Egypt chaos sending a 2A message?
- Thread starter madmag
- Start date
Blue Train said:
The people under the new regime get the say. If, without intimidation, they say the new regime is better, then it's better. It seems the human species naturally favors freedom of choice. It's nice to read or say what you want without fear of reprisal. Or even to participate in a gun forum if you like.
Nope, but these people didn't just go to all this trouble to replace one tyrant with another.
People tend to think of the "middle east" as one homogeneous body, and they tend to think "Arab" means one group, with all the same desires and mores. That's not the case.
The Egyptians are fairly modern, skeptical (in the original sense), and they have a substantial middle class. Most likely, the political situation will come out looking something like Turkey.
Rufus T Firefly
Moderator
Our interest in guns began with survival forums
Events like Katrina and now current events made us evaluate where we are and how to survive. I don't want to be political at all here. I basically have a well earned distrust for any denomination of politician.
We stocked some food and made some plans. Got a 1377 Crosman for small game. We quickly realized we had a big hole in the plan. No defense! We had a survival knife and a machete, but a single shot for defense? Obviously our focus is more concentrated on usable self defense.
Events like Katrina and now current events made us evaluate where we are and how to survive. I don't want to be political at all here. I basically have a well earned distrust for any denomination of politician.
We stocked some food and made some plans. Got a 1377 Crosman for small game. We quickly realized we had a big hole in the plan. No defense! We had a survival knife and a machete, but a single shot for defense? Obviously our focus is more concentrated on usable self defense.
This is what I posted on the reddit /guns forum when somebody said that "10,000 Egyptians with guns flooding into the main square would have been a bad thing".
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OK, here's how it works.
If you want to pull off a relatively bloodless revolution patterned on what happened in Tunisia, you need to get the cops and/or the military on your side.
SHOOTING those same cops/soldiers is counter-productive if that's your goal. So yes, the original poster is correct: 10,000 armed Egyptians in Tahrir Square would have done more harm than good.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a role for guns!!!
See, a dictator like Murabak has a problem: not enough psychopaths to go around. He needs total psychos to do the "secret police" crap - the midnight arrests, torture sessions, body dumping, etc. So the usual pattern is, he'll pile up those sorts in a small number of organizations, sometimes as little as one org. This model was adopted by Nazi Germany: you had the SS doing the really horrible **** as opposed to the regular German military and even most German cops who usually despised what the SS were up to.
The pattern was actually perfected by the Tsars in Russia prior to the commies taking over.
So what does this mean?
Well when you're out doing the mass demonstrations, you don't want guns around so long as things haven't gone all the way to a civil war.
Where you DO want guns is at the small organizing meetings for the protests "behind the scenes" where you have to fear raids by the real psycho-organization(s). THOSE bastards need shooting!
The US civil rights movement was no different. Esp. early on when Dr. King wasn't a major figure that couldn't be taken out without a major backlash, his home and various meeting places were armed camps ready to fend off midnight KKK raids. Out on the streets waving signs or doing sit-ins or whatever, no, that's the time for unarmed resistance.
The other time guns come in handy is when leaders or organizers are quietly on the move. The "Mississippi Burning" murders happened in 1964 when a single carload of voter registration workers were ambushed and killed with the cooperation of local cops. After that, a lot of those voter registration workers went armed and some Klan died too out in the back roads where the gruntwork of civil rights reform was happening.
Now...I'm uniquely qualified to discuss this. I'm a former lobbyist (2003-2005) for a smaller "NRA similar" org, yet I've also been arrested and spent 18 hours in the San Diego County jail for an unarmed protest against illegal voting system secrecy by that county - an unarmed protest taken straight out of Dr. King's playbook. But if somebody from Diebold or the like ever wanted to take me out, well they COULD, sure, but not quietly. Not at ALL quietly - I can make damned sure of that. Full-house 357Mag is anything but quiet.
Upshot: Non-violent protest is strongly preferred over an all-out civil war by anyone sane, but at the same time organizers of protests can and have been subject to criminal assassination - and have an absolute personal civil right to self defense under such circumstances. And it works because regimes don't have a hell of a lot of real psychos to threaten you with.
Jim March
Member of the Board of Directors, BlackBoxVoting.org (I'm one of Bev Harris' "lieutenants")
2nd Vice Chair, Pima County Libertarian Party
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OK, here's how it works.
If you want to pull off a relatively bloodless revolution patterned on what happened in Tunisia, you need to get the cops and/or the military on your side.
SHOOTING those same cops/soldiers is counter-productive if that's your goal. So yes, the original poster is correct: 10,000 armed Egyptians in Tahrir Square would have done more harm than good.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a role for guns!!!
See, a dictator like Murabak has a problem: not enough psychopaths to go around. He needs total psychos to do the "secret police" crap - the midnight arrests, torture sessions, body dumping, etc. So the usual pattern is, he'll pile up those sorts in a small number of organizations, sometimes as little as one org. This model was adopted by Nazi Germany: you had the SS doing the really horrible **** as opposed to the regular German military and even most German cops who usually despised what the SS were up to.
The pattern was actually perfected by the Tsars in Russia prior to the commies taking over.
So what does this mean?
Well when you're out doing the mass demonstrations, you don't want guns around so long as things haven't gone all the way to a civil war.
Where you DO want guns is at the small organizing meetings for the protests "behind the scenes" where you have to fear raids by the real psycho-organization(s). THOSE bastards need shooting!
