The next "controversial" take that shouldn't be controversial is the usefulness of cooperatives. I get that cooperatives alone are not revolutionary, but they are so obviously useful as one single node of a much larger strategy that I do not get the anti-cooperative anarchists.
I wonder if anyone has heard about Michael Tellinger and his ONE SMALL TOWN strategy. I have a couple concerns about the investor rights, but overall the approach seems to hold merit.
So many leftists I've seen are against coops. I've heard it said that they "teach workers to be capitalists", which just just shows such a profound ignorance of what capitalism actually is. It's not just owning the means of production, it's absentee ownership, which a coop very much is not.
@@LongDefiant personally don't know anything about it. My opinion is that coops, if and when they exist, should be embedded into existing communities, should be promoting community council structures, and should provide a safe place for union (labor, tenant, and student) strategy meetings etc. they should be part of a network entrenched in rank and file militancy and should be trying to build power from below in existing spaces.
@@LongDefiant having just looked it up, it seems to be deeply capitalistic, and the guy is an ancient astronaut theorist. So I'm not too interested, but Murray Bookchin's communalism seems like a viable program that does not have capitalist baggage. I think communalism is incomplete without militant unionism and specific anarchist organizations.
@@otherpersonha! I thought the astronaut guy was a different person. Weird stuff for sure. I don't really care that much though. You can find a diamond in a cesspool after all. In any case, I'm just looking into it, and yes, it's definitely capitalistic, just like Dr. Wolff's worker co-ops. I wonder if it's a possible stepping stone strategy towards truly horizontal relations. EDIT: I get into Bookchin every few months then drop him. For me it's an indication that I have a learning curve to climb. Thanks for the reminder to pick up his writings again.
The points that (1) firearms are never going to be uninvented and that (2) they will always be available to the state are really the crux of it all. Talking about anything else is a distraction when people want to discuss gun legislation.
This is my biggest struggle as an anarchist so being so dismissive can be hard for people you call comrade. My kiddo goes to school and i have panic attacks when they get on the bus. I know its the capitalists who are arming the fascists so if we cut their power they wont be spreading so many firearms to dangerous people but my ape brain sometimes tells me that regulating guns might work
One crucial aspect of getting ready to defend ourselves and fight is physical conditioning. Looking at it, a lot of left-wingers I've seen are not well conditioned at all. Moving fast without getting too tired, climbing, lifting objects, etc., are all very important aspects of survival if there is violence. I would advise leftists to train themselves physically, and to pick up something like parkour, which is both fun and accessible once one is fit enough. It was developed fairly organically and horizontally, and the original ethos of parkour vibes well with anarchism.
This this this. Parkour was a huge reason for me being anarchist. Need to be able to escape in any situation is often more important than knowing how to fight in every situation.
@@wandererstrainingMy life experience has been the opposite, and I live in an area where one is far less likely to experience violence than the average. I've had two home invasions, one in which I was assaulted, and was charged by a mother black bear while hiking. The use or presence of a gun saved my life the two times I had one on me. Parkour, as fun as it, not so much.
@@TeddyJozefick Interesting. Home invasions are very rare here. (I'd re-evaluate how violent you think your society is, btw. Two home invasions, one of which you defended yourself with a gun, legally. That's not not violent.) I've encountered many bears, but none of them have ever behaved aggressively towards me. When I was more of an insurrectionary anarchist, parkour training was useful to access places, and useful to avoid getting caught. It wasn't the parkour itself as a speed run that ever saved me, but the physical abilities and the levels of comfort it gave me moving around. It helped me create diversions. For example, people would be looking for me. I'd go to a direction they can predict, but jump off something as soon as the visual contact is broken, and they wouldn't react in time because they wouldn't see me jump, or climb, or hide. Also, when comparing the use of fighting skills with parkour skills, I meant unarmed combat.
My position is that there's a difference between collective and individualistic gun ownership. I'm in favor of a decentralized federation of armories but not individual ownership. We have decentralized models of collective ownership and we can apply the same principles when it comes to guns plus more advanced weapons. Requiring keys from multiple people to open up the armory can provide a horizontal model of weapon ownership while putting a check on an individual's unilateral power to kill others. A militia can vote to open up the armory without a hierarchy while at the same time negating individual rash decisions. Guns also aren't all that great for a revolutionary purpose without that collective organization anyway. Standardizing ammunition is important for logistics. A lone gunman will just be killed by the state. A collective decision to have each other's backs is necessary for a revolution to actually get off the ground. Plus, more asymmetric weapons like drones are certainly going to be more effective than trying to wage a conventional war with guns, at least to start out, and if there's any chance of success the government armories and supply convoys will be raided for guns and such anyway. I don't see initial access guns as being anywhere close to being a deciding factor in a modern revolution. A problem I have with a lot of anarchist discussions when it comes to guns is that things often fall into the same false dichotomy of state ownership vs private property that right wing "libertarians" push when it comes to the economy. We have collective decentralized models we can apply when it comes to community defense, too. There's a lot more than hyper-individualism and state ownership to choose from. Think outside the box of liberalism.
I think the idea you have here is a good one, but I'm also pretty sure it's illegal to create armories shared between multiple people. Maybe someone knows of a particular loophole which could make it work, though
@@Anark Pre-revolution, each person could have their own gun safe but with multi-custody locks on them so they can't be opened by only the owner. Adding other people's locks on the safe doesn't change who is in possession of a gun.
@@Anark In a democracy, people should be able to choose their laws. It'd be difficult to get people to vote for it, but it is technically possible. On the other hand, there is revolution.
To protect the interests of capital from any political dissentients mainly, while coincidentally solving other actual crimes (If you consider detectives to be police, but how rarely does a detective need a gun when it's not a crime drama) because people and organisations are complex and people will have differing goals...? I'm not really strengthening my own case here. No war but class war.
My honest opinion: in the same way that a martial artist, who is trained to be capable of inflicting violence through basic combat, is the least likely to use violence irresponsibly, developing martial arts for MODERN combat (and not combat for people using feudal tools) could very well act as a natural reform of gun violence. If we need guns, we need methods, we need schools, we need proper training. No reason not to. Martial arts were developed for real combat, because real combat had very tangible events, in predictable scenarios. We have the same, we know what types of conflict will happen WHEN we will need to use weapons, so no reason to not train ourselves in techniques for that specific type of event.
There are schools. They even have classes on conealed carry and community defense. The problem is that they're all run by retired SEALs and military contractors. They're all marketed as SPEC OPS lite training courses. And they all focus on individual skill rather than team-based fire and maneuver. I think a fantastic move would be to build one of these courses and run it as a cooprative.
Before I listen, to state my position, I'm a pro-gun anarchist. Every human being could be armed to the teeth and yet be perfectly safe because we don't have any reason to murder each other. In other words, I see gun violence as a symptom of social relations rather than the availability of firearms. Maybe it's naive, but eliminating the tension over life-sustaining resources seems to me to go a lot farther than simply keeping guns out of people's hands.
I totally agree that an "armed to the teeth" populace could be totally peaceful in a society free from societal ills. For me the debate begins when we consider what to do in the society we have now. I'm open to the idea that limiting gun access in current US society will save lives even though I'd prefer that we solve the underlying problems that lead to gun violence.
@@mutex1024 A bandaid on a bullet wound is better than nothing, sure. It will save lives. I question though... Save lives for what? So they can go on living under this oppressive system? I don't want to sound callous. Lives are precious, but gun control alone won't allow us to live free of oppression.
I'm not comfortable with any single entity having a monopoly on violence. Even if a group had good intentions to begin with, absolute power has a tendency to corrupt.
This is the sort of nuanced discussion I was hoping for. With the current spate of mass shootings and gun violence it is difficult to parse through all of the hot takes across the political spectrum and come to useful conclusions. I agree that we must arm ourselves and learn to use weapons effectively. I also agree that we must strive to create a gun counterculture that emphasizes self-defense and safety. I also think we must be critical of the sort of blithe calls for government regulation as a catch-all solution to the violence we are experiencing. I am horrified by the mass shootings, but I highly doubt that the US govt will implement any sort of weapons ban that wouldn’t primarily target oppressed communities. Historically, armed self-defense has been a key aspect of black liberation struggles here and abroad, and as a black radical I can’t help but worry about how such legislation will be implemented (even though I know it has positive effects in some areas). With that said, gun violence is a massive problem and must be addressed, and I simply don’t know what that looks like. I hate not feeling sure about an issue, but in this case I will continue to ponder (but also prepare)
When you mentioned how right wing forces are currently training all the time these kinds of tactics it struck a nerve and I finally realized that if this type of training is not encouraged on the left we will be horribly outmatched in a confrontation with violent right-wing forces. I was already "pro-gun" of a sort, but this solidified some lingering misconceptions I had or ideas that I hadn't fully examined yet. Thanks for such a thorough and thoughtful video!
as an anarchist who is deathly terrified of guns, and of violence of any kind, i think about this a lot. and, frankly, you’re not wrong. the more history and theory i read, the less of an objection i can really muster to anything you said in this video. even when i was a liberal, i was wobbly on the standard lib narrative of gun control. many liberals make fun of right-wing gun culture - rightly so in most cases. it’s extremely silly. but when they would say, “what revolution are you preparing for anyway?” and go into a diatribe about banning all guns, i would be like, “these are all good points and i agree with many of them. but… what if revolt is actually necessary in some capacity, at some point? just because the government is on our side now [i WAS still a liberal at this point], that doesn’t mean they’ll be on our side forever… how do y’all deal with that? protest doesn’t mean much if they’re allowed to fucking shoot us…!” the position i eventually settled on for years in private was “it’s okay for people to own *a* handgun, and any total ban on firearms has to extend to all agents of the state too.” which isn’t a horrible position, necessarily, just a completely unworkable one. i think i’m still kinda there in terms of a gun policy* i’d personally be comfortable with, but because it’s not realistic, i have to agree with your position despite my personal discomfort with it. i don’t know that i’ll ever feel comfortable with guns being near me. i’m too susceptible to depression for that to feel healthy. but i’ll definitely take what you said here under advisement. * i know we don’t do “policy” here in anarchy-town, but that’s the closest word that comes to mind.
