Is an Armed Rebellion Against the US Really Feasible?

63 Comments

Mike • Sep 21, 2009 @12:25 pm

Oddly enough, Nazi Germany implemented gun-control laws, disarming Jews.

OMG…Godwin's law!!!

Can you name any mass murder of an armed populace in the 20th century? What would Stalin have done if he had faced an armed populace? Mao? Pol Pot?

Of course, tyranny can never happen in America. Because we're special!

In that sense, Ezra, leftists like you are no different from the right-wingers you mock.

Who needs guns? It's like not any of the bad stuff that has happened in dozens of other countries in the 20th century, could ever happen here. Cuz we're Team America: F' Yeah!
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @12:25 pm

Never? I dunno. There's lots of things that have happened that folks would have said would never happen. I think Hubert Humphrey put the issue quite well many years ago:

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms … The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard, against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible."

Makes sense to me. Then again, I'm one of the folks who thinks — for good reason — that NRA is far too accomodationist, so what do I know?

The Red Dawn argument is kind of strange, though. Generally speaking, I would argue against using fictional movies as evidence about much of anything, but since you bring it up: the weapons that the kids in Red Dawn started with were largely (entirely, as far as I can tell) the sort that are available in many homes.

I think it's vanishingly unlikely that we'll have, or need, an armed rebellion in the US, and one of the reasons for the lack of need is the widespread knowledge that if even a fragment of one percent of gun owners were to "go all Red Dawn", it would be impossible for the government to put down a rebellion without inciting further ones.

"Hoarding weapons," as you put it, is one of those things that argues against the necessity for an insurrection; I hope that it will never need to come, and that it will never come, myself. In precisely that order.

I don't want to sound like I'm pro-NRA, even though I sort of, well, am. As far as NRA goes,I don't think that the folks who get concerned about the gradual encroachment on self-defense rights should do much more than be sure to keep their annual NRA membership current.

Beyond that, additional funds will do a lot more good when sent to more activist organizations — GOA, JPFO, A2A, or GOCRA, to pick some obvious examples. (Full disclosure: while I'm not an officer of GOCRA, I am on the entirely informal steering committee, and would love to see what we could do with an annual budget of 100K, or half that.)
Madrocketscientist • Sep 21, 2009 @12:28 pm

Do keep in mind that those who talk of armed rebellion as a good thing are few & far between. Although this does raise a question that such folks often ask.

Where would you, Ezra, draw the line and support an armed rebellion against a government run amok? How bad does it have to get before you admit the system has failed and the peaceful means of effecting change are gone?

How many more police abuses against the innocent, or prosecutorial abuses against those guilty of administrative violations, before you feel like a subject and not a citizen?
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @12:38 pm

Oh, and Ezra? If you're reading Cornell, do read some of the debunking, please.
Mike • Sep 21, 2009 @12:42 pm

How many more police abuses against the innocent, or prosecutorial abuses against those guilty of administrative violations, before you feel like a subject and not a citizen?

Yep. Great example of liberal cognitive dissonance. Most liberals – and especially San Francisco style liberals like Ezra – see a problem with police abuse. Um…Hello! Police are able to beat people up only because they have the full backing of the government.

So, while recognizing that there are substantial problems with police abuse…Liberals therefore "reason" that there could never, under any circumstances, be a time when the government might decide to go "full tyrant" on American citizens. Because the same government that allows cops to beat up people, the same government that executes and imprisons innocent people…would never go that far.
Patrick • Sep 21, 2009 @1:11 pm

Living in San Francisco as you do Ezra, it surprises me that you aren't more attuned to the history of the Nisei Japanese, who were first disarmed by executive order before being shipped to concentration camps. The disarmament is interesting because the Roosevelt administration sold it to the Nisei by telling them that if they accepted disarmament, they wouldn't be forcibly removed from their homes. Of course, that came later, after disarmament was a fact.

But that could never happen today, could it? If New York suffered, let's say, a nerve gas attack or another series of bombings, no one would call for the temporary internment of Americans of Arab or Pakistani descent. And if that did happen, of course the proper solution would be for those ordered to internment to submit themselves to camps, while challenging the legality of the order in court.

