Bring it
Amitai Etzioni a the Huffington post says we need domestic disarmament:
Given that even micro gun control measures will be effectively blocked by the NRA and its allies, and that promoting mini measures as potentially effective is misleading, progressives may as well go for the big enchilada: Call for domestic disarmament.
I don’t think progressives understand how that will play out. Those sitting on the sidelines cheering on the disarmament effort are as much fair game as those doing the disarming.
But he does acknowledge proposed gun controls will do nothing.
December 9th, 2015 at 7:42 pm
And then the character played by Lee Van Cleef said, “Everyone knows it’s impossible to cut someone’s throat with a Bowie knife made from a road sign. Unless it’s sharp.” And then he smiled.
December 9th, 2015 at 7:50 pm
All this talk of their’s has gotten really tiring. These guys need to start kicking dorm doors or STFU.
Trouble in my time so my children may live in peace, and all that.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:52 pm
Call for domestic disarmament? As an American, there are other things for which I would prefer to call. Things that reflect on my heritage of freedom, and a wilingness to value that freedom over life itself, Mr. Etzioni, you pathetic, crawling, little insect.
December 9th, 2015 at 9:29 pm
Well, to do a confiscation without coming up with the cash to buy the property that is being seized, you have to abrogate the 2nd amendment, Due Process and eminent domain.
Hmm, what’s left after all that? And if the Constitution is abrogated, then the government loses it legitimacy and no one owes it any support. Not to mention the many, many individuals who actually took an verbal oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
BTW, it really freaks people out when you explain to them how the domestic enemy to the Constitution could be the government.
December 9th, 2015 at 10:08 pm
There are a lot of people whose Burt Gummer switch would be flipped by that.
December 9th, 2015 at 10:53 pm
The true irony here is that, per Wikipedia, Mr. Etzioni is Jewish, and he was born Werner Falk in Cologne, Germany. When he was a small child, his family fled the Nazi regime that had achieved the very civilian disarmament that Mr. Etzioni now advocates.
Even more interestingly, Mr. Etzioni’s family settled in Palestine, where he joined the Haganah and fought against British rule. Many at the time would have likely labeled him a terrorist. After the Israeli declaration of statehood, he fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
If the Mandatory Palestine of his youth had achieved the “domestic disarmament” Mr. Etzioni now desires, his struggle for his country—as well as Israel’s eventual independence—may well have been impossible.
December 9th, 2015 at 10:53 pm
I tried war game it out for a few gun grabbers I know, letting them know how it would all play out. Needless to say they are all still stupid about gun confiscation and think it would be a walk in the park, because people would have to comply… Just like the people are complying in CT and NY (along with CA based on last weeks events), with all the new and improved disarming laws. Oh well, I tried.
December 10th, 2015 at 1:07 am
Bob Owens over at BearingArms.com has an article that wargames out what might come next in the light of a confiscation scheme. Interesting read.
December 10th, 2015 at 1:12 am
Well they spectacularly fail to appreciate how seriously this is viewed by people who are on the opposite side.
Granting government, any government a total monopoly of force is a horrendously bad idea. Once that is done you’re trusting not just the current officials to be benevolent but everyone that holds those positions from now on.
December 10th, 2015 at 9:52 am
“…he does acknowledge proposed gun controls will do nothing.”
Au contraire, mon cher.
It has added about one million firearms to the private American arsenal in the past seven years alone.
Bon travail!
December 10th, 2015 at 10:16 am
“Those sitting on the sidelines cheering on the disarmament effort are as much fair game as those doing the disarming.”
Welcome to the Three Percent concept of 4th Generation Warfare as applied to an American civil war. “Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the prospect of being hung in the morning,” eh?
December 10th, 2015 at 10:22 am
Remember, if you are thinking it’s time to bury your guns, it’s also probably the time you need them the most.
December 10th, 2015 at 12:57 pm
It’s impossible to deport 11 million illegal immigrants but confiscating over 350 million firearms is totally doable. Riight.
December 10th, 2015 at 1:07 pm
Professor Etzioni was a senior adviser to the Carter White House. Need one seek any further information to dismiss his arguments?
December 10th, 2015 at 3:07 pm
mikee, I made a mistake and voted for Carter in 1976 thinking he was one of the old fashioned Southern conservative Democrats. I rectified that in 1980 voting for Reagan, but even Reagan was for some gun control and signed some into law as California Gov. Republicans hold Reagan up as an icon, but it should be to CONSERVE the Constitution and Bill of Rights as did “the old right” Republicans.
December 10th, 2015 at 3:33 pm
Ron, just like Bogey and Becall will always have Paris, you and I will always have Carter.
And now his successor at the bottom of the worst presidents list, President Obama. Who still has a year to go, and absolutely nothing but the urge to golf holding him back from fundamentally transforming the US.
December 10th, 2015 at 7:03 pm
A few years ago, Connecticut, New York State and Colorado enacted various gun/magazine bans and have seen NON-COMPLIANCE rates of anywhere from 92% to 99%…. and the gun-grabbers in those States don’t know whether to defecate or go blind. You can expect similar non-compliance rates nationally.
December 10th, 2015 at 7:11 pm
It’s the Progressives doing what they always do; attacking their political opponents. All the talk about crime and safety is just cover.