Posted on 05/05/2013 9:08:58 AM PDT by chessplayer
Before we get started on this story, I would like to take a moment to point out that you’d be hard pressed to find any point where I’ve been anything but a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, as I would hope most regular readers know. I’ve taken flack for it from a lot of people this year, ranging from family members to folks in the media. But even approaching it from that sort of position, I’ve got to say that this is a really bad idea.
A march on Washington with loaded rifles
"Libertarian activist and radio host Adam Kokesh is hoping to get 1,000 people to march on Washington on July 4 — armed with loaded rifles. The plan, launched with a Facebook group today, is to gather on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where gun laws are lax, and then march across the bridge with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders into the District, where openly carrying weapons is generally prohibited."
“This will be a non-violent event,” the Facebook group warns, “unless the government chooses to make it violent.” Already, over 200 people have said they’ll attend the march."
The plan is to march over the bridge, around the Capitol building, the Supreme Court and the White House, all with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders. Honestly, it’s difficult to imagine a worse idea, particularly in the midst of a heated debate with gun grabbers in the government. Kokesh describes this as an act of “civil disobedience” but it falls well short of that goal. If he wanted to promote an act of peacefully breaking the law to make a point, it would certainly be worthy of considering. For example, you could take a large number of people to block the entrance to the main office of the A.T.F and force the police to arrest and remove you. But this is something very different.
Showing up with a thousand (or even a few hundred) people openly carrying loaded weapons and marching toward the Capitol is not something that law enforcement is going to play around with, particularly when you announce it in advance. And they’re not going to allow the march to proceed “peacefully” either. Normally I’d write this off as a bad idea that wouldn’t gain widespread support, but the problem here is that it doesn’t need widespread support. It would really only take a few hundred really upset people to get it rolling. And even if most of them intend it to be peaceful, when the officials show up to arrest them, weapons drawn, you have the potential for disaster which Rick Moran foresees.
"With the furor over gun rights and the government’s efforts at gun control, this march is likely to attract enough people to make it an extraordinarily dangerous event. Who knows what kooks will be marching? Most marchers will no doubt be level headed and sincere in their desire for a non-violent event. But it only takes one unbalanced person to cause a tragedy."
Sensible gun owners, along with the NRA, are making the point that the government needs to respect the rights of law abiding, responsible gun owners and spend their time chasing the actual criminals. There could be no better gift to hand to gun rights opponents than to have a bunch of people get arrested for breaking established (if really bad) gun laws or, worse, getting in a shootout with the cops. This is not the type of representation we need in this debate.
UPDATE: (Jazz) From the Boss Emeritus. Was this all a dodge?
"[Kokesh] marched in uniform in mock patrols for the anti-war movement, paraded around holding an upside-down American flag (see Jonn Lilyea for more), was arrested for defacing signs, and traveled to Germany to urge soldiers to abandon their posts and seek aid and comfort with his anti-war minions."
"Kokesh, believe it or not, is now running as a Republican candidate for Congress in New Mexico. And, believe it or not, he is getting positive exposure on at least one Fox News show. He has the backing of Ron Paul, the Republican Liberty Caucus, and the 9/12 Project."
"The New Mexico Republican Party has its head in the sand. If you have friends and family in New Mexico, make sure they know who the real Adam Kokesh is."
"He is an anti-war smear merchant in GOP clothing. Spread the word."
Hopefully the NRA issues a statement prior to the rally.
A thousand won’t do it,now if you could get a million or so,now you are talking,but not on 4th of July,there are nothing but tourists there,the bastards causing this mess are no where around
I suppose this is a reasonably good place to bump this thread. I still haven’t resolved my ambivalence over whether marching with live ammo is a good idea vs. bad idea.
Do you think that's likely to happen? Most gunowners I know take their firearms rights very seriously, and would never consider going armed while they're wasted. I don't know who you've been hanging around with ...
Yes, I know it's incendiary. Yes, I know it's provocative. Yes, I know it directly challenges the latter-day Gestapo to do something about it.
But maybe that's what it's come to. And maybe this is the last chance we'll get.
I doubt the Minutemen did so much navel-gazing when the British marched on Concord. They grabbed their guns and manned the barricades. It may very well be time we do the same.
If not now, soon ...