That worked wonderfully for the Nisei, right?

It's interesting that you have a book review in mind on the topic. I'm just finishing Jess Walker's Every Knee Shall Bow, about the Randy Weaver family's experience at the hands of the FBI, and it leads me to conclusions very different from those you draw.

Perhaps we could have dueling book reviews.
Mary Rosh • Sep 21, 2009 @1:25 pm

This is a vile and contemptable post.
Ken • Sep 21, 2009 @1:29 pm

One might conclude that these days, the individual right to own guns does not contribute meaningfully to citizens' ability to keep their government in check. I suppose that's arguable.

Similarly, one could argue that the First Amendment is insufficient to protect citizens against the modern state, particularly if the state is aligned with the media.

Neither of those is a grounds for pretending that rights are not enumerated in the First and Second Amendments. Deciding not to protect individual gun rights because they aren't as effective as their fans suggest is unprincipled, and contributes to an approach to constitutional law that, if followed, would bite us in the ass on other rights.

Don't like gun rights? Amend the constitution. That's hideously unpopular and would never pass — outside of Marin County? Well, that's the way the democracy crumbles.
Scott Jacobs • Sep 21, 2009 @1:30 pm

And even if my handgun or shotgun won't be used to rise up against the government, I would much rather rely on those two items than on the police should I awake to find people breaking into my home.

The police – as stated by the Supreme Court – have no obligation to actually protect me from harm… They are only obligated to investigate it after it's over.

I would rather have a say in whether I'm giving the police a statement.
Ken • Sep 21, 2009 @1:31 pm

Around here we like to show our work, Mary Rosh.
Ezra • Sep 21, 2009 @1:38 pm

Jdog, the book is Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea by Horwitz and Anderson.

Mike, I don't think it's government sanction that causes police brutality. In fact, I cheer whenever the law is properly applied and police that overstep their bounds are punished. I don't see how these incidents (and the concomitant punishment) are demonstrable of governmental tyranny. After all, if that were the case, wouldn't the State look the other way. That's not what happened with the Oscar Grant case or most other police brutality cases.

The insurrectionists seem to suggest that being armed gives one a veto ( ie Ed Brown) for laws you don't agree with. Who draws that line? Is gun ownership more important than voting? Is there a number of people who have to stand up with their guns to legitimize a rebellion? Was Timothy McVeigh a terrorist or a protestor?

By the logic above, the San Francisco Republican Party (yes, they do exist) should just stock up guns, declare that they are disenfranchised by their local government and march on City Hall. Does anybody think this is a good idea?
Rick H. • Sep 21, 2009 @1:39 pm

I'm a big fan of Popehat and no gun owner, but I think that your commenters so far have done a pretty good job (other than some throwing around of the word "liberal" as an epithet) of dismantling this post. Of course a "full tyranny" authoritarian police state in the USA seems like a vaguely impossible idea, something fit for a crappy 1980s agitprop Hollywood film… but as others have pointed out, the worst regimes in history all had to begin somewhere. The rulers generally want to gather up those pesky extra guns at some point.
Ezra • Sep 21, 2009 @1:44 pm

I think it important to note that nowhere in my post do I discuss banning any firearm. That is a very different argument than the one I am talking about here.
Heh, I think given my criticism of Obama my San Francisco Liberal card might be taken away, by the way.
Mike • Sep 21, 2009 @1:45 pm

The insurrectionists seem to suggest that being armed gives one a veto ( ie Ed Brown) for laws you don’t agree with.

So some people at the margins-of-the-margins might suggest this…Therefore…No guns?

You're a smart dude, Ezra. It's time to do some heavy lifting by actually addressing what people are arguing.

One becomes intellectually weak, living in San Francisco. When you're constantly throwing out clap-traps to a receptive audience, no one's brain gets a work out.

We Popehat readers care too much about you to let you get away with such things here. So…Let's see some heavy lifting.
Ezra • Sep 21, 2009 @1:52 pm

Again, this post isn't about banning handguns, it's about the NRA and others using the insurrection concept to try to legitimize assault weapon ownership, etc. Given that Scalia referred to the whole "tyranny" rationale in his Heller decision, I don't think you can call it a fringe idea. So again, what is the rule about such things? Is there a time when armed defiance of the government is not ok? Should true patriots bring a rifle to challenge a parking ticket?