I am in the USA, and I grew up around guns while learning safety, respect and responsibility for my thoughts and actions. With this, there is nothing to fear. Fear is a set of lies and exaggerations sold by the state to keep people ignorant and unable to affect change.
@@TacticalTerry i’m sure that’s true! i just lack your experience and knowledge, and i’m prone to intrusive thoughts when i’m around anything that could hurt me or someone else pretty easily. the same thing happens sometimes for me with kitchen knives, though i’ve gotten better about that as i’ve learned how to use them in daily life. i will push back slightly on one thing, though. “safety, respect, and responsibility for [one’s] thoughts and actions” does not always seem like it’s been adequately imparted to the gun owners i’ve grown up around. particularly the latter two - i know there are gun owners in my area who i wouldn’t trust to handle a gun around me. not because they’re unfamiliar with gun safety, but because there’s a certain… well, i’m not sure how else to put this: there’s a certain *horniness* to the way they talk about guns, and about potential violence in general. there’s a toxic machismo to it, a superiority. with these people, i don’t feel the respect or responsibility coming through. instead, i feel a worrying fascination with their own percieved heroism, coupled with an outsize paranoia that they are under siege from outsiders that is exacerbated by constant reinforcement from right-wing media. now, this doesn’t describe *that many* people in my area, and it could just be an incorrect read i have on them due to my own fears. you could also rightly argue that i just shouldn’t be around those people, and that they are the problem rather than the guns, which are tools without will. indeed, i have tried as hard as possible to put space between us in all aspects of my life. but i think my wariness around those people and the circles they walk in is at least *reasonable*, even if it’s mistaken. you know?
@@ffordesoon I hear you. It would have been nice in another life to have met you in person and show you the world of firearms without having to deal with the wild nature of those friends. It seems like you are doing what you can to make peace for yourself. I know what you are talking about regarding the machismo of those people. From what I see, many of the run-n-gun tacticool fascination guys are full of "tough talk" and little else. Hope they grow up some and calm down with age. The really truly dangerous people are fairly quiet about their intentions and skills until the time comes to strike, and much has to happen before they decide to strike. With great power and responsibility, great patience and wisdom must be cultivated. Some of the paranoia that you describe comes not only from the right-wing media but also from experience and our elders who pass stories down to us. We see in our history that compromises were one-way and the things that we let go of for the sake of societal safety were gone forever without really changing the violence in society. It produces grief and resentment in the gun community and outside of it. The children deserve good lives, and I hope that some balance can be preserved in the pursuit of that. Right now it seems like we are in a period of unbridled restrictions which feels eerie to people like me. Some of it is media-fed, but some of it appears accurate. Reacting to another part of your message, I'm proud of you for discerning the intrusive thoughts and for being able to find peace with your kitchen knives! That's a big step forward. Recognizing the intrusive thoughts as an artifact of the brain and not as a part of your personality or active thinking is huge. So many people believe that the thoughts are a part of their personality ready to emerge, and as an unfortunate result they lose trust in themselves and are tortured by the thoughts almost continually. The torture of the thoughts makes and the anxiety that comes from that makes the intrustive thoughts stronger and more persistent. I have good and bad mental health days like the rest of folks, and sometimes similar intrusive thoughts. On the days where I am truly bothered I leave the firearms in the safe and the knives in their containers. No harm in letting them sit until I am ready to wear them calmly and responsibly. The best victories in life seem to come from self-control and a calm sense of self-confidence. Thanks for speaking with me. It's important for me to see things through your eyes and potentially share some thoughts or information that you might not get a chance to consider (and then let you sift out what is useful or discarded of course).
It helps that having come over from the right, I was already pretty pro-gun. I get the issues other leftists have with them, and am quite sympathetic to them but the right is constantly training with firearms and we on the left do need to match them should the time come we have to be on the defensive. Appreciate your input on this issue.
As someone who lives in a country with strong gun laws, explosives and other chemical-based weapons are significantly easier to access and use in asymmetric warfare. There are many more options between either guns or martial arts that weren't explored here!
One of the good things I got out of studying state socialist projects was learning about Ho Chi Mhin and the way he and a small group of eight others with a small group of firearms (mostly bolt action and two flint lock rifles) defeated the french military through a long, sporadic, well thought out, low intensity revolutionary war.
I'm VERY " consent based gun libraries" than I am "individual rights to OWN firearms". They're killing machines 🤷🏼♀️ Average folks shouldn't need them, but should absolutely learn to wield them, AND have collective access, more than one person at a time, and with everyone's knowledge. I'm also pro open carry ONLY. Even as a revolutionary, I would hypothetically want my fellow militants to have a say whether or not I get a gun, and everyone should always know when anyone near them has a firearm. Guns have two ends. The holdy end and the shooty end. A person on the holdy end has MUCH more potential power than a person without one. The people without guns deserve the right to not be around them if they choose, AND to maintain that on their own terms. Such as, "no gun neighborhoods" and cities, but ONLY on a consent based level. Eventually, I think we can destroy almost all guns and just keep a tiny amount for the unpredictable things. But that is only a thousand years from now. Until they, they're VERY necessary for defending the people's hold on taking back their power.
The problem with that is it's a central repository, and thus a weak point for attack. It works if we're defending from an outside threat such as a military incursion, but the police and fascists are *in* our communities. So, at least until we reach the stage where we have stable horizontal communities, it's important that each individual is able to arm themselves independently. (by which I mean they have personal access, not that they should be expected to fund acquisition and training alone)
5:10 I think I'm a bit hesitant to describe the time we need guns by largely focusing on it as something that will "eventually come." A revolution would be a future event, but even with things like MMIP awareness month that just got here, guns in the current day before a revolution are still something I think groups need for violence that is currently still today being carried out. Otherwise, thank you for the great video!
I obviously am not a big fan of school shootings or mass hate murders. As a result, my vague position up until now has been total banning of firearms, or at least heavy regulation. Really just anything to reduce the number of guns in our society. However, your video has kind of just shattered my worldview. I think the utmost important point you mentioned is that firearms will never be uninvented. Because they are, to date, the most effective way to exert authority on another individual human being, concentration of firearms and people trained to use them is now what determines the flow of power in our society, and this will remain true as long as firearms exist. The more I learn about the world and the more I develop my personal politics, the more I come to realize that violent revolution may indeed be necessary to create an acceptable society. You’re absolutely right that peaceful revolution is paradoxical. Power and authority are what dictate the state of the world, especially when considering the larger scale. As such, a society where the state has access to firearms and the people do not is a society where the people have no power. If the state is completely pure, there isn’t a problem. But if the seed of corruption is ever even planted, the people will have no recourse. I’m still not sure what my opinion on the topic is, or how I even identify politically after this. However, I appreciate the nuance and compassion you approached this subject with, and I can tell you truly care about creating a world that is worth living in. I’m off to watch your other videos now, because I really want to know what the future should look like, even if challenging my beliefs again and again is hard.
I think self defense/hand to hand training has a more immediate benefit, especially for minorities who are currently in the crosshairs. If you're LGBTQ+ or a POC, and you can safely take some lessons or classes and learn how to do some basic things, I can't stress the value of that enough. It doesn't have to interfere with also being familiar with firearms, firearm safety, and first aid. For the love of god, at least learn how to throw a punch safely.
I think theres definitely something to be said for training on how to use non violent tactics involving firearms. I.E ambush and surrender, encirclement and seige, and the taking of enemy combatants for leverage. Like that seen in the Philippine revolution. That and effective demoralization and propaganda campaigns aimed at getting enemy combatants to voluntarily lay down arms.
Here's an idea for those far right militias that control the conversation on gun rights. Revolutionaries (in minecraft) should use them as practice for the "real" fight. These militias will likely be leveraged against us by Mojang eventually as their proxies anyway, meaning they'll be who we fight first in The Struggle, might as well practice some covert ops skills in minecraft, and start leaving Redstone TNT traps in their barracks where they LARP their Alt-Right Krystalnacht... in minecraft. I think that minecraft Factions that roleplay as white supremacist and other authoritarian factions should have their bases griefed and their faction members hunted by PVP experts loyal to the cause... in minecraft.
This comment reeks of fetishization for war and fantasizing about senseless violence. I woudn't trust someone like you with a weapon when the revolution comes. De-escalation is the first defense, not the opposite. Especially against those of our own class.
I get the necessity of guns as a tool in revolutionary action, but I will still never keep on in my home. The risk of an accidental or impulsive firing is just too high. In general, I'm deeply skeptical of the narrative of the gun as a tool for personal protection. Outside of instances where the individual is isolated and help is hours away, personal guns are more likely to cause harm than do good. A close and supportive community offers far more safety and security than a single tool could ever hope to.
@@Nai-qk4vp that's projecting by any sense of the definition lol and ad hominem does not help your neoliberal ass take. Making a community defenseless because you're not ok defending yourself because you're uncomfy is ridiculous.
@@damonjackson5857 And again, they were not saying communities should be defenseless. They were saying they would not keep a firearm in their home and that they believed a strong community is better to prevent violence then to use firearms to remediate it. Can you even read?
Alot of people forget its the existence of capitalism and the state that drives people to either violence as a way to live or insanity as they worry they will die or are being spied on through corporations and the state, its why libertarians/conservatives for example never talk about how gun violence is caused only saying "its not as bad as people say it is".
It's interesting that you bring up the UK. We used to have much more relaxed gun laws until there was a school shooting. Just one. The government enacted such strict regulations that owning firearms is almost impossible for ordinary people. Sure, we've never had a school shooting since, but communities are almost entirely unable to defend themselves against threats from the state and the far right. We do have some success, but it's reliant on sheer numbers rather than effective defence. Good for solidarity building, not a viable long term strategy. The US however has gone too far the other way. Where we went too restrictive, the US refuses any level of sensible behaviour around guns and allows people to store them unsafely and allows people who clearly should have no business owning a lethal weapon to have anything they want. Leading to non stop gun violence against innocent people and a pointless escalation with law enforcement. If the US didn't allow unstable people access to firearms (and yes this includes the police) and instead had, you know, a healthcare system that worked, the problem would maybe not be solved but would certainly stop being a concern.
