Quote of the day—herbn

At what point does “they are saying I am by definition worse than Hitler and need to be in a camp” cross over from “a stupid narrative they believe” to a “clear and present danger to me and mine I must actively respond to.” I’m already passively preparing, but at some point I have to choose, and choose wisely, to move to active interference.

That is what worries me. Both the need to make that call and making it wrong.

herbn
August 8, 2019
Comment to But Then That Must Mean
[Many years ago John Clifford., the owner of a gun range I frequented, told me, “When you draw your gun is far more important than how fast you draw your gun.” It took a while for me to really understand what he was saying. See this post for elaboration on that point.

herbn’s dilemma captures the essence of what John was telling me.—Joe]

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18 thoughts on “Quote of the day—herbn

  1. Pingback: Quote Of The Decade | Western Rifle Shooters Association

  2. I went back and reread a goodly part of your “threepers vs pregers” post.

    I have a friend that grew up in Canada and then escaped to the US. She had a breaking in time. Such as “I don’t have insurance, I’ll die if I get sick” and then finding that I could get her into see a doctor, get her the meds prescribed and be out in less than 2 hours vs a two week wait she was use to in Canada. Different set of stories.

    Her grandfather was picked up by the Germans in WWII an “conscripted” on the spot. He was involved in a battle. After the battle he hid under the bodies of the dead as the Russians were walking through the field bayoneting the wounded. This is a third person story so not sure how factual it actually is.

    When her grandfather arrived in Canada he became a Canadian citizen. He enjoyed hunting and fishing and owned a few guns. When Canada demanded that he turn in his weapons, he was a good little sheeple and took all his guns into the local collection point and turned them over.

    All but the one small bore rifle. I’m told it was a .22lr but I’m guessing it was a heavier hitter than that. He got himself some cosmoline and lubed that sucker up. Then he stuck it up in the floor joists in the basement. End of story.

    Not really. Said grandfather got dementia. My friend moves back in with her grandparents in big old house to take care of them. One day she’s down in the basement doing laundry, moving things around and she notices this paper wrapped thing in the joists.

    She takes it down, lays it out and opens it up. Exposes the gun.

    She sees that it is a gun and is on the phone to the RCMP in seconds to have them come get it before it kills her daughter.

    She was so scared of the mere fact that a gun existed in her home that she called the police to disarm herself. The “weapons cache” her grandfather had prepared for her and his great-grandchildren was turned over to the government by those same grand children. The government propaganda was that strong.

    That is my concern, that by the time my grandchildren are old enough to own their own guns, that guns and gun owners will be so vilified that they will turn those guns in to the government in fear and in a mistaken belief that they are “doing the right thing.”

    • Don’t be afraid.
      Spend time with them; as much as you can. Teach them about freedom. Teach them to handle firearms, get rid of the phobia at an early age. It’s not that difficult.

      • @ned2 I do, I try ti inoculate them. But the truth of the matter is that school and society does a great deal of propaganda.

        It is small things in every show. NCIS has as a core foundation, that people believe, that there is a “registry” somewhere and that every gun is and should be registered. Many a show starts with them locating an “unregistered gun” and moves from there.

        It is everywhere.

        My daughter is pretty good at this, my son, not so much. He understands the “big picture” and is a firm 2A supporter. But there are these “reasonable” exceptions. And he is willing to argue those exceptions because they “feel” right to him. And he is wicked smart.

        I remember talking to a admin after a school board meeting and a teacher was complaining that guns were not banned in schools. She was telling me how awful it was because “some parent could just lose it if she told the parent that their child was doing badly or had done something badly.”

        I asked “So you are worried that there are parents that will murder you if you are rude to them?” Her response was “No, but if they have a gun they might.”

        Another time the school had the police in the office on “another matter” when a parent came in for a conference about his child “because he was known to carry a gun.”

        We need, and I do, try and bring people to the gun culture. I do it by taking people to the range, being willing to talk about their fears and feelings, to let them see real firearms.

        Or the NYC boy where I handed him a magazine and then snatched it back, took one round out and handed it back. “Sorry about that, your state says that if that extra bullet is in the magazine it makes you a killer.” (S.A.F.E. Act).

        It was at that point that he actually asked what some of the gun laws were and better understood. He has a standing invite to go to the range the next time he is up.

    • If your children and grandchildren are well and properly indoctrinated by the state, they’ll turn YOU in along with the guns.

  3. I think this question is so complex because there are so many factors bearing on it. I addressed some of those here, a while back:

    “When to resist. When to submit.”
    https://ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle589-20100926-07.html

    “Proper forms of resistance”
    https://ncc-1776.org/tle2013/tle707-20130203-08.html

    Another thing that needs to be addressed, is collective resistance versus individual resistance. The latter comes into play when you are attacked personally, as an individual; then you have to quickly make the decision whether to submit or resist. Your personal situation will bear strongly on the decision, and whatever you decide will probably have little bearing on the national situation.

    On the other hand, you have to be much more aware of media and political and moral considerations if you join together with others to make a violent attack. Is it really justified? It’s much tougher to cross that line, and for good reasons.

    I would say though, that breaking the law or ignoring it should already be going on to some extent; and that the danger of doing so is often exaggerated. The ruling class does not have infinite resources. There is safety in numbers. All tyranny depends on the voluntary compliance by the peons – so stop complying.

    “All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.” — William Kingdon Clifford

  4. I would say though, that breaking the law or ignoring it should already be going on to some extent; and that the danger of doing so is often exaggerated. The ruling class does not have infinite resources.