Mike, you really don't understand Liberals or San Francisco if you think we agree on anything. Heh..
Scott Jacobs • Sep 21, 2009 @1:57 pm

So lemme see if I understand your position, Ezra…

Because you disagree with the premise that the 2nd amendment does not allow for us (today, ignoring the realities of the situation at the time the document was written) to overthrow a tyrannical government (or that ssuch a government will never exist in the US), the Second amendment is without purpose?

Because if that is your contention, then no you aren't calling for the banning of guns…

But you would be suggesting that Constitutional protection of the right to have guns is stupid and should go away, which would make the banning of guns far simpler… So that would – at best – make you an accessory before the fact…
Patrick • Sep 21, 2009 @1:58 pm

How many of those people are there, Ezra? How many serious people argue that, for instance, one should shoot a police officer attempting to serve a warrant for unpaid parking tickets?

You're shooting at a very fat, slow-moving target if that's the only sort of pro-individual rights argument with which you disagree. Oh sure, it's fun take aim at Fred Phelps, flat-earthers, and the like, but if you were to base a whole blog around serious deconstruction of the beliefs of loonies, well you'd have something pretty similar to Popehat, but that's getting awfully meta.

In the meantime, it would be nice to see you addressing some of the more serious arguments that have been raised in these comments, such as defense against criminals (remember, in Britain they've gone so far as knife control because gun control didn't solve the crime problem), that disarmed minorities have suffered persecution even in the most civilized states, such as the United States, Germany, and Russia (a most civilized nation despite western stereotypes to the contrary), and the extent to which one side-effect of having an armed populace may be a culture which values self-reliance, and therefore individual liberty.

Again, taking Russia as an example, the nation has traditionally had a disarmed populace, which may or may not have increased its tendencies toward collectivism and deference to authority, an atmosphere in which government action, when popular, can go further than it can in some other societies. After all, we don't like those highfalutin' Jews, or those dirty Chechens, anyway.

It seems to me that what you're really railing against is a form of culture, but you lack the self-awareness, even while admitting what you think your biases are, to make the logical jump.
tim • Sep 21, 2009 @1:59 pm

I think your post is largely moot by the simple fact that many groups have kept a larger invasion or occupying force in check with much less technology and weaponry. Its happening right now to the US in Afghanistan.
SB7 • Sep 21, 2009 @2:00 pm

"Blood Doesn’t Make Trees Grow"

Actually, blood is excellent for making trees grow. Really high nitrogen content. Fantastic stuff. And it's organic!
Scott Jacobs • Sep 21, 2009 @2:13 pm

If it makes the grass grow, it's gotta be good for trees…
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @2:25 pm

The introduction to the book you're reading is available on Amazon.com. It's not very well-thought out, at all, as it confuses intermediate steps with hypothetical endpoints, and defines its way out of the problem of bad governments. I guess I should like what the authors see as their #2, as it is, well, full of shit, proposing to "embrace self-defenders and sporting gun owners" (I'm both) with "education about the dangers of guns in the home" (while, apparently, keeping others ignorant about the dangers of not having guns in the home) and offering as a incentive "rigorous regulatory enforcement efforts to close the channels of illegal gun distribution" as though there aren't already ample such regulations and laws on the books.

Pfui.
St • Sep 21, 2009 @2:31 pm

I took from this post that the threat of tyranny is not a good argument for keeping citizens heavily armed. I didn't see anything about banning guns.
This happens a lot lately where the opposition argues against the fringeyest of a group's fringes and instead of saying, "yes, our fringes are fringey, good thing we don't all agree with them" people take the side of the fringe. Then everybody looks insane. Welcome to the 9/12 protest.
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @2:40 pm

St. — were you at any of the 9/12 rallies? I was at one, and didn't recognize it at all in any of the characterizations I've seen from folks who attended none. At the one I attended, one speaker quoted both Hillary Clinton and Hubert Humphrey to great applause, and told an Eleanor Roosevelt story, also to great applause.*

___________________
* Granted, I'm not objective about that, being the speaker . . .
Patrick • Sep 21, 2009 @2:42 pm

I didn't see anything in the post about the benefits of guns as instruments for hunting and feeding one's family and self-defense from criminals, or the fun of target shooting for recreation and sport ST.