I think some nuance needs to be discussed when talking about hand-to-hand combat. And places like California owning a gun can be very difficult and in the community defense situation. Knowing boxing or Muay Thai will help keep you safe and others safe. Yes, maybe in an armed conflict. It might not be so useful, but for slowing the spread of fascist ideologies I think it is.
Maybe not to shift the tide of a conflict ditectly. I can see why someone believes as a whole it will not be a decisive factor in winning a battle.But perhaps in a more isolated level hand to hand combat could very we increase your chances of coming out on top. Or even agsinst one enemy in a battlefield if ammo has run out and someone tries to stab you with a bayonette or in highly close quarters combat .Also, I can at least conceice thaf in a more indirect manner hand to hand combat could perhaps help in a more indirect manner by keeping your reflexes sharp and you fast and strong and ready to fight. I'm no soldier. I've only know very little about warfare. But i suspect there is a good reason why the US military does teach some hand to hand combat to its soldiers.
In the interim in regards to personal protection? I think there's an argument to be made that less-lethals (specifically Pepperball launchers) are a serviceable means of descalation & stopping potential threats. The ability to deploy ranged irritants has existed for decades, we just need better advancements in this field to make it more accessible and viable for everyday citizens. Keeping in mind? I don't necessarily need to own an AR-15 when I can take the M16 off of the dead government agent carrying one. But an important factor I think worth mentioning is the equalizing power firearms do possess, but not necessarily for men, it's for women, children, handicapped, and the elderly. Anyone can pickup & learn to use a gun, modern conventional ones are very intuitive and often made for the lowest common denominator. In turn? This makes them actually more suitable to people who'd be at a disadvantage in a physical confrontation. Ironically? The patriarchal vibes of right-wing machismo gun culture are antithetical to what firearms really represent, because it's a tool best utilized by the marginalized & physically disadvantaged.
This is not a comment on the video as much as it is about the comment section: I just went for a long scroll down the page and i was surprised by how very few comments I saw with opposing viewpoints. Most comments I saw were some version of "I don't like it, but I agree". I'm not making a value judgement about the arguments in the video or about the comments, but it really did just surprise me how little dissention there was in the comments.
This mirrors many of my own thoughts, I have remained steadfast in my opinion that guns are a unfortunate necessity. I have understood that the data backs up the fact that more guns lead to more violence and it is undoubtedly true that strict gun control would curtail these issues massively. But at the end of the day, an unarmed populace is completely at the mercy of the state and capital.
I think there needs to be a more critical analysis of groups like the SRA who tend to welcome in authoritarian elements of the left. In addition there needs to be an actual understanding of legal issues surrounding the use of firearms for self-defense and proper storage which is helpful information for other anarchists
Us: " wow a genie!" Genie:" YOU ARE GRANTED ONE WISH" Us:" I want to save the environment from climate change" [Gun appears in hand] "a gun"? Genie: "[REDACTED]"
The evidence is very clear on this, means restriction works. I am glad you begin by admitting gun control is effective. Confusing to what degree gun control can work with the issue of rights are two different arguments. We don't look to empiricism to determine if we ought to have freedom of speech. It's nice you also made that distinction. However, the idea that the US is going to ever have some kind of leftist armed revolution is just completely detached from reality. The US does not have a left, and never has had a left. The closest the US had to ever having a left was in the 1920-30s, but even then at its height, it had little to no power, fractured, and was not remotely popular. Leftists that fetishize guns are putting the cart way before the horse. The argument of comparing an armed revolt in the US to the US military's failures in Vietnam or Afghanistan is a bit much. These are different things in different times, different cultures, geographies, historical context, and even just the way the wars are conducted. I am glad you didn't make an appeal to the 2nd Amendment like the SRA does, not that I expected you too given your support of anarchism!
Gun control in amerikkka is right wing and white supremacist. started by the klan, furtherec ronald ragen, and the nra. No it doesnt work here it furthers the enslavement of black folks and neuro divergent folks. While the facist and the spree shooter go unaffected.
Also ur whole argument is false and eurocentric. The us has had a left and gaurilla resistance you should study more, black panther party, bla, aim, ect. Ect.
Like the fellow here said. You do not know that there will never be a leftist armed revolution. Here, we do not waste time with fortune telling. We act, we educate ourselves, when we make predictions we make only actually based on the most rigorous evidence and even so we understand every event that is precedented was once unprecedented. Remember these words: "I do not know whether it is reachable or not But I will do what is necessary to achieve it."
I by-in-large agree with what you said. I don't think how far some places in Europe have gone is entirely correct. I remember not too long ago there was a shooting in Germany, and not long after I saw a short where it was talking about how there was a proposal to ban semi-autos. I don't think that a wholesale ban like that is the best solution per say. That said, the evidence is undeniable as to the efficacy of certain methods in reducing gun violence and similar. I think the ideal solution is more or less in the middle, at least insofar as the near term is concerned. Maybe it's down to the fact that I'm autistic and thus have a strong preference for structure, but some sort of structure to regulate guns to some extent as a means of harm reduction seems reasonable to me. Though in the long term, that shouldn't be an instrument of the State, though I recognize that *may* have to be that way in the short term. (Obviously, it would be less than desirable as an instrument of the State, but while it still exists, nudging it in less harmful directions when possible seems like a reasonable objective to have.) I don't think just anyone should be able to acquire something like an assault rifle, but I don't think they should be entirely banned either. There needs to be some sort of process in my opinion for that sort of thing. What that is exactly, I can't say with any entire certainty. At least not to any degree that I haven't already stated above.
Dear Anark, Thank you for this video. It was good. I do, however, have a crucial question regarding the video. How are we to start learning small unit tactics? This is the sort of thing that requires teachers. However, the people who are trained to do this are soldiers and ex-soldiers, who generally support the state. I recon that our fascist counterparts have plenty of vets in their ranks who are more than willing to teach such tactics to civvies. What do we have? In my homeland, every man is conscripted to serve one year in the army (formerly two). University students have the ability to take certain courses to be NCOs when they get conscripted after they finish their education. This might give our comrades there a stock of people versed in strategy and tactics. However, I don't think they have practical training in guerrilla warfare. In other countries, ex-soldiers who are sympathetic to our cause will likely not be trained in such things. They will be trained as infantrymen who enact generals' orders. This applies, to my knowledge, to both my current residence and the USA. We don't really need a lot of people trained by the military: the original teacher can end up creating several other teachers as well, after all. But how do we get that first push? I don't think we can ship Zapatistas to the USA to provide training, now can we? I apologize for asking you a question in such an old video. I think it is wrong, however, to ask this question in a completely unrelated video. Sincerely, Timur.
From what I've seen in videos on training Ukrainians for war with Russia, one of the more helpful things they found was re-creating the Desert Brutality courses from InRangeTV. A lot of Small Unit Tactics can be learned on youtube and freely available army manuals, the trick is getting everyone outside and practicing\training.
Read Military theory online, theres lots of books. In terms of practical training, theres Milsim events and Airsoft if you can put up with the other kinds of people who go to them (mainly rightwingers)
@@Mx123-p4r That would be cool but the SRA is kind of all over the place in terms of activity. Getting something like that together would be hard for most chapters since the majority aren't active like that, if at all.
The discussion around firearms is one of discussing trust and power. Who can you trust with power for the power of violence is the ultimate power. Can you trust people on average with power knowing that when given power the people will do good with it such as wielding violence with care and using it to strike down agressors? Or do you beleive that the people as a whole will only do harm when granted power? If you believe the latter you cannot possibly believe at a deep level in democracy. This is why I sneer at the "studies" that try to prove more firearms equals more violence because they are essentially trying to prove that people as a whole cannot be trusted because if given power they will generally do harm with it. The uk is used as an example study of banning firearms . In 1996 just before the ban the homicide rate was 1.9 now its 0.74 A similar country Australia did a restriction in 96 and a massive buyback. Since then the Australian population has replaced all the firearms destroyed with new ones. They saw a drop of 1.9 to 0.74. So Australia has as many guns as before but the same homicide rate fall!? The us went the opposite direction and began expanding firearms into public spaces with the issuance of concealed carry permits. Since then many states have stated that you don't even need a permit to carry concealed. The peak was in 1993 for the us at a stunning 9.3. Firearm possession both in the home and public spaces has skyrocketed and the homicide rate fell to a low of 4.4 in 2015 before climbing up to its new point of 6.81 with all the civil violence we have seen. So there experiments, one banned guns, one worked to reduce them, one greatly expanded their presence. All three societies with similar justice systems and are liberal "democracies." All saw a similar trend in homicide rate. So how do "studies" try to prove people can't be trusted with power? By "controlling for" variables, ie making up an assumed value for a variable to isolate it from the equation. A common one is the assumption of a certain weight urbanization has on homicide rate, even though Japan is one of the most urbanized places on the planet and has one of the lowest rates. In essence "controlled for" is just mathematical sophistry that "studies" use to get the results they want. The test was done. People can be trusted with power.
I agree with this as a whole. But I wanted to ask you something else. Do you really believe firearms will last eternally? And I mean "till the sun goes out" eternally? And do you find it conceivable that a society could at one point, voluntarily destroy all their firearms? Because I can conceive of a few ways that firearms could cease to be a part of society.. One is a sudden, devastating cataclism thaf destroys society and most or all of its current technology. Something like a meteor. Two. Eventually, as a whole people , having done away with hierarchies of power, end firearms , so as to prevent them from being used by would be oppressors to ever hoard power and oppress again. (Very different situation and not at all an amarchy,.but I did think of South Africa dismantling its nuclear weapons as something which could be learned from. A more relevant examole would be many so called indigenous "primitive peoples" of south america, the mbuti of southerj africa, etc who rather than having the inability to begin to use the same tools as their so called "more advanced" counterparts, continuously live as they did eons ago, because they intentionally made the choice not to adopt those methods and way of living. So it seems conceivable, if a society chooses to not use guns, one that has them could choose to not use them anymore. Even when conflict and perhaps even some violence coule srill be around, people would fight it in other ways, having seen the so great destruction guns bring. Perhaps meler weapons again, their own fists or something else entirely.) Third, people eventually develop a defence against guns so efficientl that they resort to othrr methods once again. Like the energy shields in Dune, which protect against any high velocity physical attacks, so they develop a swordfighting method which specifically uses slower melee attacks. And yes, I'm going full sci fi here. No one can tell what humanity will be like in a few decades or centuries, let alone millennia after our time.( At least I admit it, unlike far too many arrogant pricks like TINA Thatcher and Mr. Fukuyama) Finally, humans eventually evolve to be "less complex" (according to a certain definition of complexity) and so we lose the capacity to use.the tools that we do now. These were only some of the ways I thought things could go in a future, nearer or farther. Like.I said, it is only speculation, as anything can hapoen and everything we thought we.knew about the world could always be proven completely wrong at any moment. I would like to hear what you think of all of this.
