The Bourgeois Right to Bear Arms

D.L. boddhisatva at mindspring.com
Wed Apr 21 16:14:19 PDT 1999


To whom...,

When Tony Blair and Labor (albeit "New Labor") were elected, I initially thought it might be a good thing. I was skeptical as always, but I thought it might be a good thing. Then the FTSE approved the election by going up and I re-thought my position. I think the best thing a leftist can do is listen to capitalists.

The anti-gun position (as opposed to pro-gun-control, a meaningful distinction in my view) has become stronger and stronger among the capitalist center-right. Ruby Ridge and Waco scared the right wing (by the way, an example of the kind of respect guns can buy from the cops is evident in the FBI's gentle handling of the Montana "Freemen"). I've always thought that America's gun control laws were stupid and encouraged the illegal gun trade. I lived in New Jersey, with the toughest gun laws of any state and yet a short drive to Virginia would have put me among the most lax gun laws in the country. Therefore I have supported national gun-control standards (the Brady Bill, for example, although the brainlessness of the "assault weapon ban" seemed to me insulting propaganda as it neither defined a class of weapons by their actual threat potential nor banned any class of weapons at all). However, the fact that capitalists from "left" to center-right are adopting an anti-gun stance worries me. When I look at the brave Zapatistas defending Chiapas largely with shotguns and bolt-action rifles, it makes me think that an armed populace has at least some power to dissuade tyrants. When I look at Switzerland, where every military-age male is *required* to have an *actual* assault weapon in his closet, it makes me think that there can be such a thing as a reasonably peaceful armed populace.

There is no question that weapons encourage violence. An armed populace will always be more violent than an un-armed populace. Then again a populace that drives cars will be vastly more deadly than a populace that doesn't. The more sophisticated and powerful the machinery people have, the more dangerous they can be. That is not an argument for taking away that machinery. In fact, taking away the machinery is no answer at all. The Hutus slaughtered a half-million Tutsis mostly with hand tools. The most dangerous thing in human history has been a violent political consensus. America has always maintained a consensus that violence is a good way to solve problems. While much of our gun culture is informed by that consensus, that fact does not speak against the practical restraint on tyranny that an armed populace may provide.

Remember that the Vietnamese defended themselves largely with small arms. They never really won a military battle against American troops. They won by near-total resistance. Small arms made up the fabric of that resistance, although it was the positive political consensus that carried the day.

The question for Marxists is what role guns can play for or against a political consensus of resistance to capital. The answer is that mass action is the deciding factor with or without guns. That being said, there come times when police states oppress nascent mass action with force. An armed populace makes police more wary about how much violence they can use. Still, armed resistance is usually met with overwhelming force. However, the fact of armed resistance gets noticed politically. Waco caused a major re-think at the FBI and ATF. It put the weird little American libertarian "resistance" movement on the map (resistance to what, we don't know, to reality mostly). Politicians suddenly worried about the appeal of these people. Police suddenly worried about not "martyring" such people. It was defiance and sympathy that the Black Panthers provided with their guns, not practical "military" support to the anti-racist movement. What capitalist politics cannot deal with is resistance that stands up and evokes sympathy.

We see that in Yugoslavia now. The terrifying thing to NATO was that Serbia would defy them and the rest of the second and third world would be able to say "well done." The US had already gotten a taste of that in Iraq. They felt they had beaten and demonized the Hussein regime enough, but they weren't sure. Yugoslavia made them question themselves again.

One might be tempted to say "Yes, and look what happened to Yugoslavia" but consider this: What would be happening to Yugoslavia if Vietnam hadn't resisted American aggression and sent back so many U.S. casualties?

So in conclusion, armed resistance itself accomplishes nothing, it is simply the violent mirror-image of tyranny. Political consensus punctuated with armed resistance in the face of overt and extreme tyranny is effective. The political consensus gives people hope and the armed resistance puts a little fear into the heart of the tyrant.

peace, hopefully



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