Ezra reads between the lines of what I write very well. We've been blogging together for years. I flatter myself that I can muddle between his lines from time to time.
St • Sep 21, 2009 @2:44 pm

That's my point. When people defend their fringes, they all start to blend together. I don't think most 9/12ers are like their fringe but it sure starts to look that way. The sane folk need to get away from the crazies. A good start would be not attending something started by Glenn Beck.
For instance, I can oppose healthcare reform without defending those who believe it's socialism.
Ezra • Sep 21, 2009 @2:47 pm

Patrick, the target may be fat, but it is also not that fringe. The idea (which again I argue is both infeasible and impossible) that armed insurrection somehow keeps the government honest is a backbone of the NRA, and was a major component of Scalia's Heller decision. They would have you believe that the government needs to be held at gunpoint. I'm suggesting that's a bad idea (at best..) Mostly because it seems that hoping that a government created by people like Ed Brown will somehow be more egalitarian or more representative. I find that unlikely. I'm called naive because I see no case for armed insurrection. I think the same of those who think rebellion is the answer. It seems to me a recipe for anarchy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't armed minorities suffered persecution as well? It seems the common cause is not whether they are armed, but whether they are minorities.

The statistics about gun defense are also pretty stark. Simply, studies have shown that guns kept in the home are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal unintentional shooting, criminal assault or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense (ref: Kellerman, Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home)
St • Sep 21, 2009 @2:48 pm

Patrick, I don't know any of you well enough to read between the lines.
MadRocketScientist • Sep 21, 2009 @2:50 pm

"Mike, I don’t think it’s government sanction that causes police brutality. In fact, I cheer whenever the law is properly applied and police that overstep their bounds are punished."

I cheer too, but nowhere near as often as I'd like to since from what I read in the news reports, prosecuters and police are loathe to go after their own, even when it's obvious laws were broken.

"legitimize assault weapon ownership"

Please let this go, there is no more functional difference between a semi-auto hunting rifle and a civilian version of a military weapon (like the AR-15) then there is between a Corvette and a Cadillac.
MadRocketScientist • Sep 21, 2009 @2:51 pm

Kellerman was shown to be a bad study.
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @2:56 pm

And even if my handgun or shotgun won’t be used to rise up against the government, I would much rather rely on those two items than on the police should I awake to find people breaking into my home.

Been there, done that; no t-shirt. We lucked out; the cops were in the house about six minutes after the 911 call. I can get some self-help a lot faster than that.
Mike • Sep 21, 2009 @2:56 pm

Patrick, the target may be fat, but it is also not that fringe. The idea (which again I argue is both infeasible and impossible) that armed insurrection somehow keeps the government honest is a backbone of the NRA

"Honest" is a relative term. I fear unjust tickets, speed traps, and small towns of all types. I do not worry about a genocide within the U.S. borders.

In a very important sense, an armed populace keeps the government honest.
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @2:57 pm

The idea (which again I argue is both infeasible and impossible) that armed insurrection somehow keeps the government honest is a backbone of the NRA, and was a major component of Scalia’s Heller decision.
Could you maybe argue that with Hubert Humphrey? He thought otherwise.
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @2:58 pm

Kellerman? You expect to persuasive on gun issues and you cite Kellerman? Sheesh, you're better than that, Ezra.
MadRocketScientist • Sep 21, 2009 @3:05 pm

Just one criticism of the Kellerman study
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kellerman-schaffer.html
Jess • Sep 21, 2009 @3:10 pm

"The idea (which again I argue is both infeasible and impossible) that armed insurrection somehow keeps the government honest…"

Other correspondents have cited Afghanistan's resistance to governance, historical government impunity in unarmed Russia and China, Japanese internment in the USA, police apathy in the USA, etc. as examples that refute this very point. Please respond to these examples at your earliest convenience. You seem to believe that you're arguing with a straw man, and so all you need to observe is, "look, straw!" Such is not the case.
Ezra • Sep 21, 2009 @3:14 pm

I'll grant that significant parts of Kellerman have been discredited, however there is still valid data in the study, as long as one is careful to cite only the thoroughly vetted sections.

