'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.