A Gun Nut's Notion of "Subtlety"

[paft.livejournal.com]

Adam Kokesh: We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.

So Adam Kokesh has a GREAT idea! A thousand men marching on Washington DC on July 4th, carrying loaded weapons.

Kokesh says that his intent is "to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated [and] cower in submission to tyranny," which is pretty rich coming from someone whose response to legislation he dislikes is to wave a loaded gun at the legislators. It's especially interesting, if not especially reassuring, to read his comments about the marchers' commitment to non-violence.

There's a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting. We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

All of which, of course, depends on every single marcher's interpretation of being approached "respectfully." This frankly sounds more like a barely veiled... excuse me... "SUBTLE" threat that Kokesh thinks they should start shooting if things don't go the way they want it to.

He elaborated further on that same Facebook page:

(Emphasis Added) Now that it's undeniable that this is going to happen, allow me to make clear how. There will be coordination with DC law enforcement prior to the event. I will recommend that they do the best they can to honor their oaths and escort us on our route. Failing to provide that commitment to safety, we will either be informed that we will only be allowed up to a certain point where we would be arrested. If this is the case, we will approach that point as a group and if necessary, I will procede to volunteer myself to determine what their actual course of action with someone crossing the line will be at which point fellow marchers will have the choice of joining me one at a time in a peaceful, orderly manner, or turning back to the National Cemetery.

Okay, Everybody clear on this?

I am a woman who wrote graduate papers on Henry James. I attend a Bloomsday celebration of Joyce's Ulysses on a regular basis, and listen with pleasure and comprehension to the readings. I've read every word of Mrs. Dalloway, The Sound and the Fury and The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy. Mandarin writing holds no terrors for me. But I have to confess Adam Kokesh's "subtlety" here defeats me. As near as I can figure out, he's saying that, as the leader of a thousand individuals marching with loaded weapons into our capital, he will generously instruct the DC police on how to deal with someone "crossing the line," backed up by lots of armed marchers crowding around and helping him in this negotiation.

As Crooks and Liars Crooks and Liars puts it -- What could possibly go wrong?

Especially given what he Tweeted last week:

When the government comes to take your guns, you can shoot government agents, or submit to slavery.

Comments

[paft.livejournal.com]

s: It was also against the law for people of a certain skin color to sit in certain places despite constitutional protections that said otherwise.

You honestly don't see the problem with equating the passive resistance and non-violent demonstrations of the civil rights era with a bunch of men marching to DC en masse so they can wave their loaded guns at legislators?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Not at all. You honest don't see the parallels?

[paft.livejournal.com]

The only parallels I see are that both cases involve human beings engaged in a demonstration. The fact that one group is explicitly peaceful and unarmed, and the other is making thinly veiled threats of violence and toting loaded weapons makes the nature of both demonstrations so different as to make any attempted comparison insane.

Anyone who's unable to grasp the difference between attempting to change someone's mind through civil argument, and attempting to someone's mind by pulling out a gun, loading it, and fingering it significantly during the argument, should probably not own a gun.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Anyone who's unable to grasp the difference between attempting to change someone's mind through civil argument, and attempting to someone's mind by pulling out a gun, loading it, and fingering it significantly during the argument, should probably not own a gun. - Except the U.S. Constitution grants the right to bear arms, just as the Constitution grants people the right to express their opinions freely and peaceably assemble. Until a shot is fired, it's still a peaceful protest.

[paft.livejournal.com]

dp: Except the U.S. Constitution grants the right to bear arms, just as the Constitution grants people the right to express their opinions freely and peaceably assemble.

No right in the Constitution is absolute. Just as there are limits on free speech (like libel laws, and truth in advertising) so are there limits on gun ownership and use. And a mob of men marching with loaded guns is not what most people think of as a "peaceable assembly."

dp: Until a shot is fired, it's still a peaceful protest.