Humphrey made his 2nd amendment comment in 1959 as part of a political campaign. Not even I am so naive as not to realize that politicians on campaign might just say things that they don't mean.

Mike, I just don't agree. More importantly, the term honest there is loaded. I think hostage might be a better term. I think the government should provide healthcare for it's citizens, Ed Brown disagrees. He has a gun, and I do not. Is either of us right? Does he have the right to shoot me to make sure I don't vote for Universal Healthcare?

Again, I suppose what I am trying to wrap my head around is the very idea of armed insurrection against the government? When is it acceptable, when is it not? Why is it the focal point of NRA communication? Is it really ever going to happen? Again, I think not. Timothy McVeigh tried it, and not many people jumped to his side.
Patrick • Sep 21, 2009 @3:30 pm

Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t armed minorities suffered persecution as well? It seems the common cause is not whether they are armed, but whether they are minorities.

This seems suspiciously similar to an argument that one should "lie back and enjoy it." Frankly, the argument interests me more from a world-historical viewpoint than a domestic viewpoint, but I'll submit that had many Native American tribes been better armed (perhaps by the British through Canada or the Spanish through Mexico), they might be in better shape today than they are.

As for history, why one only need look at Rwanda (in which armed Tutsis, with no assistance from the west), and Eritrea for instances in which armed minorities halted majority genocides or gained independence from genocidal governments within the past twenty years.

It would be helpful to watch Sri Lanka for the next ten years, not for the absence of civil war, but to see how the Tamil minority is treated by the Sinhalese majority.
MadRocketScientist • Sep 21, 2009 @3:35 pm

A study with that many flaws is a study that needs to be redone, not taken piecemeal. Still, even assuming that Kellerman was correct and a gun in the home is more likely to cause accidental harm to the residents then intentional harm to an intruder, that is a case for an educational campaign of proper firearm storage and handling, not for discouraging ownership.

Still, that is not what you asked in the original post. Do I think an armed insurrection is possible? Yes, with the right people running it, and if the government had crossed a line such that a significant portion of the population was discontented, it could happen, and it could be successful.

Do I think we are anywhere close to that point? Nope, not until the government starts do ignore or disassemble the primary institutions that allow peaceful change. Until then, our government will continue to be of the common people who know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard (apologies to Mr. Mencken).

I do think there are gun owners out there who really want that armed rebellion, or at least want the BATFE to come stomping through their door so they can go out in a blaze of glory, but they are the fringey fringe, not the mainstream gun owner.
MadRocketScientist • Sep 21, 2009 @3:37 pm

Oh, and Mr. McVeigh did not exactly advertise his political beliefs to a growing crowd of discontented citizens. Kinda hard to jump to his side when you have no idea who he is.
Yehoshua • Sep 21, 2009 @3:43 pm

I prefer that the government has a monopoly on the use of most force because I think that our government, on the whole, can do a better job applying force than the alternative of also allowing individuals to exercise a fairly wide array of forceful options.

Does our government do a good job as of now? No, not a good job. However, I think we as a polity could get more "bang for our buck", as it were, if we abandoned the idea of private gun ownership and instead focused our efforts on preventing tyranny by political means and strove more powerfully to achieve consensus on the use of force by our government domestically and internationally.

I think that the alternative of continuing to allow individuals to possess firearms is wasteful in money, lives, and time.

I also happen to think that this issue is not particularly important in the greater scheme of things (though the issue of politically preventing tyranny is incredibly important).

One problem I see is that domestic incidents involving guns merely provide an excuse to a domestic administration bent on curtailing liberties. Gun violence at a political rally could, in the future, provide a passable excuse to limit the freedoms to associate and speak in public. People used to be able to come up an visit the White House and shake the President's hand on a daily basis; gun violence by individuals largely put an end to that.
MadRocketScientist • Sep 21, 2009 @3:49 pm

Yehoshua

Why do people think that adults need to be treated like 1st graders by our government? Since when is it OK to restrict a civil right because Timmy "ruined it for the rest of us".