In places like Australia, we have no guns available to civilians. The police all carry handguns, and the military is heavily armed. There is very little we can do in the way of arming our population. I am unsure how capable us civilians are of doing anything to defend ourselves against the powers that be. I don't think there is anything we can do to change that, and I am not sure I like the idea of having an armed population.
Australians can absolutely own firearms. You need to get a license, but even the most basic one would give you access to something like a bolt action lee-enfield, which while not as capable as a modern ar-15, is still a formidable weapon.
@@SavageArms357 I am very aware of Australian gun law. The accessibility of owning one requires a valid reason. A valid reason would be if you were a farm owner, or a contract shooter. You cannot reasonably obtain a firearm if you lived in the city, unless you worked security for cash transport (the only time I have seen a firearm on a "civilian" here). Ammunition is scarce. there is a risk of me having a coppa knock on my door simply by typing this comment. It simply isn't realistic for a layman who lives in the city to obtain a firearm, especially in NSW where airsoft and prop guns require a license.
@@keeb__A valid reason would be membership in a shooting club, but I will grant you that the hoops will limit adoption, especially for those without disposable income.
Forget guns... the moment any conflict kicks off the supermarkets will empty and soon after the phone and power grid will go down. Can even the right-militias survive for long without gas, Facebook and Walmart? Developing the natural skills, and learning to live without the structures that generate the modern conflict environment is the pre-requisite to survival, not the ability to enact stand-off violence. The reason Vietnamese or Afghan groups could oppose American imperial power was because of their ability to live direct from the land, without the need to carry a refrigerator and a burger kitchen with them. OK, I admit it... anarcho-primitivist... and happy! 🙂
Certainly, you can't survive on bullets alone. Now is the time to be creating and reinforcing communities as a form of defense. You don't need to necessarily live off the land if you can farm together, skill-share, etc. It will be extremely difficult but maybe we can adjust and rebuild in a happier way. As Bread Santa said, "Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution".
6:30 what is your take on mlk and civil rights movement? Was it peaceful, was it not, didn't it achieve something at least? Worker strikes that lead to 5 day workweek and new deal? Just in the context of you saying nothing peaceful has ever changed anything fundamentally? I don't even disagree with you and think I understand what you mean (because I share most of your views) But you're wording is giving a lot of room for counter arguments and discrediting for people who don't and might want to be informed Hence why I ask to actually get a more clear understanding of exactly what you mean here
To be fair. When the us military "loses" these wars it doesn't lose them, it's that our civilian leaders fail to secure the end to the war, a political solution brought about by the pain that the military has caused. A war is ultimately expressing pain upon another to convince them that living with the owner of the army on their terms is preferable to continuation of the struggle. In Iraq and Afghanistan what we essentially did was tear down the government, provide no new one, no services, no future. So there wasn't any alternative for the oppressed population but continued resistence. These oppressed people lost almost every engagement, in the war as a whole suffering 20 , 50, 100 to one losses. They did not win the war, they simply refused to accept peace. This is something that needs to be accepted. Gurilla methods are not superior, if they were nobody would have a regular army. Mao wouldn't have gone from gurilla to conventional fighting if gurilla was superior. It isn't. It suffers horrendous losses and essentially only "wins" by exhausting occupiers by refusing to let there be peace. If you can go conventional you do because it expresses far more force and resolves the primary violence of the conflict with far less bloodshed to your side allowing your political leaders to hash out a political solution to the conflict sooner. Or they can be like the us where all the political leaders intentionally sabotage any peace process in order to enrich themselves and their friends.
I'm very interested in this debate because I think myself as an anarchist but I'm also very anti-gun. You start off the premise that there's absolutely no way of creating a society without guns. I just think that's a flawed premise, and it can prevent us from prefiguring a pacifist new system. There are many countries where gun ownership is heavily restricted or outright banned, such as Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom, and these countries still function well without widespread gun ownership. The idea that civilian ownership of guns is necessary to prevent government tyranny is not supported by historical evidence. There are also many examples of successful nonviolent resistance movements that have achieved significant political and social change, such as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the People Power Revolution in the Philippines. The use of violence in response to resistance movements often backfires, as it can galvanize opposition, and create sympathy and support for the resistance movement. Nonviolent resistance movements, on the other hand, often have greater legitimacy and are able to mobilize a wider range of supporters. A good argument that you made is that societies can experience periods of instability that are accompanied by violence. However its not necessarily true that such violence is inevitable or intrinsic to the process of collapse. It might be that a society with more access to guns is more likely to engage in such violence than a society that has different tools at their disposal.
Your argumentation is kinda flawed because you are saying that states like japan (and others) are doing fine without any guns at all but it is wrong because the state/police/military are still having guns so if any violence happen in these countries, especially gun violence, you will call a police/army and they will arrive *with tons of guns* to deal with problems. So you just can't say that these states are operated without guns
i’m from ireland and I honestly think stuff around guns are very good here as they’re very rare in general, I think it’s best if neither side has guns at all. There are still armed guards and there are still the occasional mafia/gang shooting but it’s out of the way of the general population. I’ve seen the thing before about how if the people aren’t armed at all then if there’s a protest the military can easily come in and start shooting with no resistance but even the military is quite small here relatively. Looking the the recent riots in dublin city, it was a semi violent protest from a bunch of far right anti-immigrant dole merchants, but they didn’t have guns, and the government didn’t respond with guns, I honestly thing the government were too lax seeing as they were burning buses and shops, but that kinda contradicts the argument that protests will be one sided.
Firstly, interesting insights, so thanks for that. But I can't get around the fact that these insights are distinctly American. That they belong to the US militaristic cultural matrix where gun ownership is natural and a given. I appreciate that you call gun ownership a 'grim necessity' and call for 'de-escalation'. However, even though you say that you are not advocating preppers I see this as the advocation of leftist preppers with the associated gun culture to match. Here I have some reservations. I view guns as mere tools. Inherently destructive tools at that. As weapons of mass destruction they are inherently oppressive and have no place in the ideal of an anarchist society. The sad and haunting reality of the global rise of fascism does however call for an escalation in initiatives for self-defence. It is not realistic to even remotely assume that the population is ready for revolution so momentarily self-defence is the highest you can aim for. In that evolution of social change can exist within safe spaces facilitated with tools, tactics and methods of self-defence. It is vital however to be reflective, and to stay so, of guns as tools of violence and oppression that can, if unchecked, spiral out of control. It is that vicious cycle I want people to be conscious of.
I don't think anyone is seriously considering a protracted conflict of left vs right. In my time in the SRA, we did gun stuff maybe 5% of the time, but shared recipes, gardening tips, and community building techniques the rest of the time. Our FBI informant must have been so bored. But anyway, that's the real leftist prepping: networking. Near-term is folk like the JBGC showing up to DQSH to show the fash that they've got teeth. Long-term we pull through the collapse as best we can and rebuild with a different set of values.
Don't rule knives and rocks out so quickly, sure they aren't enough alone, but better to take what you can get, just remember that it's the plan that's most important if you're outnumbered or outgunned. Classical strategists all agree that the mind is the most important aspect of a strong offense or defense, the idea that the advent of modern guns would change that is foolish, the reason america got btfo of Vietnam, partially.
@@Anark but fewer, and of lower quality, they used traps as much as actual weapons, stealth tactics, too. Weapons are critically important, but letting yourself give up entirely because you don't have access to a gun is reductive, in a way. There are plenty of other viable weapons than guns, especially in the modern age of consumption, it's never been easier to get ahold of both styrofoam and gasoline, as an example. Never pass up good weapons, but don't neglect your brain's part in it all. You can't beat a larger, better equipped and supplied force without getting crafty, is all I'm trying to say, love the videos 👍
@@jasonrobinson401I would argue the guns they had access to were, for all practical purposes, at functional parity with what the Americans were fielding. An AK-47 or SKS with irons isn't *that* much worse than an M16 or M14, especially at typical combat ranges.
@@SavageArms357 that's still missing my point, let me put it another way, how did the Vietcong air force stack up against the Americans? How was their support from the global community? Did they have chemical weapons of their own? My point is that you can't let the disparity in force stop you, the Vietcong weaponized the environment itself, avoided direct conflicts they couldn't win, and used whatever they could get their hands on however they could, it's that tactical adaptability that led them to taking Saigon, not because "they had guns too", because even if they weren't bad guns, they didn't have even half as many, you just can't play that "who has more resources" game with the state, because it has more than you. So get crafty, steal from the enemy, hell, steal their guns, but don't just sit there thinking "there's nothing we can do😢" just because you don't have what your enemy has, that could change in an instant with a good plan anyway.
@@jasonrobinson401I don't disagree with anything you said there! I think you're absolutely right. I was only responding to the point of their weapons (and I was thinking you were only referring to their firearms) being inferior. I misunderstood you, sorry about that.
I'd have to disagree with this opinion. I don't see how some far off presumed violent revolution is more important than the lives being lost right now. And in our current political situation guns serve no purpose. Protests and mutual aid is what is going to gain us the most power today. And even when faced with violent fascist/police, gun use will only be framed to make us look bad. Victims of police violence and Ex-police themselves have stated they purposefully escalate situations to make us violent, therefore justifying their abuse. There have also been multiple accounts of fake leftists entering our communities/organizations and then trying to push for more violent actions to delegitimize and destroy us.
