Op-ed: Black People Must Embrace the Second Amendment

[Zaune]

Of course, the practical upshot of that is that black Americans must expand the definition of "self-defence" to include retaliatory and pre-emptive action... which I cannot in good faith argue against, because a significant fraction of US law enforcement are acting more like a hostile occupying military towards the poor and/or non-white population of their jurisdictions, and an ill-disciplined and badly trained one at that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Of course, the practical upshot of that is that black Americans must expand the definition of "self-defence" to include retaliatory and pre-emptive action... which I cannot in good faith argue against, because a significant fraction of US law enforcement are acting more like a hostile occupying military towards the poor and/or non-white population of their jurisdictions, and an ill-disciplined and badly trained one at that.

Leaving aside for a moment the morality of expanding the definition of "self-defense" to include "preemptive murder/revenge killings", and the effective certainty that innocent people would sometimes be killed as a consequence, there is not, at present, support for an armed revolt/insurgency sufficient for it to succeed. I could be wrong, I can't speak for Black Americans, but I don't think even most Black Americans are at the point where they're ready to start picking up guns and shooting down cops in the street.

I'll say it again- start shooting, outside of the parameters permitted by self-defense laws, and the result is not likely to be the overthrow of the police or the Regime, and its certainly not going to be fewer innocent people shot by the police. More likely, it'll be a small fringe of armed activists rising up, the majority turning decisively against them, and Trump using the crisis to push through far more draconian actions far quicker than he otherwise could. The upshot will be be a lot more innocent dead people, and no real resolution- if anything, a stronger police state.

Its not just me saying this. Recently, a group of academics and former officials ran "war games" scenarios simulating possible ways the election could be disrupted (I posted on it in the election thread). Among other things, they found that provoking the other side into violence was a particularly effective tactic for Trump.

There does come a point where one has no choice but to fight back, and where that point is is difficult to determine. But if it is going to go that way, it needs to be at the moment when the uprising will have the strongest possible public support. Otherwise its not a revolution, nor is it an effective means of self-defense on an individual level. Its a few frustrated people going down in a last stand before the jackboot stomps on everyone else.

[PainRack]

1. Gun ownership has minimal statistical impact on protection.

Lack of gun ownership has something close to a hundred percent impact on your chances of using a gun to protect yourself.

2. If the root cause is policemen killing black people with or without guns, then treating the root cause might be better. Again, Breonna Taylor shows that guns has no deterrant impact on cop killing.

If the cops get the drop on you, sure.

You're basing this off our current context where cops are rarely shot when attempting to murder and brutalize people. Deterrents don't kick in until they start being used.

You are aware that Walker fired FIRST and hit said police officer right ? It was him exercising his 2nd Ammendant rights, in a PROFESSIONAL manner (no wild fire, targeted at intruder and initially warning shot ) that caused the police to fire back wildly and killed Breanna.


Note: this was a bad raid and it was a bad shoot because the police fired wildly and hit someone who wasn't even shooting at them . Walker however executed it perfectly, it's also fell into the precise parameters of self defence and exercise of your 2nd Ammendant rights.


Still does nothing.

Maybe the solution is to actually excorcise the police and remember, the full saying is a few bad apples spoil the WHOLE batch.

[Formless]

It should be noted, there already ARE many black people who embrace the Second Amendment, and its utility isn't merely (or primarily!) to fight back against The Man. There are already many neighborhood watch groups forming in Minneapolis right now, some of them both black and armed, to help keep their neighborhoods peaceful, something the police apparently suck at, especially when the neighborhood doesn't trust them anyway.

Honestly, this is an old, old issue, and one of the many examples of how White people get disproportionately angry when Black people assert a right White people take for granted. I remember taking a class on the history of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960's, and there was one group whose name stuck out like a sore thumb-- and that was obviously the point. They called themselves "N*****'s with Guns". I am not making that up, their whole purpose was to point out to White folk that Black people were already armed, and to encourage blacks to make that fact more visible, as well as to defend themselves if necessary. Long story short, their leader ended up having to flee the US for Cuba after trying that theory personally, and ended up being one of the first Americans to live in China for an extended period of time where the Communist government kinda propped him up as a sort of celebrity. Since he wasn't really a communist, eventually he managed to come back to the US with amnesty because the Feds wanted intel on China, and few Americans knew what life was like there better than him. But really, the Black Power movement is full of stories like that, of activists trying to encourage Black people to use their rights like the right to self defense, and white people blowing what they had to say waaaaaay out of proportion. Most people don't know, for instance, that Martin Luthor King himself was armed, because he never made a big deal about it or publicly advocated self defense. Everyone just assumes he was a strict pacifist like Ghandi. We know, however, from certain people around him that he traveled with a revolver and that to the few people who saw it on him, King justified it as a self defense measure. It would certainly help explain why the FBI never trusted him. Of course that's a somewhat facetious statement. They would never have trusted him anyway.