Most of the laws which restrict our rights are reactive attempts at security. Instead of trying to build in better security, our government just figured it would be better to ban things.
Ezra • Sep 21, 2009 @4:00 pm

"Do I think an armed insurrection is possible? Yes, with the right people running it, and if the government had crossed a line such that a significant portion of the population was discontented, it could happen, and it could be successful."

And that's what fascinates me about this whole thing. Who leads it? How is that decided? Is there a structure to the whole thing? What happens to the silent majority that likely disagrees with the rebellion? I don't see any prominent politician lending themselves to this movement, so who takes charge? At the risk of fulfilling Patrick's curse and criticizing a culture, I just don't see a World Leader in the insurrectionist movement.
Ezra • Sep 21, 2009 @4:09 pm

Jess,

I just don't see Afghanistan being analogous, since they are always defending against invaders (or liberators when we do it..) it is literally a Red Dawn sort of thing. Very different than overthrowing your own government (and make no mistake, Kharzai is still considered a US puppet).

I don't think any of those examples showed armed citizens keeping a government honest. I suppose one could argue that if they had had armed citizenry things might have been different (as Patrick does with Russia) but in my opinion it would really have just led to even harsher government crack down (a scary thought in both places!) Given the hypothetical nature of the question, we might both be right.

As to internment, if it didn't happen after 9/11, it ain't happening. Not even Shrub could (or would) pull the trigger on that one.
MadRocketScientist • Sep 21, 2009 @4:10 pm

Who leads it? How is that decided?

I wonder if King George and/or his advisors thought the same thing when Jefferson et. al. were making noises?

And I think the reason you don't see such a person heading any such insurrectionist movement is because Americans overall are not nearly disillusioned enough to want to listen to such ideas seriously.

But I think we should be allowed to keep our guns, just in case the government goes beyond the pale and such a person becomes "interesting" to listen to.
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @5:27 pm

Ezra, I'm interested in your concern about Insurrectionism — would you argue that somebody who oolitically associates himself with an Insurrectionist ought to be excluded from the mainstream of American political life? And, if so, how are you going to explain that to all those friends of yours who voted for Barack Obama, given his association with Bill Ayers, who not only advocated Insurrectionism under some hypothetical future case, but actually practiced it, and whose practical buddies actually killed people in doing it?
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @6:07 pm

Yehoshua: if you really believe that's the right policy, you're going to have to convince a lot of people if you want to put it into effect; repealing the Second Amendment isn't going to be easy.

I'd add, "lots of luck," but that would be insincere.
Jdog • Sep 21, 2009 @6:10 pm

And that’s what fascinates me about this whole thing. Who leads it? How is that decided? Is there a structure to the whole thing? What happens to the silent majority that likely disagrees with the rebellion? I don’t see any prominent politician lending themselves to this movement, so who takes charge? At the risk of fulfilling Patrick’s curse and criticizing a culture, I just don’t see a World Leader in the insurrectionist movement.
That's not your lack of vision — right now, and for some time, the number of people who believe that a violent insurrection is the right thing to do is restricted to demonstrably violent nutcases like Bill Ayers ("guilty as hell, free as a bird", and who says he "didn't do enough") and the theoretically violent ones like the late, unlamented William Pierce.
Bruce • Sep 21, 2009 @7:26 pm

Maybe I don't have the right cultural frame of reference to understand this, but are people arguing that the Nisei should not have handed in their weapons so they could have used them for an insurrection of some kind? Do you hold onto your weapons in case you need to resist against being interred against your will by some as yet unknown Govt. agency – and if so, how do you think you will fare against the army. I guess you might take a couple with you.

I also find it difficult to imagine at what point this well regulated militia will form up. I am reminded of Jim Hacker being tested by Salami Tactics.
Jdog • Sep 22, 2009 @5:11 am

Should the Nisei have violently resisted their utterly lawful (SCOTUS said so!) relocation and internment? Probably not. While it was horrible and wrong — even though the SCOTUS said it was legal — I hope and think they had faith in the flawed goodness of the US, and that what would happen was just internment, and that the country would come to its senses later. (Which, thankfully, it did.)