    But they have enough resources to focus on anyone they consider to be enough of a pest, or a convenient target for today’s Two Minute Hate. And it’s not like we have a choice about “breaking the law or ignoring it”, the laws are so numerous, with mens rea not needed for so many of them, that what you describe has become our default state of existence in the US. As Ayn Rand put it in Atlas Shrugged:

    “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against – then you’ll know that this is not the age of beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one ‘makes’ them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted-and you create a nation of law-breakers and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”

    Now factor in nationwide Red Flag laws….

  5. At what point, you ask? It could come at any point, precipitously and unexpectedly.

    What can you do about it? If history is any indication, then the answer is, “little to nothing”.

    I believe it goes like this; by the time we end up asking these questions, the society has embraced so much naked authoritarianism that it’s already a foregone conclusion. The momentum and trajectory are established, and you who ask the question are funding it.

    In theory then, you could whack a dozen power-mad leaders, hang their severed heads in the town square, and there’d already be a hundred thousand more power-mad wannabe leaders waiting in line to take their place. They’d use your “insolence” as a launching platform to incite even more authoritarian violence and crack-downs.

    They’d actually love it if you did such a thing, and in fact they’re getting impatient and frustrated over the fact that you haven’t yet.

    All you can do, I believe, is trace our trajectory waaaaay the fuck back to the point where we began to separate from our bedrock principles, because THAT is where the failure occurred. Everything since has been mere inevitability. Saying this, of course, will result in all manner of protest from the so-called “conservatives”, who’ve been trained, like Pavlov’s dogs, to resort, proudly, to compromise and capitulation as the only true and prudent solutions to any disagreement (not that it would matter, as they’re devoid of the guiding principles and would therefore make all the wrong decisions anyway)

    So the only way to restore adherence to bedrock principles is after we’ve had it proven to us, through mass destruction and mass death, that every alternative to those principles is, by definition, failure itself.. All the mass destruction and all the mass death of the 20th Century apparently wasn’t nearly enough though, to teach us that lesson. Actually I think we’ve forgotten the bedrock principles (all of which are found in the Bible), and that would mean there is no earthly solution whatsoever, so bend over and kiss your dumb ass goodbye, and stop your complaining, Bitch.

    If there is a model of success to be had from recent history, it would be the Protestant Reformation. Millions died on the stake and in the Catholic torture chambers, but the Reformation spawned an entire, peaceful and prosperous, civilization, which we refer to as “Western Civilization”. They gave it all up however, in favor of “getting along”. It’s over and done, kaput, but there’s one model of success which we can uphold. There are others in the Bible. Study it if you think you really care.

    • ” In theory then, you could whack a dozen power-mad leaders, hang their severed heads in the town square, and there’d already be a hundred thousand more power-mad wannabe leaders waiting in line to take their place. They’d use your “insolence” as a launching platform to incite even more authoritarian violence and crack-downs. ”

      This is what happened in France in 1789. The reason we are where we are now, is that… it is the same revolution. We have only been going in slow motion.

      Right, Godfather?

  6. “That is what worries me. Both the need to make that call and making it wrong.”

    I once thought 1000+ lean, heavily armed riflemen might have come to the aid of the Weavers after Sammy and Vicky were murdered.

    I had a higher opinion of ‘Muricans back then.

    Lesson learned.

    ‘Muricans will refrain from doing anything until everybody else is doing it, then allow for additional time to be certain that no negative consequences ensue.

    No sense in risking one’s life for rabbits.

    So become a rabbit. There’s safety in numbers. At the very least, deferment of death until the last moment is possible. If not, well, we all are going to hang separately anyhow.

    It took me years to realize that this was the plan all along. Stupid! What a huge waste of time and effort it was to believe otherwise!

    Given this, I recommend the following:

    1. Go beyond “da state” and “collectivists” when identifying the enemy.
    2. Don’t include these people in your group (below).
    3. Create an informal self-help or interest group comprised of family and long-term friends/neighbors.
    4. Prep.
    5. Keep your big mouth shut about your stash of food, water, and medical supplies.
    6. Hope like hell the enemy and its state go after somebody else.

    • I lived about 20 miles from Ruby Ridge at the time of the incident. I didn’t own a gun of any type at the time and felt incredibly helpless. I bought my first rifle shortly after that. The rest is, essentially, history.

      • I understand, brother.

        I was in Okinawa when I heard. It sickened me. Still does. I’ll never forget it.

        There were plenty in the area who did have firearms and the training, even if dated.

        I’m sure more than a handful of retired Army/Marine Corps majors and light colonels – real field grade officers, not pot-bellied self-appointed types – lived in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Wyoming at the time.

        You see Randy was a “white supremacist” – that is, a real “bad” person. Nobody was going to go out on the limb for him. But this was only an excuse.

        The real reason boils down to rabbitry. The Blightwing is comprised of rabbits. The lions, tigers, wolves, and hyenas among us are simply too few. Circumstances will not transform these rabbits into wolves, much less lions or tigers.

        I’ve watched/participated in this stuff since a kid in ’64. I’m beyond the rationalizations, which are B.S. I know how it’s going to go. Will be glad to compare notes with anybody in ten years, assuming I’m still around. Or this website is still around.

        We have 10 years max before life becomes really interesting. Could be only 1-2. Just about all of us will hide. A few hyenas and wolves will lash out on their own, then die. Examples need be made. Blightwing rabbits will slither to another hiding place, rat out friends, and conform. “Muh principles,” you know.

        The Left isn’t afraid of us. They know what we are.

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