The problem is the public just isn't there yet. If something goes wrong, we look like armed crazies. The public doesn't like crazy unless they feel absolutely oppressed - and the bulk of the public most certainly does not feel that way at this time. When what passes for the American public can pry itself away from RealityTV, then maybe something like this could be effective. We're just not at that place yet.
And in this case the whole thing is nonstarter anyway because Adam Kokesh is an anti-war nutter.
The kind of people that would follow Adam Kokesh are not your typical gunowner and not the kind of people most conservatives would want associated with them. Kokesh basically represents the lunatic fringe of the anti-war left and the wildest conspiracy theorists of the Ron Paul cult (normally found on Infowars).
Grab the popcorn and 3D glasses!
Do you think that’s likely to happen? Most gunowners I know take their firearms rights very seriously, and would never consider going armed while they’re wasted.
We’re talking about Kokesh supporters,,,not most gunowners.
That's one of the problems: "the Fed is too big/powerful to prod/inconvenience" only means that the Fed is too powerful.
What? That's absurd... the people gave them the authority, they can take it away and punish them for the abuses heaped upon them.
What? Ron Paul has some good things he supports: auditing the fed, for one.
I agree; The problem is that we consistently refuse to say "the line must be drawn here!" -- I mean look at the people who defend the Republican party and voting for the Fabian Socialist Romney... at what point is "too much"? ("You have to vote for the lesser of two evils.") Talking to them I rather think that such a point doesn't exist for them.
Kokesh is a lying, treasonous sack of turds. I wouldn’t follow him into a bar serving free beer, much less an armed march. He’s an assclown and deserves derision and scorn.
MLK was non-violent, but the bystanders weren’t. They threw rocks and other things at the police.
People not trained in non-violence saw what the police and firemen did to the protestors in Birmingham in newspapers, magazines and on TV 50 years ago and they became violent.
It has been said that non-violent civil disobedience leads to violent civil disobedience.
Whatever methods of resistance people choose, the outcome may not be very nice.
The sympathy among the white population was extensive in the early 1960’s but faded as the violence in the aftermath of the non-violence spread across the cities in the North.
Conservatives of the 1960’s like author Lionel Lokos were critical saying that violence always seemed to follow the non-violence.
He penned a book published after Dr. King’s death entitled “House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King”.
The left is drooling over this and are hoping this stunt goes ahead. That alone should be enough to show us what a stupid idea this stunt is.
While it would bring things to a head, the results might be unintended consequences.
Maybe an “empty holsters” march could get the publicity without the government violence.
And how do you know that the Left is “drooling” over this?
You don't march into Washington except with a modern military force, and you don't try it until you have enough to defeat what Washington will throw at you, or, preferably, have already defeated its armies. If we ever got to the point where people were taking up arms, as posited, they would only be effective if they were organized into a force sufficient to gain US Army adherents, military hardware and territory to operate from. Hopefully, the feral government armies will fade away and join the army of the Patriots and the march into Washingon, when it comes, will be a triumphant parade with drums beating, fifes playing and joyous celebration. But if that doesn't materialize, if the socialist state is able to maintain a fighting force that has a good chunk of the current military power and, more importantly, hardware, then it may be more judicious to leave the commies alone in their hell holes, form our own forces, and demand to go our separate ways. A divorce. If attacked, we can then defend our own territory. Would be nice to get hold of a few of those nukes in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota. The commie state will collapse at some point anyway, so what do we care what they do, we just don't want to be part of it, and I for one, don't want to have armies enter their territory and fight a war on American soil to force people to live under our Constitution. Let them create a new one; just reading it would be good for a laugh.
I just hope they let me emigrate from California to the US when that day comes, if it comes.
There is always hope that the Constitution still works, that there is time to fix this, that the elections in 2014 will go favorably, that a President Cruz will begin the road back to Constitutional rule, free markets will be restored, growth will help keep the debt from imploding the budget, and all will be well with the world. I am still holding out that hope, but truth be told, it is starting to become a long shot. Because that is so, we need to decide what we will do if the electoral process is incapable of preventing imposition of tyranny by ruling marxist elites using useful idiots and dispossessed minorities to reduce us all to serfdom. I know what I will do, but what I won't do is make a suicide attack on Washington when it is at its most powerful. That, my dear FRiend, is what would be absurd.
Succinct and accurate.
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