pistols a’la Captain Blackbeard.
They can’t stop marijuana.
They can’t stop crystal meth.
They can’t stop crack.
They can’t stop coke.
They can’t stop illegal smokes.
They can’t stop moonshine.
They can’t stop child molesters.
They can’t stop illegal aliens.
They can’t stop terrorists.
They can’t stop the mafia.
They can’t stop rape.
They can’t stop gangs.
They can’t stop murder.
They can’t stop kidnapping.
They can’t stop illegal machine guns.
So why do they think they can stop legal guns?
Anonymous wrote :
Police Seize $63,530 From Veteran Because He Kept It In Grocery Bags
Written by: Daniel Jennings Current Events April 21, 2015 122 Comments Print This Article Print This Article
I source: Baltimore Sun
Simply carrying a large amount of cash in a grocery sack in your car is now sufficient grounds for a police officer to seize your money, a US circuit court has ruled. A panel of the Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals found that all a deputy has to do to seize cash from a person is say it is drug money.
The court refused to return the $63,530 that Deputy Dave Wintle seized from a disabled veteran named Mark A. Brewer during a traffic stop in 2011. Brewer was never charged with a crime or even given a traffic ticket. Yet the decorated Air Force veteran lost his savings when a drug-sniffing dog smelled marijuana on it, even though no cannabis was found in Brewer’s car or his home.
When a few of the folks who have had their hard earned cash etc taken through civil asset forfeiture goes full rogue and ventilates the offending perpetrators then perhaps this crap will stop .
http://sociali.io/ref/S5344118
To learn more about it and get some info for a ARs