Articulating the Future
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Firearms And Our Future

11/6/2017

3 Comments

 
Let's change the narrative. The hard truth is that the next 10 years won't look anything like the past 10. Industrial civilization will fall, and any further delusions about it continuing are accompanied by circus music. All our conversations concerning firearms should revolve around that, rather than excluding it. My opinion on firearms shouldn't be controversial at all. I'm not a Republican or an NRA member or even a big gun guy. I just bought my first one a little over a year ago and had huge trepidation about it. But I think they'll be necessary in our future if we want to defend ourselves. ​
The current inundation from the media and politicians seems to be always focused on gun control laws, almost always only voiced after a public shooting event, by people who seem to have no idea what they're talking about. Through various conversations online, I'm becoming more and more convinced lately that people think that the "AR" in "AR-15 rifle" stands for 'assault rifle.' Just an observation, but the avid gun control types seem to have no real understanding of firearms. They also think that suppressors are "silencers" and that they make the firearm silent, and that having a retractable butt-stock makes them more deadly. *rolls eyes* How can we have such ignorance at the forefront of the pedestal proclaiming their opinions on guns and what we should do with them? Politicians holding up rifles on the floor of Congress with their finger on the trigger, pointing it at the crowd while making their speech that people are too irresponsible to own such things, all while their personal security detail stands armed and ready should they be assaulted.

Do a test, and let me know the results. Next time you are at a social gathering and you hear someone talking who is against gun ownership, ask them to name the 4 gun safety rules. And/or ask them to name 4 current gun control laws. I've asked this numerous times and not one person I've asked has been able to answer. They might get one or two, but they're mostly hesitant and completely unsure.
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Source: http://www.studentofthegun.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/family-training.jpg

​Today, we rely on retroactive justice. By that I mean when an event happens, people call the police - who are, after all, just minimally-trained people with guns strapped to their hips and in their vehicles - to come handle the situation. Those police then take the person to jail and from there they are taken to court to face whatever penalties are handed down. But what happens in a future where there are no police answering your emergency calls, in a future where there is no court system administering justice? And why are we not preparing for that future? Because if you believe as I do, that such a future is coming, then all our conversations about more gun control laws are just buying in to the illusion that the future will not be a drastic departure from the past. All things will become more and more localized. If we admit that we need localized solutions to food production, then it's not much of a stretch at all to say that we'll also need to prepare for localized solutions to justice. And the only way that works is if we have a community composed of at least a segment of individuals who are willing to respond to dangerous situations involving firearms. Having firearms ourselves and being trained in their use gives us a level playing field against the likely threats posed to us in a collapse scenario. Because you can bet that a whole lot of other people are going to have firearms, and you can't fight three or six or twenty people who have firearms with sticks or with kitchen knives. 

All I really know is that, especially living in the US, in the coming times of chaos I'm going to want to be able to defend myself with firearms because it evens the playing field and I'd be at a huge disadvantage if I didn't own some and train with them. Everything else seems like it's impractical or idealized politics. We need to start framing our conversations about firearms with the understanding that in the future these societal structures we've come to rely on will be intermittent at best, and eventually fail completely. If we don't frame it that way, we get lost in divisiveness that presupposes something we don't even believe to be true in the first place. The future will not be like the past, so let's stop pretending it will be.
3 Comments
johnny
11/23/2017 12:54:20 pm

Collapse aware folks have been waiting for the actual need to use our guns since at least the late 60's. So it isn't as though there is any hurry for needing to learn how to proper use one. But you are right about folks demanding the right to acquire something they have zero understanding of, can be quite dangerous in uneducated hands, and yet are romanticized in social media and the world at large, with some right wingers thrown in to liven up the conversations.

The only reasonable solution I ever dreamed up was mandatory training for everyone in high school, so that no child can claim to be ignorant from then on out. Send them off to gun training for a week, and while it isn't a substitute for mandatory military service like the Israeli's have, it is better than nothing.

PS: Collapse aware since the days when it looked like it was about to happen, and with guns handed down through family from wars dating back to the American Revolution. And just acquired 1600 rounds of plinking ammunition this very day in a pre Black Friday sale!

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Sandy Blue Ocean link
11/26/2017 04:29:39 pm

Prepping for an ugly future is essential for survival, and firearms are a part of our plan. My husband has been hunting for 40 years and taught me to shoot. Will that be enough to defend ourselves if the day arrives when a hoard if city dwellers make their way down to Farm country where I live?

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Sam
11/27/2017 03:52:54 am

Over my long life I have owned and hunted with many types of shotguns and rifles. I have also owned assault rifles that I also used for hunting and self protection. I also did a four year tour in the Army.

What I know about firearms is that they require a significant amount of time and money to be useful. Proficiency with firearms is such a short term advantage that I think time and money would be better spent elsewhere.

Why are firearms a short term advantage? Firing a weapon (whether for training or defense) immediately gives away your presence. This gives an attacker enough knowledge to either bypass your position or to zero in on your location according to his plan.

Once you fire your weapon (say at a group of looters coming at your position) you are committed to what ever actions the looters decide to take. In other words, you just gave the initiative to the looters. If you are in a fortified area with good fields of fire, you may be safe, but at some point you will have to come out to keep those fields of fire clear or to obtain resources. If the looters are organize they will be able to resupply themselves and wait you out.

Or let us say you are holed up in some building. The looters will simply set fire to the building and wait for you to come out. Note that the looters will not need guns to kill you, just some form of fire starter.

For these reasons I got rid of my guns over 30 years ago in preference to learning how to live a low profile life with few possessions. In my opinion it is much more useful to know how to obtain and prepare food, purify water, mend clothes and shoes, and to defeat barriers such as locks. The people with guns will drop exponentially as the bullets and spare parts run out (and the gun users themselves die off in fire fights) so that the chance of being robbed at gun point will be very low after a few months of rule without law.

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