Said mutual aid will be destroyed if the powerful perceive it as a threat to their power. We will have to defend that. We will be framed as terrorists and hooligans regardless and even if they were to murder us all unprovoked, the mass media would still lie that we startes it or that ThEY FeARed FOr THeIr LiVes, plant a gun , anything that is necessary. Fake leftists joining the organizations? Snuff them out. We will bleed if we fight back and we will bleed if we don't. But if we fight back, one day we may not have to fight anymore.
The way I see it, we're never going to get to a point at which the US creates strict enough gun laws to stop shootings. So rather than wasting time begging those in power to enact laws that they would never enact, better to organize your community to the extent that you can actually start discussing armories/weapons depots wherein weapons can be stored and shared when needed, but would not get into the hands of those who would do harm. Instead of thinking "how can we get the state to solve a problem it has caused?" we should ask "how can we organize in such a way that state enforcement becomes unnecessary?"
@@otherperson I can definitely agree with the first part about the state's uselessness. But what is the point of stock piling weapons? They are useless in solving any problems that i can think of in which we are now facing. Do you all really think we're on the precipice of civil war or violent revolution?
@@KiddKyle67 we don't know and cannot know. What we do know is that the far right is actively arming itself and forming militias, and that over the past decade, we have seen a deeply fascistic push by Republicans and the unwillingness of the political center to do anything about it. Voting rights and trans rights are actively crumbling, even as multiple states force schools to conform with republican views of what ought and ought not to be taught. Every time a drag show is met by far right militant protesters carrying guns, they are building power and intimidating those who may not have access to adequate defense. This is one reason why a militant left should exist in the here and now--to stifle and defend against the already highly armed right wing.
@@KiddKyle67 and in any case, as I said, the point is that, whether we like it or not, Americans are going to stockpile guns, so do we organize to do it safely and with minimal risk of harm or do we continue to do it as we always have? Plenty of leftists disagree with this, and think they should personally own guns. So if you disagree, rather than argue with them about it, you should turn to your neighbors and build the necessary structures in your own locale to effect change.
never done =/= never will. probably impossible. but i rather try the impossible than the easy way. if the easy way involves many innocent lifes lost. but then again daily deaths from capitalism is already too damn high. and this system is already violent. but i wish and hope i never need to harm someone. but if they don't accept peace we need to defend ourselves from their oppression as greed tends to escalate against equality, as equality means less power to the greedy 😭
This may be a controversial position, but i think everyone should be allowed nuclear weapons for self defense. If an external threat, or an internal one from a safe distance, threatens me, i should have the right to defend myself by whatever means i have available. As it happens, i have a nuclear arsenal.
@@Anark If I enter into a voluntary contractual relationship with another person to use my property (my body/my material possessions) in conjunction with theirs, in order to further my material wealth, I have just engaged in a free market/capitalist transaction. That transaction is perfectly compatible with a free and open society with the absence of a ruling class(Anarchy). I am not being extorted, my rights aren’t being harmed, the person I am entering into the contract with is not having their rights violated in any way, and nobody else’s rights are being violated. Contrast that with your ideology, which prescribes violence being done unto those who wish to enter into such voluntary contractual relationships if only you deem them to be “exploitative” and “capitalistic”.
@VoluntaryPlanet Capitalism is not "trading things." Capitalism is wage slavery and parasitism of the labor of the masses. The destruction of capitalism is therefore self-defense against slavery.
The next "controversial" take that shouldn't be controversial is the usefulness of cooperatives. I get that cooperatives alone are not revolutionary, but they are so obviously useful as one single node of a much larger strategy that I do not get the anti-cooperative anarchists.
I wonder if anyone has heard about Michael Tellinger and his ONE SMALL TOWN strategy.
I have a couple concerns about the investor rights, but overall the approach seems to hold merit.
So many leftists I've seen are against coops. I've heard it said that they "teach workers to be capitalists", which just just shows such a profound ignorance of what capitalism actually is. It's not just owning the means of production, it's absentee ownership, which a coop very much is not.
@@LongDefiant personally don't know anything about it. My opinion is that coops, if and when they exist, should be embedded into existing communities, should be promoting community council structures, and should provide a safe place for union (labor, tenant, and student) strategy meetings etc. they should be part of a network entrenched in rank and file militancy and should be trying to build power from below in existing spaces.
@@LongDefiant having just looked it up, it seems to be deeply capitalistic, and the guy is an ancient astronaut theorist. So I'm not too interested, but Murray Bookchin's communalism seems like a viable program that does not have capitalist baggage. I think communalism is incomplete without militant unionism and specific anarchist organizations.
@@otherpersonha! I thought the astronaut guy was a different person. Weird stuff for sure. I don't really care that much though. You can find a diamond in a cesspool after all.
In any case, I'm just looking into it, and yes, it's definitely capitalistic, just like Dr. Wolff's worker co-ops. I wonder if it's a possible stepping stone strategy towards truly horizontal relations.
EDIT: I get into Bookchin every few months then drop him. For me it's an indication that I have a learning curve to climb. Thanks for the reminder to pick up his writings again.
"No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action." ~ Emma Goldman
The points that (1) firearms are never going to be uninvented and that (2) they will always be available to the state are really the crux of it all. Talking about anything else is a distraction when people want to discuss gun legislation.
This is my biggest struggle as an anarchist so being so dismissive can be hard for people you call comrade. My kiddo goes to school and i have panic attacks when they get on the bus. I know its the capitalists who are arming the fascists so if we cut their power they wont be spreading so many firearms to dangerous people but my ape brain sometimes tells me that regulating guns might work
One crucial aspect of getting ready to defend ourselves and fight is physical conditioning. Looking at it, a lot of left-wingers I've seen are not well conditioned at all. Moving fast without getting too tired, climbing, lifting objects, etc., are all very important aspects of survival if there is violence. I would advise leftists to train themselves physically, and to pick up something like parkour, which is both fun and accessible once one is fit enough. It was developed fairly organically and horizontally, and the original ethos of parkour vibes well with anarchism.
This this this. Parkour was a huge reason for me being anarchist. Need to be able to escape in any situation is often more important than knowing how to fight in every situation.
@@matroid10 Agreed. I used parkour skills countless times. Fighting skills? Very rarely, because there are almost always better options.
@@wandererstrainingMy life experience has been the opposite, and I live in an area where one is far less likely to experience violence than the average.
I've had two home invasions, one in which I was assaulted, and was charged by a mother black bear while hiking.
The use or presence of a gun saved my life the two times I had one on me. Parkour, as fun as it, not so much.
@@TeddyJozefick Interesting. Home invasions are very rare here. (I'd re-evaluate how violent you think your society is, btw. Two home invasions, one of which you defended yourself with a gun, legally. That's not not violent.) I've encountered many bears, but none of them have ever behaved aggressively towards me. When I was more of an insurrectionary anarchist, parkour training was useful to access places, and useful to avoid getting caught. It wasn't the parkour itself as a speed run that ever saved me, but the physical abilities and the levels of comfort it gave me moving around. It helped me create diversions. For example, people would be looking for me. I'd go to a direction they can predict, but jump off something as soon as the visual contact is broken, and they wouldn't react in time because they wouldn't see me jump, or climb, or hide.
Also, when comparing the use of fighting skills with parkour skills, I meant unarmed combat.
My position is that there's a difference between collective and individualistic gun ownership. I'm in favor of a decentralized federation of armories but not individual ownership. We have decentralized models of collective ownership and we can apply the same principles when it comes to guns plus more advanced weapons. Requiring keys from multiple people to open up the armory can provide a horizontal model of weapon ownership while putting a check on an individual's unilateral power to kill others. A militia can vote to open up the armory without a hierarchy while at the same time negating individual rash decisions.
Guns also aren't all that great for a revolutionary purpose without that collective organization anyway. Standardizing ammunition is important for logistics. A lone gunman will just be killed by the state. A collective decision to have each other's backs is necessary for a revolution to actually get off the ground. Plus, more asymmetric weapons like drones are certainly going to be more effective than trying to wage a conventional war with guns, at least to start out, and if there's any chance of success the government armories and supply convoys will be raided for guns and such anyway. I don't see initial access guns as being anywhere close to being a deciding factor in a modern revolution.
A problem I have with a lot of anarchist discussions when it comes to guns is that things often fall into the same false dichotomy of state ownership vs private property that right wing "libertarians" push when it comes to the economy. We have collective decentralized models we can apply when it comes to community defense, too. There's a lot more than hyper-individualism and state ownership to choose from. Think outside the box of liberalism.
I think the idea you have here is a good one, but I'm also pretty sure it's illegal to create armories shared between multiple people. Maybe someone knows of a particular loophole which could make it work, though
@@Anark Pre-revolution, each person could have their own gun safe but with multi-custody locks on them so they can't be opened by only the owner. Adding other people's locks on the safe doesn't change who is in possession of a gun.
@@AnarkDisguise as a right-wing paramilitary group. Seriously, I am willing to bet the Oath Keepers and such have their own armories
@@Anark In a democracy, people should be able to choose their laws. It'd be difficult to get people to vote for it, but it is technically possible. On the other hand, there is revolution.
They'll always say that "weapons of war" only belong in the military yet the police have them, makes you think about the role of police.
To protect the interests of capital from any political dissentients mainly, while coincidentally solving other actual crimes (If you consider detectives to be police, but how rarely does a detective need a gun when it's not a crime drama) because people and organisations are complex and people will have differing goals...? I'm not really strengthening my own case here.
No war but class war.
My honest opinion: in the same way that a martial artist, who is trained to be capable of inflicting violence through basic combat, is the least likely to use violence irresponsibly, developing martial arts for MODERN combat (and not combat for people using feudal tools) could very well act as a natural reform of gun violence. If we need guns, we need methods, we need schools, we need proper training. No reason not to. Martial arts were developed for real combat, because real combat had very tangible events, in predictable scenarios. We have the same, we know what types of conflict will happen WHEN we will need to use weapons, so no reason to not train ourselves in techniques for that specific type of event.
There are schools. They even have classes on conealed carry and community defense. The problem is that they're all run by retired SEALs and military contractors. They're all marketed as SPEC OPS lite training courses. And they all focus on individual skill rather than team-based fire and maneuver. I think a fantastic move would be to build one of these courses and run it as a cooprative.
