Firearms And Our Future

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.

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.