Mission statement:

Armed and Safe is a gun rights advocacy blog, with the mission of debunking the "logic" of the enemies of the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms.

I can be reached at 45superman@gmail.com.You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/45superman.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

'Scare white people'? Don't mind if I do

Many (perhaps most) gun bloggers advise walking softly, in order to avoid making it easy for the Enemy to cast the entire gun rights advocacy movement in the light of a wild-eyed fringe of lunatics--the kind of people whom some of our elected servants would like to sweep up in the net of "domestic terrorists." An expression sometimes seen in regard to this is "Don't scare white people."

It's not an expression I ever particularly liked, because it seemed to me to be injecting a racial element into a discussion that had little to do with race. However, after reading Lance Hill's excellent Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, I gained a better understanding of the reference. According to Hill, much of the motivation for the pacifistic nature of the civil rights movement in the 60's stemmed from the perceived need to avoid frightening off the support of wealthy, liberal, white Northerners. Another way to put that, of course, is "Don't scare white people"--white people who may not have been so free of prejudice as a "yankee" like me would like to believe, and who indeed would be frightened at the idea of blacks arming en masse to fight their oppressors.

Hence the Deacons, and other, similar groups, were marginalized, treated almost as an embarrassment, and largely forgotten by history. Ironically, though, militancy--that is, scaring white people--did at least as much for black rights as peaceful protest did. White fear of another Watts riot did as much to force federal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act as any number of peaceful marches did. In July of 1965, it was white fear of retaliation against the Klan, on the part of the Deacons, that prompted Louisiana Governor John McKeithen to request federal assistance to keep the peace. That federal assistance came in the form of the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, John Doar, who came to Louisiana with a presidential mandate to enforce the Civil Rights Act and gut the Klan.

So today, "Don't scare white people" is again the admonishment--not for opponents of segregation, but for opponents of forcible citizen disarmament. My question, though, is what white people? Who is providing this support that we fear losing? No one, as far as I can tell--a point we often make ourselves, when we explain that the "gun lobby" is no more (and no less) than the body of Americans who refuse to be disarmed. So whom do we fear alienating--whose support do we fear losing--when all we have ever been able to count on is "Ourselves Alone"?

The way I see it, any American, of any color, who fears the idea of a citizenry prepared to use "[t]heir swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier . . . " against a tyrannical government deserves to live in fear.

So I say, go ahead and scare them. Let them know that you work hard to maintain proficiency with your "assault weapons," and have a good deal of ammo on hand. Let them know that you've downloaded the Army's Improvised Munitions Handbook. Let them know you have the information you would need to make RDX, and from that, C-4, from materials you can obtain easily. If you can find it, buy and read Improvised Rifle Grenades and/or Improvised Shaped Charges.

That information may not be openly available much longer. We can thank Senator Feinstein for 18 U.S.C. 842(p)(2):

(p) Distribution of Information Relating to Explosives, Destructive Devices, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.—
(2) Prohibition.— It shall be unlawful for any person—
(A) to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence; or
(B) to teach or demonstrate to any person the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction, or to distribute to any person, by any means, information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, knowing that such person intends to use the teaching, demonstration, or information for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence.
Enforcement of this "Unfreedom" of Speech law is spotty, so far, as illustrated by the fact that the information is still available to some extent, but Sherman Austin can tell you that the Enemy enforces it when it suits them.

Scare white people? It's about damned time.

UPDATE: I didn't credit the originator of the "Don't scare white people" line, because I wasn't exactly sure who it was. I have now been informed that it's Say Uncle. Both he and Sebastian (Snowflakes in Hell) have responded. Their points are not without merit, but I stand by my position.

10 comments:

ReverendFranz said...

Excellent post. I think the civil rights movement of yesteryear should absolutely be compared to what is going on today, and furthermore, while we spend an awful lot of time remembering King's speaches, i dont think we should forget the significant leaps of progress the Panthers made, not through courting white investors and influencing congressional atmospheres, but by exercising their second amendment rights, standing up together in arms and saying "You will not put us down, any longer" They stopped beatings, murders, oppression of trade, and outright brutality, not by campaigning, but by action.

Its a shame we dont recognize more of the anti carry laws passed in the 60's and 70's for what they are, Racist laws designed to disarm and make defenseless those who the tribe in blue might wish to subject to harassment or brutality.

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

Thanks, Reverend.

Your points are well taken.

Jay21 said...

Can i scare white people if I am one? Excellent Post. I throughlt enjoyed some of the links. Once again i believe you have hit the proverbial nail on the head.

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

Can i scare white people if I am one?

As easily as many of us white folks seem to scare these days, I don't think anyone is being picky about qualifications.

Thanks for the support, Jay.

the pistolero said...

I'd like to add my words of support as well. While it is indeed a scary thing to contemplate, I've said it before and I'll say it again -- sometimes the only thing you can do is rattle the sabers and rattle them hard.

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

Exactly, Pistolero. I'd much rather deter tyranny than fight it. The good news is that preparing for the one helps to accomplish the other.

David Codrea said...

To paraphrase Rhett Butler, "White people deserve to be scared, often, and by someone who knows how."

But that, of course, means doing it smart. If you do that, no topic should be off limits.

Anonymous said...

For me, the phrase should be "don't scare them without a reason". Usually that reason is education about our rights and responsibilities.

That is where I think that most people have an issue; responsibility. If we are trying to get our rights recognized and expanded, it is incumbent on us to do it responsibly. Some place, times, displays, etc might not be the most appropriate or diplomatic times to stand up for our rights.

I think that it is very important when people are scared; though our actions; it be done in a manner where the supporters can explain the situation. I do think there are times and places to scare people, but the eventual goal has to be to leave the people there better informed then when they arrived.
Just my two cents worth.

Anonymous said...

Not really germane to the central thrust of your article, but I would point out that though your Yankee wishful viewpoint about how much racism (white against black) did or did not exist in the sophisticated north, no incidences of mass hatred occurred in the south as did in Detroit or Boston when school busing became the law of the land. Yes, we had some jackasses that protested, and we had some obscenities in the Klan that did much worse, but we never had riots by whites in the same ratio as the enlightened folks up north did.

It is a truism that sounds so fake most people give it no credence, but it is true nonetheless, that southerners (white ones) tend to like and respect black folks as individuals, even while, in the past, hating them as a race, whereas northerners have, in the past, loved and respected them as a race, but hate them as individuals.

Mostly, we seem to be beyond both those dynamics (at least in the white community) . Thank God for that. Unfortunately, we now see a whole new force of racism coming from the one community in America that should understand the most clearly acknowledged evils of
racism.

It seems as the human race,we are very slow to learn.

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

It seems as the human race,we are very slow to learn.

Yeah, but we make up for it by being very quick to forget.

Great points, as usual, SA.