Gun-advocates threaten civil war to protect their guns.

[MKSheppard]

https://roanokepeoplespower.wordpress.c ... the-state/

A Joint Statement from the Virginia Left on Recent Gun Control Measures
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” – Karl Marx

We, the undersigned, representing several groups of the anti-capitalist movement in Virginia, wish to make clear that we completely reject any attempt by the new Democrat majority state government to pass and enforce any new “gun control” laws. Liberals see the issue of guns and violence in abstraction. For them, taking away guns will end violence. However, as socialists, we understand that violence exists within the systems of exploitation and oppression inherent in the capitalist system. History shows us that these laws will do nothing to address the root causes of violence in our communities. They will, however, do a number of other things.

They will accelerate the process of disarming the working class and will intensify the monopoly on violence enjoyed by an oppressive capitalist state which does not, and cannot, represent us. Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who is funding the anti-gun group Moms Demand Action, admitted as much, boasting “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.” While militarized police and politicians (both liberal and conservative) in the United States target working people by likening them to a wartime enemy, they also add fuel to the fires of war abroad by selling tens of billions of dollars worth of arms to some of the most repressive regimes on earth. They promote “gun control” at home while people overseas are brutalized with guns, bombs, and tear gas canisters which read “Made in the USA.” The only control they are truly interested in is the control of the global working class.

They will give the police yet another way to incarcerate working people. Working people of color will be especially targeted, as seen with the 1967 NRA backed Mulford Act, while the wealthy, who have the resources to jump through as many hoops as necessary, will easily keep their guns. Much like the War on Drugs, the war on gun rights will fall heaviest on working people of color, the very group which cannot depend on the police for protection. It will serve as simply another way of funneling our brothers and sisters into prison. The fact that there has not been a single word on gun control for the police that regularly terrorize communities of color speaks volumes.

Moreover, we do not object to the strategic use of weapons. As revolutionaries we understand that defense against and destruction of oppression often requires the use of arms, just as the slave system was destroyed through the Union victory in the Civil War, the Nazis were defeated in WWII, and the capitalist state will only be replaced by a workers’ revolution. In short: the revolutionary Virginia Left is for gun control — the control of all guns by a militant and organized working class.

Signed:

ASH (Anti-Fascists of the Seven Hills) ~ facebook.com/AntifaSevenHills/
Communist League of Richmond ~ facebook.com/CommunistLeagueRichmond/
Disrupt the Elite Virginia ~ facebook.com/disruptVA
New Afrikan Independence Movement ~ facebook.com/vanaip
New River Workers Power ~ facebook.com/NRWorkersPower/
Roanoke Peoples’ Power Network ~ facebook.com/RoanokePeoplesPower/
Socialist Resurgence of the Shenandoah Valley ~ facebook.com/shenandoahvalleyreds
Tidewater Solidarity Collective ~ facebook.com/solidarity757/

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[Khaat]

Baltimore has had a massive murder rate for a long time. Show me clear causal relation of the abnormally high rate to restricted sales, specifically, please.

The 2013 Firearms Safety Act, which required that handgun purchasers get fingerprinted, take safety training classes, and have a "Handgun Qualification License" should have reduced the Bodymore Murder Rate.

And my point about the complexity behind the origins of fatal crime was neatly ignored: this reduction very well may have happened, only the remaining issues escalated it ("not as bad as it would have been"). Let's not even mention the proportion of those crimes committed with weapons sold before the regulations were in place, or illegally after. Which is why I kept harping on funding for enforcement in my previous post about the bills.

I don't suppose residents can ALSO get guns legally purchased outside the state, in Baltimore?

What is it with people like you who talk shit about gun laws and how we need "reasonable things" but don't know a fucking thing about how the laws we have now actually currently work?

If you want to buy handguns from outside your home state, you have to have them shipped into a dealer in your home state; from whence all applicable laws for your home state must be followed.

Y'know, unless you buy them from someone who acquired them legally and sold them to you because their state doesn't require these checks? You can drive through several eastern states in a day, and New York has always complained about out-of-state firearms sales skirting their laws. It happens. Why do "people like you" want to pretend it doesn't?

