Previous social-democratic governments had implemented strict gun control, which Hugo Chavez not only took advantage of once he got into power, but expanded upon to disarm and subjugate the Venezuelan population. When the wrong political players are in power, today’s “common-sense” gun control legislation could be tomorrow’s stepping stone for gun confiscation.

Modern-day politics doesn’t care for unintended consequences nor long-term policy implications of regulations. For that reason, elected officials like Bernie Sanders have such strong followings.

As socialism becomes popular, other facets of human activity such as self-defense and privacy will be under the chopping block. Socialism does not operate under a vacuum and is indeed an all-inclusive package of human control.

As the great economist Ludwig von Mises said best, “Great conflicts of ideas must be solved by straight and frank methods; they cannot be solved by artifices and makeshifts.”

In this case, the forces of liberty cannot afford to back down.

Jose Nino
April 6, 2019
Gun Rights Will ‘Feel the Bern’ Under a Sanders Presidency
[Politically, even if not by constitution, many states are lost to socialism and the federal government, for the first time, has multiple legislators who are openly admitting they are socialists. The best hope we have is for the federal courts to keep them in check while we attempt to change the culture. Failing that we could see a shooting war break out.

Because of this we need to put a lot of effort into changing the culture. One would think that because of all the dramatic failures of socialism throughout history, and even those unfolding before our eyes, that it should be easy to convince people of the folly of socialism in all its flavors. This is not true.

I suspect there is a deep rooted, perhaps genetically implanted personality trait, that makes socialism attractive. Perhaps this trait had evolutionary advantages in family units and tribes of up to a few hundred people. But as soon as social units became large enough they can’t solve the free rider problem through peer pressure the sharing of resources by the whole group fails. That is the most basic failure of socialism.

As the free rider problem becomes obvious to the population, instead of transitioning to private ownership and an individual rights social organization, what almost always happens is they adhere to their preprogrammed attachment to shared ownership and implement a forced rider model. This, which can be shown by countless examples, is a death spiral into extreme poverty, mass executions, and even genocide.

I can explain this in a logical fashion. I can’t explain it in the proper, I suspect it must be emotional, fashion to override the preprogramming. Leaving deprogramming methods involving high velocity lead off the table, does anyone know how to do this? Any ideas?—Joe]