What kind (or combination) of martial arts would you recommend?
Before I listen, to state my position, I'm a pro-gun anarchist.
Every human being could be armed to the teeth and yet be perfectly safe because we don't have any reason to murder each other.
In other words, I see gun violence as a symptom of social relations rather than the availability of firearms.
Maybe it's naive, but eliminating the tension over life-sustaining resources seems to me to go a lot farther than simply keeping guns out of people's hands.
No the reactionary gun control nuts are the nieve ones fam.
I totally agree that an "armed to the teeth" populace could be totally peaceful in a society free from societal ills. For me the debate begins when we consider what to do in the society we have now. I'm open to the idea that limiting gun access in current US society will save lives even though I'd prefer that we solve the underlying problems that lead to gun violence.
I agree 100%
Yes
@@mutex1024 A bandaid on a bullet wound is better than nothing, sure. It will save lives.
I question though... Save lives for what? So they can go on living under this oppressive system? I don't want to sound callous. Lives are precious, but gun control alone won't allow us to live free of oppression.
I'm not comfortable with any single entity having a monopoly on violence. Even if a group had good intentions to begin with, absolute power has a tendency to corrupt.
This is the sort of nuanced discussion I was hoping for. With the current spate of mass shootings and gun violence it is difficult to parse through all of the hot takes across the political spectrum and come to useful conclusions. I agree that we must arm ourselves and learn to use weapons effectively. I also agree that we must strive to create a gun counterculture that emphasizes self-defense and safety. I also think we must be critical of the sort of blithe calls for government regulation as a catch-all solution to the violence we are experiencing. I am horrified by the mass shootings, but I highly doubt that the US govt will implement any sort of weapons ban that wouldn’t primarily target oppressed communities. Historically, armed self-defense has been a key aspect of black liberation struggles here and abroad, and as a black radical I can’t help but worry about how such legislation will be implemented (even though I know it has positive effects in some areas). With that said, gun violence is a massive problem and must be addressed, and I simply don’t know what that looks like. I hate not feeling sure about an issue, but in this case I will continue to ponder (but also prepare)
My partner and I actually just became SRA members yesterday. Surprisingly timely.
When you mentioned how right wing forces are currently training all the time these kinds of tactics it struck a nerve and I finally realized that if this type of training is not encouraged on the left we will be horribly outmatched in a confrontation with violent right-wing forces. I was already "pro-gun" of a sort, but this solidified some lingering misconceptions I had or ideas that I hadn't fully examined yet. Thanks for such a thorough and thoughtful video!
I think it's also important that we discourage the romanticization of guns and revolutionary violence.
as an anarchist who is deathly terrified of guns, and of violence of any kind, i think about this a lot. and, frankly, you’re not wrong. the more history and theory i read, the less of an objection i can really muster to anything you said in this video. even when i was a liberal, i was wobbly on the standard lib narrative of gun control.
many liberals make fun of right-wing gun culture - rightly so in most cases. it’s extremely silly. but when they would say, “what revolution are you preparing for anyway?” and go into a diatribe about banning all guns, i would be like, “these are all good points and i agree with many of them. but… what if revolt is actually necessary in some capacity, at some point? just because the government is on our side now [i WAS still a liberal at this point], that doesn’t mean they’ll be on our side forever… how do y’all deal with that? protest doesn’t mean much if they’re allowed to fucking shoot us…!” the position i eventually settled on for years in private was “it’s okay for people to own *a* handgun, and any total ban on firearms has to extend to all agents of the state too.” which isn’t a horrible position, necessarily, just a completely unworkable one. i think i’m still kinda there in terms of a gun policy* i’d personally be comfortable with, but because it’s not realistic, i have to agree with your position despite my personal discomfort with it.
i don’t know that i’ll ever feel comfortable with guns being near me. i’m too susceptible to depression for that to feel healthy. but i’ll definitely take what you said here under advisement.
* i know we don’t do “policy” here in anarchy-town, but that’s the closest word that comes to mind.
I don't like guns either, and I feel its because of the gun culture in this country (USA).
@@Cilan1999 US gun culture is pretty dang terrifying to grow up around, yeah.
I am in the USA, and I grew up around guns while learning safety, respect and responsibility for my thoughts and actions. With this, there is nothing to fear.
Fear is a set of lies and exaggerations sold by the state to keep people ignorant and unable to affect change.
@@TacticalTerry i’m sure that’s true! i just lack your experience and knowledge, and i’m prone to intrusive thoughts when i’m around anything that could hurt me or someone else pretty easily. the same thing happens sometimes for me with kitchen knives, though i’ve gotten better about that as i’ve learned how to use them in daily life.
i will push back slightly on one thing, though. “safety, respect, and responsibility for [one’s] thoughts and actions” does not always seem like it’s been adequately imparted to the gun owners i’ve grown up around. particularly the latter two - i know there are gun owners in my area who i wouldn’t trust to handle a gun around me. not because they’re unfamiliar with gun safety, but because there’s a certain… well, i’m not sure how else to put this: there’s a certain *horniness* to the way they talk about guns, and about potential violence in general. there’s a toxic machismo to it, a superiority. with these people, i don’t feel the respect or responsibility coming through. instead, i feel a worrying fascination with their own percieved heroism, coupled with an outsize paranoia that they are under siege from outsiders that is exacerbated by constant reinforcement from right-wing media.
now, this doesn’t describe *that many* people in my area, and it could just be an incorrect read i have on them due to my own fears. you could also rightly argue that i just shouldn’t be around those people, and that they are the problem rather than the guns, which are tools without will. indeed, i have tried as hard as possible to put space between us in all aspects of my life. but i think my wariness around those people and the circles they walk in is at least *reasonable*, even if it’s mistaken. you know?
@@ffordesoon I hear you. It would have been nice in another life to have met you in person and show you the world of firearms without having to deal with the wild nature of those friends. It seems like you are doing what you can to make peace for yourself.
I know what you are talking about regarding the machismo of those people. From what I see, many of the run-n-gun tacticool fascination guys are full of "tough talk" and little else. Hope they grow up some and calm down with age.
The really truly dangerous people are fairly quiet about their intentions and skills until the time comes to strike, and much has to happen before they decide to strike. With great power and responsibility, great patience and wisdom must be cultivated.
Some of the paranoia that you describe comes not only from the right-wing media but also from experience and our elders who pass stories down to us. We see in our history that compromises were one-way and the things that we let go of for the sake of societal safety were gone forever without really changing the violence in society. It produces grief and resentment in the gun community and outside of it. The children deserve good lives, and I hope that some balance can be preserved in the pursuit of that. Right now it seems like we are in a period of unbridled restrictions which feels eerie to people like me. Some of it is media-fed, but some of it appears accurate.
Reacting to another part of your message, I'm proud of you for discerning the intrusive thoughts and for being able to find peace with your kitchen knives! That's a big step forward. Recognizing the intrusive thoughts as an artifact of the brain and not as a part of your personality or active thinking is huge. So many people believe that the thoughts are a part of their personality ready to emerge, and as an unfortunate result they lose trust in themselves and are tortured by the thoughts almost continually. The torture of the thoughts makes and the anxiety that comes from that makes the intrustive thoughts stronger and more persistent.
I have good and bad mental health days like the rest of folks, and sometimes similar intrusive thoughts. On the days where I am truly bothered I leave the firearms in the safe and the knives in their containers. No harm in letting them sit until I am ready to wear them calmly and responsibly. The best victories in life seem to come from self-control and a calm sense of self-confidence.
Thanks for speaking with me. It's important for me to see things through your eyes and potentially share some thoughts or information that you might not get a chance to consider (and then let you sift out what is useful or discarded of course).
If smuggling guns is impossible, making guns is also an option
If you own a 3d printers you can make low caliber firearms. 9mm submachine guns can and have been easily 3d printed.
It helps that having come over from the right, I was already pretty pro-gun. I get the issues other leftists have with them, and am quite sympathetic to them but the right is constantly training with firearms and we on the left do need to match them should the time come we have to be on the defensive. Appreciate your input on this issue.
As someone who lives in a country with strong gun laws, explosives and other chemical-based weapons are significantly easier to access and use in asymmetric warfare. There are many more options between either guns or martial arts that weren't explored here!
One of the good things I got out of studying state socialist projects was learning about Ho Chi Mhin and the way he and a small group of eight others with a small group of firearms (mostly bolt action and two flint lock rifles) defeated the french military through a long, sporadic, well thought out, low intensity revolutionary war.
I'm VERY " consent based gun libraries" than I am "individual rights to OWN firearms".
They're killing machines 🤷🏼♀️ Average folks shouldn't need them, but should absolutely learn to wield them, AND have collective access, more than one person at a time, and with everyone's knowledge.
I'm also pro open carry ONLY. Even as a revolutionary, I would hypothetically want my fellow militants to have a say whether or not I get a gun, and everyone should always know when anyone near them has a firearm.
Guns have two ends. The holdy end and the shooty end. A person on the holdy end has MUCH more potential power than a person without one. The people without guns deserve the right to not be around them if they choose, AND to maintain that on their own terms. Such as, "no gun neighborhoods" and cities, but ONLY on a consent based level. Eventually, I think we can destroy almost all guns and just keep a tiny amount for the unpredictable things. But that is only a thousand years from now. Until they, they're VERY necessary for defending the people's hold on taking back their power.
The problem with that is it's a central repository, and thus a weak point for attack. It works if we're defending from an outside threat such as a military incursion, but the police and fascists are *in* our communities. So, at least until we reach the stage where we have stable horizontal communities, it's important that each individual is able to arm themselves independently. (by which I mean they have personal access, not that they should be expected to fund acquisition and training alone)
Yeh.... lost me with the "holdy end" bit... Jesus christ... tf
@@juanmccoy3066 I don't get it. Why did that part lose you?
There is a Socialist Rifle Association. Do'h you literally just mentioned them as I was typing! Also JBGC, which you mentioned as well 👍
Yellow Peril Tactical as well.
They are a larp, and they parrott right-wing 2nd Amendment propaganda.