Again, show clear causal relationship of murder rates to this restriction. Can't, again, because we don't know how many murders didn't happen because of it.

Maryland has long had restrictive handgun licensing, starting with a background check and 7 day wait from 1966; a restricted roster of state approved guns to eliminate saturday night specials since the early 1990s, one handgun a month since the mid 1990s, and no private sales of ...
All this should be pushing the murder rate in Bodymore down, but as I've shown, it...really isn't working.

"All this" is a very small part of a very complex issue. Shall we pretend that Baltimore hasn't become more economically stressed? That systematic racism doesn't still have an impact? Or just pretend that gun crime is only impacted by gun regulation?

[Khaat]

That's close enough to the textbook definition of terrorism: "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).

gun on your hip for the same reason police do: "I will end your opposition to me with death if necessary". Except police are trained to very specific definitions of "necessary", and these protesters aren't. And even the police get it wrong, far too often.

My problems with these statements :
1.) In many cases, the police can be seen as terrorists if you follow that definition.
2.) Police are not the only ones who have received training. There are a substantial number of people who agree with the gun-advocates who are Veterans, many of whom have received far more training than many Police Officers, not only in gun safety, but also in the Rules of Engagement.

1 - Yep! But police are a) nominally in direct service to their municipalities/counties/states laws, and b) not in place to combat an enemy (though there are those examples that seem to think they are) but to maintain civil society through policing offenders. Now, point out that there are unjust laws and/or enforcement of laws, systematic institutional racism, and some of the rest of what I listed as complications.

2 - Great! Show me rough numbers of the crowd with this Rules of Engagement training that will be marching with firearms, defying the legal limitation of firearms on the capitol grounds, yet nominally in support of some of the other rules of law. Then, tell me how they will be accepting responsibility (and culpability) for policing the rest of the armed march attendees, exerting that superior training on those without it. Yeah, they won't. Training as soldiers is not about policing your own citizens: it's about combating enemy... combatants and being wary of non-combatants in places where civility has broken down. This is a state capitol where democracy has given the "other team" enough seats to "try stuff", not a war zone. Bring a flag, not a gun.

[PainRack]

Let's say 4 things.

1. There's a lot to be fixed regarding the US antiquated background checks and etc, so saying fix gun control first is a valid response.

2. Semiautomatic rifles have a larger kill ratio in incidents, of six to one when compared to pistols.
https://everytownresearch.org/massshoot ... 2009-2019/

Ditto to weapons with larger magazine capacity or rapid fire.

So. While it's true that handguns kill more people, for the very specific mass shootings that are domestic terrorism in all but name, rifles kill more people. I think Beto goes too far in arguing that the safety of people requires a buyback, because there's still a fun in collecting and firing such weapons. But limiting their effectiveness by limiting magazine capacity for example is a good enough compromise in lieu of the available data. Similarly, while Las Vegas shows that you can't stop everyone, there reasonable changes to be made.

3. There are simple additional background checks that can be added. Mandatory gun safe and red flag laws work. They don't compromise the 2nd ammendant since even Madison allowed for regulation vis storage of ammunition , citing increased costs is the equivalent to car companies bemoaning how catalytic converters increase costs.

4. Waiting periods instituted as a result of the Brady bill lowered homicide by 17%.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10 ... study-says

The world has changed , so, things have to.

[LaCroix]

The 2013 Firearms Safety Act, which required that handgun purchasers get fingerprinted, take safety training classes, and have a "Handgun Qualification License" should have reduced the Bodymore Murder Rate.

Peak homicide count for Baltimore was in 1993 with 353.
Lowest Homicide count for B-More was in 2011 with 196.