It was a good call, collectively. The US did wrong by the Nisei (and, arguably, by the Isei; that's a longer discussion), but they were interned, not murdered. And some of the Nisei did pick up guns, later on — not to kill their cocountrymen, but to serve with distinction and honor in the service of their, and our, country in the 442nd RCT, most famously.

I hesitate to go here, but I will: not too long ago, I was asked by the son of two Holocaust survivors for what my advice was, if things change so dramatically in this country that the government starts rounding up Jews, a la It Can't Happen Here.

What if it does happen here?

I told him, as I've said here, that I think the likelihood of the US government becoming Nazi-style tyrannical soon is zero, and ever is remote, and that part of the reason for that is that there are so many armed Americans who wouldn't put up with it. This isn't Germany, or France, or Zimbabwe, or any other place where, historically, that sort of thing has happened. When we have attempted pogroms here, the authorities don't join in, but put the pogroms down. Not as well as I'd sometimes like, sure — I remember Yankel Rosenbloom, don't you? — but . . .

But remember Norway, I said. I'll admit it: I'm a believer in American exceptionalism, but we're not the only exceptional people on the planet. We, the people, won't let it happen here.

"But what if you're wrong?" he asked.

"Take at least one with you," I said.

I don't think he, or I, will ever have to. Fine by me.
Patrick • Sep 22, 2009 @5:42 am

As to internment, if it didn’t happen after 9/11, it ain’t happening. Not even Shrub could (or would) pull the trigger on that one.

Actually Shrub angered many on the right extreme by going out of his way to associate with and invite Muslim religious leaders to the White House.

But if you believe "it couldn't happen here," why do you believe that? Without addressing Joel's cultural arguments, I believe that Americans are exceptional from other western and westernized countries (which have committed countless atrocities against their own people), statistically speaking, in two primary ways: the number of guns we own (which stems from a certain cultural viewpoint), and the number of our lawyers (another culturally generated phenomenon).

If you accept that, do you believe that "it couldn't happen here" because we have so many lawyers? What would Robespierre and Lenin have to say about that?
Jdog • Sep 22, 2009 @6:45 am

There's a bizarre notion in Ezra's writing on the subject — that because something bad looks vanishingly unlikely now, it simply can't happen.

That's just not the case and, more importantly, it's just not persuasive. If Ezra were to argue that some at present far-fetched tyrannical government in the US isn't likely to happen soon, I'll be happy to join him.

But he's trying to persuade people — and flailing about by citing Kellerman, for Ghu's sake! — that people talking about a future possibility of a legitimate insurrection are so dangerous, here and now, that everybody must be compelled to give up their chosen means of self-defense to disarm the "insurrectionists."

I haven't looked to see if he's pointed to McVeigh, yet — but it's worth remembering that McVeigh, when he murdered hundreds of people, didn't use an "assault weapon," but common agricultural stuff: fertilizer, diesel fuel, barrels and detonators.

Taking away my hunting partner's kid's deer rifle (she shot her first deer with an SKS) will prevent future McVeigh's precisely how?

That's just silly.

Beyond the silly, Ezra goes to the absurd. If one accepts his conditions of contest, in order to make my own decisions about which devices I'm unwilling for the government to ban, I've got to describe, in detail, some unlikely future event in which I'd agree to take part in an insurrection — to his satisfaction, and then somehow persuade him, despite his ability to wave away the unlikely-in-the-immediate-future as though it were permanently impossible, that it's a reasonable position.

What word was I looking for? Ah: no.

Ezra: the attempt to take away "assault weapons" is a nonstarter, for lots of folks, including me. Here's why. Save your breath to cool your soup.
Jdog • Sep 22, 2009 @6:46 am

That's embarrassing: could some admin spare me future embarrassment by taking that absurd apostrophe out of "McVeighs", above? Pretty please?
Rick M • Sep 22, 2009 @9:08 am

Ezra, there probably will not be a leader rise up to begin an insurrection, if there be one. It will be spontaneous as is the tea parties, at some egrigious incident that will be taking away more of our liberties.

And that is what troubles me. We may not like who emerges as winner in the outcome.

