The next round of Democrat public arguments (since it is difficult now to call them debates) has some of the candidates calling for the confiscation of firearms from people at large, and with threats of force to do so.
At Tuesday night’s Democratic primary debate, presidential candidates Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg escalated their disagreement over O’Rourke’s proposal for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons.
“Every single one of them is an instrument of terror,” said former Texas Rep. O’Rourke when asked how he planned to take away assault weapons from American gun owners, registered or unregistered. O’Rourke in a previous debate said, “Hell, yes,” he would as president establish a mandatory government buyback program for AK-47 and AR-15 rifles but without going into details of how it would be enforced.
“I expect my fellow Americans to follow the law,” he said Tuesday. “The same way that we enforce any provision, any law that we have right now. We don’t go door to door to do anything in this country to enforce the law. I expect Republicans, Democrats, gun owners, non-gun owners alike to respect and follow the law.” (source)
Having noted this story, one may want to go online to Google Books, or to a library where one can read copies of old Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines, or if one wants something more contemporary and far less interesting in many regards (as that is my opinion), consider something such as MAKE magazine.
Now there is no direct relationship between either of these publications and guns. However, I am not interested in old articles that might teach “how to make a gun.” To the contrary, I speak of a general principle here in the same thought process as in my article about the decline of the American gun show, in which I said that the problem was one of changing values as a result of demographic and social changes due to choices made.
In the same sense, consider the current gun debate. People are very concerned about “those Democrats” taking guns.
To this, and specifically to every person who fancies himself to be “high IQ”, why is the question not being asked about people building their own guns? I am NOT saying this to encourage people to “build their own weapon” because “the government is coming”, but rather, to ask a question out of logic rooted in a principle of innovation, creation, and ultimately, personal responsibility and of which all three are gravely lacking.
Go to any gun show- or rather, any hobby show for that matter -and what will one see? How many “innovators” are there, versus how many people who want to “show off” their involvement without producing a thing at all for their hobby? I say this not to say that “everybody” has to have a personal involvement in a hobby and pursuit that goes to high levels, but to note that hobbies are bridgeways to economic, cultural, and ultimately, political policy as they organically grow from people in communities. It is the same with all forms of self-improvement, for bettering the self is ultimately a political act because politics comes from the people of an area and eventually can shape a nation.
What is the pursuit of hobbies today, especially among the Boomers, but a “mine is bigger/shinier/newer/costlier than yours” in most cases, and usually in something vain or stupid that has no real translation to a larger context other than making oneself feel good or fit into a certain demographic pigeonhole that they did not create, but was created for them by another?
The same applies to guns. While some people like to collect guns- like some people enjoy collecting cards, video games, and so on -and while the collecting of a particular object is not in itself a bad thing, what relationship does this have to the betterment of society? I am not saying that all things have to, but generally speaking, throughout history they have naturally tended to rather than being an end in themselves.
What I have seen at gun shows is often times a bunch of Boomers attempting to sell guns, gun parts, and miscellaneous pieces of Americana as quickly as they can and at the highest dollar possible. Any “innovation” usually comes through small companies who are looking to either get a military contract or be bought by a larger military contractor, and could care less about the common people since they will not or cannot pay for said product being offered.
Nothing of this has to do with “freedom”, but selling “freedom” as a marketing chip to get money from small sales to people who want collector’s toys and big money from the same “big government” that said gun company owners will complain about later “taking away our freedoms” when they are the largest buyers and is the entity to which said companies are marketing themselves.
Years ago, there was a poor Russian man who enjoyed tinkering. He also liked guns. He one day tinkered and made a gun so that he could help defend his homeland better, and eventually the Russian government liked his gun and began producing it.
That man was Mikhail Kalashkinov, creator of the AK-47. He later regretted his creation, saying that while his intentions were good, the destruction that he saw come from his creation made him wish that he made a lawnmower instead.
Kalashkinov had noble intentions, at least from what it seemed. Can the same be said today of many weapons companies, who likely have at least some awareness that their firearms are not just being used by the military, but eventually against many innocent people, and with a government who has a history of betraying her allies, or supporting terror groups for the purpose of geopolitical manipulation without any regard to the common people who are hurt in the process?
I am not supporting what the Democrat party is openly proposing, but what one might consider is that currently, firearms are essentially viewed as toys by Americans to play soldier with. This sounds rude and condescending, and I do not intend for this at all. However, I believe it is an accurate description, especially if one compares how in Europe, there are serious militias and paramilitary groups that operate within them, and that fight very well, and would likely make skewered kebabs out of the American “militias” who are generally speaking groups of fat guys that play soldier once a month with their friends in the woods, support Republican policies, and also have “friends” in “law enforcement” who all claim are “different” from the “others”.
Are American really unable to innovate their own parts for guns, or is it that firearms- as with many other things -is a giant hobby for many that is about self-aggrandizement common to the country, just in a particular context, as opposed to a genuine philosophy of political life? Or perhaps is it both?
I am not attempting an answer to this question. What I can say is that what the Democrat party is proposing is taking away the toys from a bunch of middle-aged LARPers. Indeed firearms confiscation would be very problematic and a sign of bad things to come, as it has been historically noted in all countries who generally go through this. Yet what levels of responsibility have the people in the US demonstrated at large to each other outside of being blind and submissive sheep to government policy that warrants them being able to keep their guns? If freedom is something that requires “eternal vigilance,” as many say, what does one say about the “tranquility of servitude” as embodied in many ways by the “American Dream” that so many seek for?
Perhaps the country is losing her weapons- and many of her rights -not because the Democrat party is coming just to take them away, but because the people have already decided to surrender them. No force from the outside has seriously compelled the US to act this way, so it is not so much something that can be blamed on another.
The issue is not in Washington. It is in the mirror.