Trend since 2011 has been:
2011- 196 murders, 31.1 per 100k pop.
2012 - 218 murders, 34.9 per 100k pop.
2013 - 233 murders, 37.4 per 100k pop. <--FSA 2013 passed
2014 - 211 murders, 33.8 per 100k pop. <--FSA 2013 takes effect this year
2015 - 344 murders, 55.4 per 100k pop.
2016 - 318 murders, 51.4 per 100k pop.
2017 - 343 murders, 57.8 per 100k pop.
2018 - 309 murders, 50.5 per 100k pop.
2019 - 348 murders.

It's been six years since FSA 2013 took effect; and the massive overwhelming murders in B-More are by handgun.

This data does not correlate - Handguns are not single-use items that can only be used in the year they have been purchased.
If you want to prove correlation, please show the dates these guns used in these homicides were sold.

More likely explanation - economy is down and conditions are getting more desperate, causing an upswing in crime and violence.
You are just strawmanning that guns and gun laws directly cause homicides. Which is a blatant lie. Millions of people in Europe have guns, and murder rates are lower than in the US, let alone Baltimore. Millions of other people in the US have guns, and don't murder each other as much as in Baltimore.
People RIGHT OUTSIDE of Baltimore aren't killing themselves as much as the people in Baltimore.

Societal factors cause these homicides, and they would be there even if we take all guns away, then people would stab each other in Baltimore.
Claiming they are shooting each other more out of frustration that getting a gun has gotten harder is a blatant lie.

This high murder rate is a problem unique to the area and has a multitude of reasons, but "getting a gun is too hard" certainly is NOT one of those.

[Broomstick]

The high murder rate is NOT unique to Baltimore - Chicago has the same problem, and the downtrodden over in northwest Indiana, where guns are much more available legally, are not killing themselves at the rate the folks in Chicago are. It's not just guns, just poverty, just crowding.... high homicide rates in the US are multi-factorial and treating them as if there is one, simple solution isn't going to work.

That doesn't mean we should be handing out guns like party favors, either.

[Gandalf]

I'm seeing some images of the rally in Virginia through the Australian news. Lots of instances of the phrase "Guns save lives." I am curious, whose gun and whose lives?

[PainRack]

The high murder rate is NOT unique to Baltimore - Chicago has the same problem, and the downtrodden over in northwest Indiana, where guns are much more available legally, are not killing themselves at the rate the folks in Chicago are. It's not just guns, just poverty, just crowding.... high homicide rates in the US are multi-factorial and treating them as if there is one, simple solution isn't going to work.

That doesn't mean we should be handing out guns like party favors, either.

Harm mitigation however is a thing. A knife stab is more survivable than a gun and requires you to close in to attack, compared to shooting from afar.

Project SAFE, by reducing guns to gangs prove this. Furthermore, a significant portion of handguns , up to 40% are from legal sources in Chicago gangs, just illegally purchased or theft.

Some measures are more aggressive than others, such as limiting handgun purchases, which is a telltale sign of illegal diversion

Lastly, England shows that when prevalence of guns drop, despite an increase in knife attacks, less homicide happened simply because knife wounds are more survivable than has.

The problem rests in how much you willing to compromise gun owner rights to achieve societal goals.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm seeing some images of the rally in Virginia through the Australian news. Lots of instances of the phrase "Guns save lives." I am curious, whose gun and whose lives?

Just trotting out the old NRA chestnuts. Every month in their publications the NRA trawls the police reports for cases of "responsible homeowner defends house against home invader with legally owned firearm" stories. Unsurprisingly they manage to conjure up a decent amount; some are even real, I imagine, given the sheer size/population of the US, statistically it has to happen every now and then.

What I'm more intrigued by is that some people on my FB (a highly critical source, I know) have been posting pictures of minorities marching with long-guns, ostensibly from the same march in Virginia. Cursory investigation (IOW, Googling) suggests that they're legit. I suppose they might be taking the 'gun rights matter to minorities too' angle, which honestly makes sense considering that minorities have been and are discriminated against in this regard.

[MKSheppard]

What I'm more intrigued by is that some people on my FB (a highly critical source, I know) have been posting pictures of minorities marching with long-guns, ostensibly from the same march in Virginia. Cursory investigation (IOW, Googling) suggests that they're legit.

How about this picture I took?