5:10
I think I'm a bit hesitant to describe the time we need guns by largely focusing on it as something that will "eventually come." A revolution would be a future event, but even with things like MMIP awareness month that just got here, guns in the current day before a revolution are still something I think groups need for violence that is currently still today being carried out.
Otherwise, thank you for the great video!
I obviously am not a big fan of school shootings or mass hate murders. As a result, my vague position up until now has been total banning of firearms, or at least heavy regulation. Really just anything to reduce the number of guns in our society.
However, your video has kind of just shattered my worldview. I think the utmost important point you mentioned is that firearms will never be uninvented. Because they are, to date, the most effective way to exert authority on another individual human being, concentration of firearms and people trained to use them is now what determines the flow of power in our society, and this will remain true as long as firearms exist.
The more I learn about the world and the more I develop my personal politics, the more I come to realize that violent revolution may indeed be necessary to create an acceptable society. You’re absolutely right that peaceful revolution is paradoxical. Power and authority are what dictate the state of the world, especially when considering the larger scale. As such, a society where the state has access to firearms and the people do not is a society where the people have no power. If the state is completely pure, there isn’t a problem. But if the seed of corruption is ever even planted, the people will have no recourse.
I’m still not sure what my opinion on the topic is, or how I even identify politically after this. However, I appreciate the nuance and compassion you approached this subject with, and I can tell you truly care about creating a world that is worth living in. I’m off to watch your other videos now, because I really want to know what the future should look like, even if challenging my beliefs again and again is hard.
Well said, Anark ❤
One of these days men in suits are gonna put a bag over our homies’ head mid video. Lol. Love you @anark ✊🏼
They will try.
Key word:try.
@@Nai-qk4vp no they wont. The establishment supports violent lefty loons.
@@tessoday9775 oh I'll riot
I think self defense/hand to hand training has a more immediate benefit, especially for minorities who are currently in the crosshairs. If you're LGBTQ+ or a POC, and you can safely take some lessons or classes and learn how to do some basic things, I can't stress the value of that enough. It doesn't have to interfere with also being familiar with firearms, firearm safety, and first aid. For the love of god, at least learn how to throw a punch safely.
I think theres definitely something to be said for training on how to use non violent tactics involving firearms. I.E ambush and surrender, encirclement and seige, and the taking of enemy combatants for leverage. Like that seen in the Philippine revolution. That and effective demoralization and propaganda campaigns aimed at getting enemy combatants to voluntarily lay down arms.
😂
_Spread this, algorithm!_
Here's an idea for those far right militias that control the conversation on gun rights. Revolutionaries (in minecraft) should use them as practice for the "real" fight. These militias will likely be leveraged against us by Mojang eventually as their proxies anyway, meaning they'll be who we fight first in The Struggle, might as well practice some covert ops skills in minecraft, and start leaving Redstone TNT traps in their barracks where they LARP their Alt-Right Krystalnacht... in minecraft. I think that minecraft Factions that roleplay as white supremacist and other authoritarian factions should have their bases griefed and their faction members hunted by PVP experts loyal to the cause... in minecraft.
This comment reeks of fetishization for war and fantasizing about senseless violence. I woudn't trust someone like you with a weapon when the revolution comes. De-escalation is the first defense, not the opposite. Especially against those of our own class.
I get the necessity of guns as a tool in revolutionary action, but I will still never keep on in my home. The risk of an accidental or impulsive firing is just too high. In general, I'm deeply skeptical of the narrative of the gun as a tool for personal protection. Outside of instances where the individual is isolated and help is hours away, personal guns are more likely to cause harm than do good. A close and supportive community offers far more safety and security than a single tool could ever hope to.
It's ok to not feel comfortable with a firearm, but to take your fears and apply it to society using force and laws is wrong
@@damonjackson5857 It's a legitimate concern. Not some PrOJeCtiNg, as vermin like to say.
@@Nai-qk4vp that's projecting by any sense of the definition lol and ad hominem does not help your neoliberal ass take.
Making a community defenseless because you're not ok defending yourself because you're uncomfy is ridiculous.
@@damonjackson5857 To hell with your worthless definition. It means nothing.
@@damonjackson5857 And again, they were not saying communities should be defenseless. They were saying they would not keep a firearm in their home and that they believed a strong community is better to prevent violence then to use firearms to remediate it. Can you even read?
Alot of people forget its the existence of capitalism and the state that drives people to either violence as a way to live or insanity as they worry they will die or are being spied on through corporations and the state, its why libertarians/conservatives for example never talk about how gun violence is caused only saying "its not as bad as people say it is".
Great video.
It's interesting that you bring up the UK. We used to have much more relaxed gun laws until there was a school shooting. Just one. The government enacted such strict regulations that owning firearms is almost impossible for ordinary people. Sure, we've never had a school shooting since, but communities are almost entirely unable to defend themselves against threats from the state and the far right. We do have some success, but it's reliant on sheer numbers rather than effective defence. Good for solidarity building, not a viable long term strategy. The US however has gone too far the other way. Where we went too restrictive, the US refuses any level of sensible behaviour around guns and allows people to store them unsafely and allows people who clearly should have no business owning a lethal weapon to have anything they want. Leading to non stop gun violence against innocent people and a pointless escalation with law enforcement. If the US didn't allow unstable people access to firearms (and yes this includes the police) and instead had, you know, a healthcare system that worked, the problem would maybe not be solved but would certainly stop being a concern.
I want so badly to see a crossover with HBomberguy
I think some nuance needs to be discussed when talking about hand-to-hand combat. And places like California owning a gun can be very difficult and in the community defense situation. Knowing boxing or Muay Thai will help keep you safe and others safe. Yes, maybe in an armed conflict. It might not be so useful, but for slowing the spread of fascist ideologies I think it is.
True. Just talking about why guns are important. I agree with you that teaching hand-to-hand fighting has its purposes.
Maybe not to shift the tide of a conflict ditectly. I can see why someone believes as a whole it will not be a decisive factor in winning a battle.But perhaps in a more isolated level hand to hand combat could very we increase your chances of coming out on top. Or even agsinst one enemy in a battlefield if ammo has run out and someone tries to stab you with a bayonette or in highly close quarters combat .Also, I can at least conceice thaf in a more indirect manner hand to hand combat could perhaps help in a more indirect manner by keeping your reflexes sharp and you fast and strong and ready to fight.
I'm no soldier. I've only know very little about warfare. But i suspect there is a good reason why the US military does teach some hand to hand combat to its soldiers.
In the interim in regards to personal protection? I think there's an argument to be made that less-lethals (specifically Pepperball launchers) are a serviceable means of descalation & stopping potential threats. The ability to deploy ranged irritants has existed for decades, we just need better advancements in this field to make it more accessible and viable for everyday citizens.
Keeping in mind? I don't necessarily need to own an AR-15 when I can take the M16 off of the dead government agent carrying one. But an important factor I think worth mentioning is the equalizing power firearms do possess, but not necessarily for men, it's for women, children, handicapped, and the elderly.
Anyone can pickup & learn to use a gun, modern conventional ones are very intuitive and often made for the lowest common denominator. In turn? This makes them actually more suitable to people who'd be at a disadvantage in a physical confrontation. Ironically? The patriarchal vibes of right-wing machismo gun culture are antithetical to what firearms really represent, because it's a tool best utilized by the marginalized & physically disadvantaged.
This is not a comment on the video as much as it is about the comment section: I just went for a long scroll down the page and i was surprised by how very few comments I saw with opposing viewpoints. Most comments I saw were some version of "I don't like it, but I agree".
I'm not making a value judgement about the arguments in the video or about the comments, but it really did just surprise me how little dissention there was in the comments.
This mirrors many of my own thoughts, I have remained steadfast in my opinion that guns are a unfortunate necessity. I have understood that the data backs up the fact that more guns lead to more violence and it is undoubtedly true that strict gun control would curtail these issues massively. But at the end of the day, an unarmed populace is completely at the mercy of the state and capital.
love ya buddy
I think there needs to be a more critical analysis of groups like the SRA who tend to welcome in authoritarian elements of the left. In addition there needs to be an actual understanding of legal issues surrounding the use of firearms for self-defense and proper storage which is helpful information for other anarchists
do you plan on doing an episode on prison abolition?
Guns are bourgious, bombs are the weapons of the true revolutionary.
💝
Found the Chad anarchist cookbook reader
3:47 what about nuclear weapons?
Will we not be able to destroy all of them?
The fact that the answer is no is actually messed up lol
*fucked* up
Us: " wow a genie!"
Genie:" YOU ARE GRANTED ONE WISH"
Us:" I want to save the environment from climate change"
[Gun appears in hand] "a gun"?
Genie: "[REDACTED]"
Advocating for sui cide?
The evidence is very clear on this, means restriction works. I am glad you begin by admitting gun control is effective. Confusing to what degree gun control can work with the issue of rights are two different arguments. We don't look to empiricism to determine if we ought to have freedom of speech. It's nice you also made that distinction.
However, the idea that the US is going to ever have some kind of leftist armed revolution is just completely detached from reality. The US does not have a left, and never has had a left. The closest the US had to ever having a left was in the 1920-30s, but even then at its height, it had little to no power, fractured, and was not remotely popular. Leftists that fetishize guns are putting the cart way before the horse.
The argument of comparing an armed revolt in the US to the US military's failures in Vietnam or Afghanistan is a bit much. These are different things in different times, different cultures, geographies, historical context, and even just the way the wars are conducted.
I am glad you didn't make an appeal to the 2nd Amendment like the SRA does, not that I expected you too given your support of anarchism!
Gun control in amerikkka is right wing and white supremacist. started by the klan, furtherec ronald ragen, and the nra. No it doesnt work here it furthers the enslavement of black folks and neuro divergent folks. While the facist and the spree shooter go unaffected.
Also ur whole argument is false and eurocentric. The us has had a left and gaurilla resistance you should study more, black panther party, bla, aim, ect. Ect.
The US has a left and it is continuing to grow. Defeatism is the quickest path to failure. We do hopeful realism in these parts.