The US civil rights movement was no different. Esp. early on when Dr. King wasn't a major figure that couldn't be taken out without a major backlash, his home and various meeting places were armed camps ready to fend off midnight KKK raids. Out on the streets waving signs or doing sit-ins or whatever, no, that's the time for unarmed resistance.
The other time guns come in handy is when leaders or organizers are quietly on the move. The "Mississippi Burning" murders happened in 1964 when a single carload of voter registration workers were ambushed and killed with the cooperation of local cops. After that, a lot of those voter registration workers went armed and some Klan died too out in the back roads where the gruntwork of civil rights reform was happening.
Now...I'm uniquely qualified to discuss this. I'm a former lobbyist (2003-2005) for a smaller "NRA similar" org, yet I've also been arrested and spent 18 hours in the San Diego County jail for an unarmed protest against illegal voting system secrecy by that county - an unarmed protest taken straight out of Dr. King's playbook. But if somebody from Diebold or the like ever wanted to take me out, well they COULD, sure, but not quietly. Not at ALL quietly - I can make damned sure of that. Full-house 357Mag is anything but quiet.
Upshot: Non-violent protest is strongly preferred over an all-out civil war by anyone sane, but at the same time organizers of protests can and have been subject to criminal assassination - and have an absolute personal civil right to self defense under such circumstances. And it works because regimes don't have a hell of a lot of real psychos to threaten you with.
Jim March
Member of the Board of Directors, BlackBoxVoting.org (I'm one of Bev Harris' "lieutenants")
2nd Vice Chair, Pima County Libertarian Party
While I wish it were so, Mr. Madmag, I don't think you are always free to read or to say what you want in this country without fear. Notice that "BlueTrain" is not my real name (hint: it has to do with both a car and a train--two gold stars to whoever understands it). Sometimes having the wrong bumber sticker will get your windshield smashed in or, sometimes, prevented from attending a political rally. Mostly, however, it isn't that bad. Relationships between different peoples in this country are not always exactly what they are made out to be by those who may or may not know any better.
It is amazing, when you think about it, that in this country, when a new president is inaugurated, all the former presidents attend if they can still totter around, even when they are of entirely different political persuasions. But be that as it may be, there still occurs a certain amount of "dirty tricks" in elections and sometimes perfectly legitimate and legal civil organizations are looked upon as "troublemakers" (which they might actually be) and attempts are made to control them somehow. Ultimately, even here, there are government interests in what you are allowed to profess.
It is amazing, when you think about it, that in this country, when a new president is inaugurated, all the former presidents attend if they can still totter around, even when they are of entirely different political persuasions. But be that as it may be, there still occurs a certain amount of "dirty tricks" in elections and sometimes perfectly legitimate and legal civil organizations are looked upon as "troublemakers" (which they might actually be) and attempts are made to control them somehow. Ultimately, even here, there are government interests in what you are allowed to profess.
tom servo said:
The problem in these circumstances is that "what egyptians want" or "what the people I know and talk to want" isn't determinative of what will happen.
Iran was a growingly secular and very pro-western muslim country with a cosmopolitan urban middle class. There were always a few nuts around, but the Shah saw them as an impediment to Iran's growing place in the functional wider world.
Some of the middle class thought he was heavy handed and pushed for change. We reflexively sided with those nice people who wanted "reform". After all, they are nice people like us, right? We put the word out that we would not back the Shah. He fell, and the fact that lots of doctors and university professors and business owners and their wives who wore make-up and skirts really wanted the same kind of society but with a popular vote didn't matter. These were people with much to lose and little to defend it with.
If someone burns your wife in public for reading, or cuts your daughter's nose off for going out in public, or puts your youngest child in an oven and makes you watch while it cooks alive, you aren't going to bravely stand for parliamentary government and free speech. You are going to be silent or leave, if you can.
That the muslim brotherhood is a minority political faction not supported by many matters less than what the MB will do when they see an opportunity.
A reformed old regime is still the old regime.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/13-1
Ironic how the military says it will protect the right of the people to protest, unless it's people they don't like.
Basically the military council has to make reforms quickly enough to satisfy the people. Shutting down peoples ability to collective bargaining is not a good first step.
The problem with old regimes is their main interest is maintaining the status quo and protecting their own power. That makes efforts at reform ineffective or at best cosmetic.
There are a couple of options. There can be a military junta which takes control or the old regime can add some revolutionaries to the government.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/13-1
Ironic how the military says it will protect the right of the people to protest, unless it's people they don't like.
Basically the military council has to make reforms quickly enough to satisfy the people. Shutting down peoples ability to collective bargaining is not a good first step.
The problem with old regimes is their main interest is maintaining the status quo and protecting their own power. That makes efforts at reform ineffective or at best cosmetic.
There are a couple of options. There can be a military junta which takes control or the old regime can add some revolutionaries to the government.
Buzzcook said:
Yes, generals are (of course) power hungry like most......so after they consolidate power they will probably be reluctant to turn loose. There is a good chance Egypt will go from the frying pan to the frying pan.
When I started this thread it was about links to 2A rights....I hope we are not going too far afield.
There are guns in Egypt. A few came out of the closet during the first few nights of looting. When the army started enforcing order, they were quietly put away.
Their legal status is questionable, but there are guns in people's homes any place they're banned. Hang out in Australia or England long enough, and you'll find out that some guy on your block has an old rifle in the closet somewhere.
Now, are there enough to make a difference? I don't know. There's a point when there are just enough Stasi, NKVD, or Frumentarii to make armed resistance seem a very unappealing course of action.
Fortunately, it never came to that. What happens in the next few weeks and months remains to be seen.