[MKSheppard]

I'm seeing some images of the rally in Virginia through the Australian news. Lots of instances of the phrase "Guns save lives." I am curious, whose gun and whose lives?

It was neat being there. They had a damn guillotine set up.


The Penalty For Treason Is Death

[MKSheppard]

[MKSheppard]

Lol wat?

A huge amount of cops, foot and bicycle mounted were staged on the intersection of 10th and I think Broad Street:



Also note guy with Folder AK with standard magazine, and zero fucks given.

A few blocks away ZIP TIE STRATEGIC STORAGE OF DOOM

[MKSheppard]

ANCAPS ASSEMBLE!



PANTHERS ASSEMBLE!

[MKSheppard]

Even women got into the fun, with perfectly matching accessories.

[MKSheppard]

Most firearms were modern tacticool ARMALYTES, but there were a few variations:

This guy with an A1 Vietnam clone:



Mr SKS /k/ommando:



One guy with a SCAR, one with a FAL, a few AK guys, etc.

But unfortunately I didn't get a shot of the most insane guy there.

[MKSheppard]

These photos aren't mine, because I missed seeing the most crazy guy there:











BUT...

I did get a shot of the flag he's in front of though.

[MKSheppard]

So here's a story time.

I was walking down a street in Richmond, and this armored vehicle / MRAP thing comes wheeling around and makes a right and stops at a light. I tried to catch up to take a photo of it, but I was too slow / he was too far away.

After, I found out that it was none other than.......

ALEX JONES

(Photos by others, obviously)





Apparently he was going around saying shit like:

"The Democratic Party are a bunch of degenerate, anti-American globalists who want to start a race war in this country and they're gonna be defeated."

[MKSheppard]

Overwatch was in place, such as at this (closed) bus stop:



(Note gas mask on the guy standing on top of the bus station wall -- to counter use of CS Agents by police if it came to that)

HEAVY SIX REPORTING IN SIR

[MKSheppard]

Tactical Dags were present as well

[MKSheppard]

VSP were bored. Notice guy passing to right of frame with AK derivative over his shoulder?

https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/tit ... n18.2-422/

§ 18.2-422. Prohibition of wearing of masks in certain places; exceptions.
It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age to, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood or other device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, to be or appear in any public place, or upon any private property in this Commonwealth without first having obtained from the owner or tenant thereof consent to do so in writing. However, the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons (i) wearing traditional holiday costumes; (ii) engaged in professions, trades, employment or other activities and wearing protective masks which are deemed necessary for the physical safety of the wearer or other persons; (iii) engaged in any bona fide theatrical production or masquerade ball; or (iv) wearing a mask, hood or other device for bona fide medical reasons upon (a) the advice of a licensed physician or osteopath and carrying on his person an affidavit from the physician or osteopath specifying the medical necessity for wearing the device and the date on which the wearing of the device will no longer be necessary and providing a brief description of the device, or (b) the declaration of a disaster or state of emergency by the Governor in response to a public health emergency where the emergency declaration expressly waives this section, defines the mask appropriate for the emergency, and provides for the duration of the waiver. The violation of any provisions of this section is a Class 6 felony.

Code 1950, §§ 18.1-364, 18.1-367; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15; 1986, c. 19; 2010, cc. 262, 420; 2014, c. 167.

Granted, it WAS pretty fucking cold that day.

[MKSheppard]

Lee Carter on Twitter:

It's become abundantly clear that the mask ban which was intended to combat the Klan is now only enforced against anti-racist activists.

I'm putting in a bill to repeal it next year. I'd do it now but the deadline already passed.

[MKSheppard]

I wonder if I can direct link twitter images?

[TheFeniX]

This is the Boomer version of Rainbow 6 Siege.

EDIT: Sorry, I should add more. I can't stop laughing at this cosplay bullshit. If this were a bunch of millenials decked out like that, the same guys would be talking all kinds of shit regarding this Tacticool garbage.

[MKSheppard]

You forgot the helicopters and surveillance planes circling and tactical teams on the rooftops though.