That definition of "peaceful" requires a willful suspension of common sense. I can just hear the guy I mentioned earlier pulling out his loaded gun and significantly fingering it during an argument. "Oh, this? Nothing, nothing. Just wanted you to see it. A friendly warning, like. You don't want to get disrespectful now. You really don't want to do that. We're just having a niiiiiiice, peaceful discussion, aren't we?"

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Considering you want to chalk up the words of one idiot as a blanket statement for anyone who owns a gun or would DARE march to Washington to protest their right to own said weapon, I'd LOVE to know where your indignation was when there were people from Occupy Wall Street (a supposed PEACEFUL protest group) raping people in their tents or smashing store windows or harassing small business owners, hmmm?

[paft.livejournal.com]

dp: Considering you want to chalk up the words of one idiot as a blanket statement for anyone who owns a gun or would DARE march to Washington to protest their right to own said weapon..

That one idiot is the person organizing the march.

dp: I'd LOVE to know where your indignation was when there were people from Occupy Wall Street (a supposed PEACEFUL protest group) raping people in their tents or smashing store windows or harassing small business owners, hmmm?

We've already talked about this, dp. Occupy Wall Street tended to be the victims, not the perps, in the incidents you've cited, and OWS was certainly not posting announcements that included veiled threats of violence if they didn't get their way.

And if Occupy Wall Street and other unarmed protests could not prevent people from smashing store windows what makes you think this guy is going to be able to control every armed person in this large march?

Do you honestly not see the difference between arguing with someone civilly, and pointedly holding a gun in the course of an argument? Back when a date of mine decided to show me his loaded gun when I asked him to take me home, do you think my deciding he was nuts and never going out with him again was an overreaction?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Occupy Wall Street tended to be the victims, not the perps, in the incidents you've cited... - Bull! One of the kitchen volunteers was arrested and charged in three separate incidents with women in Zuccotti Park. A girl in Ohio was a victim of someone in the encampment and the volunteers helped shield him.

And if Occupy Wall Street and other unarmed protests could not prevent people from smashing store windows... - Why would they prevent them from smashing windows when it was members of Occupy Wall Street who were doing the smashing and bystanders within the group cheered the vandals on? What about the "shut down the pier" protests where hudreds of OWS followers interrupted business and vandalized trucks and other private property?

Do you honestly not see the difference between arguing with someone civilly, and pointedly holding a gun in the course of an argument? - YES! Unless said gun is pointed at someone or fired or threats are made, it's still considered a PEACEFUL protest. What part of that is so difficult for you to understand?

[paft.livejournal.com]

dp: A girl in Ohio was a victim of someone in the encampment and the volunteers helped shield him.

What are you talking about?

dp: Why would they prevent them from smashing windows when it was members of Occupy Wall Street who were doing the smashing and bystanders within the group cheered the vandals on?

Not here in Oakland, where that kind of violence took place because of a group of provocateurs called the Black Bloc, who committed their violence in spite of the vociferous objections of Occupy protestors -- some of whom tried to put themselves between the vandals and the building they attacked.

And what do you think would have happened if the Black Bloc had shown up with loaded weapons?

paft: Do you honestly not see the difference between arguing with someone civilly, and pointedly holding a gun in the course of an argument?
dp: YES!

You don't? So you figure when that date of mine "argued" with me by showing me his loaded gun (not pointing it at me -- just letting me know he had it there in the car) you figure that was no big deal? Really?

If you're that disconnected from reality, I really don't know what else there is to say.

dp: Unless said gun is pointed at someone or fired or threats are made, it's still considered a PEACEFUL protest.

Not by anyone sane.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Question. Who told those good law-abiding people that they should be murdered for standing up for their 2nd Amendment rights? I must have missed something. Got some links that might be helpful?

Second question. What does gun control have to do with race ("hateful racist democrats")? Or has the meaning of the word "racist" been so diluted these days, that it now means anyone who disagrees with me/you/somebody?

Last question (I hope). Did you like the Stupid Talking Points Debunked month? You may not answer that one, it was rhetorical.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Rosa Parks was not packing heat and uttering veiled threats.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

She may not have been, but Malcolm X and Stokeley Carmichael and the Black Panthers were.