I am a gun owner and a strong supporter of the second amendment.
Ezra • Sep 22, 2009 @9:14 am

Why do I believe internment couldn't happen here? For the same reason that I didn't ever believe (as many Liberals did) that Shrub would try to run for an illegal third term. Both were equally unlikely (I would argue nigh impossible..) As a nation, we respect the rule of law (at least in terms of our country, not so much other countries..) From Assasinations to Watergate to Bush v. Gore, the US has the longest history of peaceful transfers of power. We aren't a coup sort. I would argue that is not beholden to our armed selves, but to our devotion to the ideal (if not always the letter) of Democracy. (and despite that last sentence, I am not a beliver in American exceptionalism..)

Jdog, no minus points for grammar here. I am a serial ellipse abuser. See, to me (and I will only speak for myself) the idea that we need to stockpile weapons for the day when our government overturns the Bill of Rights is just as bizarre a notion. Even sillier to me is the idea that licensing guns (and gun sales) will lead to some massive database to confiscate all weapons when the end times come. If the government can't be trusted to run healthcare, why should we think this database will work at all?

Again, this post never mentions banning handguns. Sure, I'm all for regulating and licensing them, but I won't ever begrudge someone owning a handgun.
Stephen • Sep 22, 2009 @9:45 am

"We aren’t a coup sort. I would argue that is not beholden to our armed selves, but to our devotion to the ideal (if not always the letter) of Democracy. (and despite that last sentence, I am not a beliver in American exceptionalism..)"

What about the Civil War? That's the most likely model for a future revolt, imo.
Jdog • Sep 22, 2009 @11:15 am

Even sillier to me is the idea that licensing guns (and gun sales) will lead to some massive database to confiscate all weapons when the end times come.
I agree. Confiscation has happened, repeatedly, and registration has pretty much always been a precursor; no need to wait for the end times.
some dude • Sep 22, 2009 @12:01 pm

I think you have to define your time frame. If you say 'will an insurrection be needed in the next twenty years', the answer is almost certainly not (with the caveat that the citizens of Weimar Germany probably didn't foresee the turns their history would take over a couple of decades).

OTOH, if you ask 'will an insurrection be needed some time in the next 500 years', I'd answer 'why not – name a country that hasn't needed one for a 500 year period'. Iceland comes to mind. Any others? We've only been a country a little over two centuries. Rome was a republic for several hundred years before becoming a dictatorship. Why should we think our history be profoundly different from all the prior ones?
MadRocketScientist • Sep 23, 2009 @10:55 am

Registration does lead to confiscation
St • Sep 23, 2009 @12:52 pm

You mean, *not* registering your gun leads to confiscation. ??
MadRocketScientist • Sep 24, 2009 @8:44 am

Actually, it was lapsed registrations that led to confiscation, but still, the police had a master list to work from. And of course, once registration is in place, you can do a Chicago and make the registration process so complicated that most won't bother owning a gun at all.
Ctiberius • Oct 8, 2009 @1:15 pm

I think some of you live in very urbane, cosmopolitan sections of the country where the very notion of insurrection is absurd. I do not live in such a place. The local political rhetoric is increasingly loud, frightening and the notion of resistance (armed if necessary) is going more and more mainstream. Try reading about the 10th Amendment after you finish with the one about the 2nd. The very idea that a distant, disconnected political elite should mandate that my child eat breakfast at school or that I give my family flu vaccinations would make Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians alike rather uncomfortable. I haven't seen the battle flag out in force in many years. It is back, it is flying and it is an increasingly common sight.
Patrick • Oct 8, 2009 @2:06 pm

I live in North Carolina Ctiberius, and I get into the hinterlands more often than you'd think. If they're flying the battle flag, I haven't seen it.
St • Oct 8, 2009 @4:03 pm

Cincinnati, and we spend family time in Chillicothe, OH.
And where do you live that your child is forced to eat school breakfast? My daughter eats at home, she can choose to eat more at school if she wants unless I tell her not to. We are also given the freedom to opt out of all vaccinations (we don't) especially the flu.
But I'm very glad that the children my daughter spends her days with are mostly vaccinated and all well-fed.

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