Like the fellow here said. You do not know that there will never be a leftist armed revolution. Here, we do not waste time with fortune telling. We act, we educate ourselves, when we make predictions we make only actually based on the most rigorous evidence and even so we understand every event that is precedented was once unprecedented.
Remember these words:
"I do not know whether it is reachable or not
But I will do what is necessary to achieve it."
@@otherperson Where is the left? I am not being defeatist, I am being honest with where the US is at.
I by-in-large agree with what you said. I don't think how far some places in Europe have gone is entirely correct. I remember not too long ago there was a shooting in Germany, and not long after I saw a short where it was talking about how there was a proposal to ban semi-autos. I don't think that a wholesale ban like that is the best solution per say. That said, the evidence is undeniable as to the efficacy of certain methods in reducing gun violence and similar. I think the ideal solution is more or less in the middle, at least insofar as the near term is concerned. Maybe it's down to the fact that I'm autistic and thus have a strong preference for structure, but some sort of structure to regulate guns to some extent as a means of harm reduction seems reasonable to me. Though in the long term, that shouldn't be an instrument of the State, though I recognize that *may* have to be that way in the short term. (Obviously, it would be less than desirable as an instrument of the State, but while it still exists, nudging it in less harmful directions when possible seems like a reasonable objective to have.) I don't think just anyone should be able to acquire something like an assault rifle, but I don't think they should be entirely banned either. There needs to be some sort of process in my opinion for that sort of thing. What that is exactly, I can't say with any entire certainty. At least not to any degree that I haven't already stated above.
What is an assault rifle, and what makes it different from other semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines? Honest question.
@@TacticalTerryit looks ultra scary lol
Thought Slime color Way
bang bang LOVE YOUR WORK g!
Dear Anark,
Thank you for this video. It was good. I do, however, have a crucial question regarding the video. How are we to start learning small unit tactics? This is the sort of thing that requires teachers. However, the people who are trained to do this are soldiers and ex-soldiers, who generally support the state. I recon that our fascist counterparts have plenty of vets in their ranks who are more than willing to teach such tactics to civvies. What do we have?
In my homeland, every man is conscripted to serve one year in the army (formerly two). University students have the ability to take certain courses to be NCOs when they get conscripted after they finish their education. This might give our comrades there a stock of people versed in strategy and tactics. However, I don't think they have practical training in guerrilla warfare.
In other countries, ex-soldiers who are sympathetic to our cause will likely not be trained in such things. They will be trained as infantrymen who enact generals' orders. This applies, to my knowledge, to both my current residence and the USA.
We don't really need a lot of people trained by the military: the original teacher can end up creating several other teachers as well, after all. But how do we get that first push? I don't think we can ship Zapatistas to the USA to provide training, now can we?
I apologize for asking you a question in such an old video. I think it is wrong, however, to ask this question in a completely unrelated video.
Sincerely,
Timur.
From what I've seen in videos on training Ukrainians for war with Russia, one of the more helpful things they found was re-creating the Desert Brutality courses from InRangeTV. A lot of Small Unit Tactics can be learned on youtube and freely available army manuals, the trick is getting everyone outside and practicing\training.
I have question if anyone has an answer, how would revolutionaries get experience and training in how to act in combat scenarios? Ask veterans?
Maybe fake bootcamps using airsoft and stuff
Read military theory for starters.
Read Military theory online, theres lots of books. In terms of practical training, theres Milsim events and Airsoft if you can put up with the other kinds of people who go to them (mainly rightwingers)
@@ike804 maybe the SRA could start some sort of Boot Camp or something
@@Mx123-p4r That would be cool but the SRA is kind of all over the place in terms of activity. Getting something like that together would be hard for most chapters since the majority aren't active like that, if at all.
The discussion around firearms is one of discussing trust and power. Who can you trust with power for the power of violence is the ultimate power. Can you trust people on average with power knowing that when given power the people will do good with it such as wielding violence with care and using it to strike down agressors? Or do you beleive that the people as a whole will only do harm when granted power? If you believe the latter you cannot possibly believe at a deep level in democracy.
This is why I sneer at the "studies" that try to prove more firearms equals more violence because they are essentially trying to prove that people as a whole cannot be trusted because if given power they will generally do harm with it. The uk is used as an example study of banning firearms . In 1996 just before the ban the homicide rate was 1.9 now its 0.74
A similar country Australia did a restriction in 96 and a massive buyback. Since then the Australian population has replaced all the firearms destroyed with new ones. They saw a drop of 1.9 to 0.74. So Australia has as many guns as before but the same homicide rate fall!?
The us went the opposite direction and began expanding firearms into public spaces with the issuance of concealed carry permits. Since then many states have stated that you don't even need a permit to carry concealed. The peak was in 1993 for the us at a stunning 9.3. Firearm possession both in the home and public spaces has skyrocketed and the homicide rate fell to a low of 4.4 in 2015 before climbing up to its new point of 6.81 with all the civil violence we have seen.
So there experiments, one banned guns, one worked to reduce them, one greatly expanded their presence. All three societies with similar justice systems and are liberal "democracies." All saw a similar trend in homicide rate. So how do "studies" try to prove people can't be trusted with power? By "controlling for" variables, ie making up an assumed value for a variable to isolate it from the equation. A common one is the assumption of a certain weight urbanization has on homicide rate, even though Japan is one of the most urbanized places on the planet and has one of the lowest rates. In essence "controlled for" is just mathematical sophistry that "studies" use to get the results they want.
The test was done. People can be trusted with power.
I agree with this as a whole. But I wanted
to ask you something else.
Do you really believe firearms will last eternally? And I mean "till the sun goes out" eternally?
And do you find it conceivable that a society could at one point, voluntarily destroy all their firearms?
Because I can conceive of a few ways that firearms could cease to be a part of society.. One is a sudden, devastating cataclism thaf destroys society and most or all of its current technology. Something like a meteor.
Two. Eventually, as a whole people , having done away with hierarchies of power, end firearms , so as to prevent them from being used by would be oppressors to ever hoard power and oppress again. (Very different situation and not at all an amarchy,.but I did think of South Africa dismantling its nuclear weapons as something which could be learned from. A more relevant examole would be many so called indigenous "primitive peoples" of south america, the mbuti of southerj africa, etc who rather than having the inability to begin to use the same tools as their so called "more advanced" counterparts, continuously live as they did eons ago, because they intentionally made the choice not to adopt those methods and way of living. So it seems conceivable, if a society chooses to not use guns, one that has them could choose to not use them anymore. Even when conflict and perhaps even some violence coule srill be around, people would fight it in other ways, having seen the so great destruction guns bring. Perhaps meler weapons again, their own fists or something else entirely.)
Third, people eventually develop a defence against guns so efficientl that they resort to othrr methods once again. Like the energy shields in Dune, which protect against any high velocity physical attacks, so they develop a swordfighting method which specifically uses slower melee attacks. And yes, I'm going full sci fi here. No one can tell what humanity will be like in a few decades or centuries, let alone millennia after our time.( At least I admit it, unlike far too many arrogant pricks like TINA Thatcher and Mr. Fukuyama)
Finally, humans eventually evolve to be "less complex" (according to a certain definition of complexity) and so we lose the capacity to use.the tools that we do now.
These were only some of the ways I thought things could go in a future, nearer or farther. Like.I said, it is only speculation, as anything can hapoen and everything we thought we.knew about the world could always be proven completely wrong at any moment. I would like to hear what you think of all of this.
Guns could go out by not being strong enough, like how bows generally did
Hey Anark can you make a video about the recent anti-lgbtq laws that are being passed in the states
Also, bears, lions, and wolves still exist 😅
I hope this doesn't warrant a visit from the alphabet hogs, stay safe Anark
In places like Australia, we have no guns available to civilians. The police all carry handguns, and the military is heavily armed. There is very little we can do in the way of arming our population. I am unsure how capable us civilians are of doing anything to defend ourselves against the powers that be. I don't think there is anything we can do to change that, and I am not sure I like the idea of having an armed population.
Australians can absolutely own firearms. You need to get a license, but even the most basic one would give you access to something like a bolt action lee-enfield, which while not as capable as a modern ar-15, is still a formidable weapon.
@@SavageArms357 I am very aware of Australian gun law. The accessibility of owning one requires a valid reason. A valid reason would be if you were a farm owner, or a contract shooter. You cannot reasonably obtain a firearm if you lived in the city, unless you worked security for cash transport (the only time I have seen a firearm on a "civilian" here). Ammunition is scarce. there is a risk of me having a coppa knock on my door simply by typing this comment. It simply isn't realistic for a layman who lives in the city to obtain a firearm, especially in NSW where airsoft and prop guns require a license.
@@keeb__A valid reason would be membership in a shooting club, but I will grant you that the hoops will limit adoption, especially for those without disposable income.
@@SavageArms357 yeah I had a look into that because I have a light interest in firearms, but there are lots of hoops to jump through like you said.
Forget guns... the moment any conflict kicks off the supermarkets will empty and soon after the phone and power grid will go down. Can even the right-militias survive for long without gas, Facebook and Walmart?
Developing the natural skills, and learning to live without the structures that generate the modern conflict environment is the pre-requisite to survival, not the ability to enact stand-off violence. The reason Vietnamese or Afghan groups could oppose American imperial power was because of their ability to live direct from the land, without the need to carry a refrigerator and a burger kitchen with them.
OK, I admit it... anarcho-primitivist... and happy! 🙂
Certainly, you can't survive on bullets alone. Now is the time to be creating and reinforcing communities as a form of defense. You don't need to necessarily live off the land if you can farm together, skill-share, etc. It will be extremely difficult but maybe we can adjust and rebuild in a happier way. As Bread Santa said, "Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution".
@@octothorpian_nightmare Mobility is a weapon, especially in the era of drones.
10:56
6:30 what is your take on mlk and civil rights movement?
Was it peaceful, was it not, didn't it achieve something at least?
Worker strikes that lead to 5 day workweek and new deal?
Just in the context of you saying nothing peaceful has ever changed anything fundamentally?
I don't even disagree with you and think I understand what you mean (because I share most of your views)
But you're wording is giving a lot of room for counter arguments and discrediting for people who don't and might want to be informed
Hence why I ask to actually get a more clear understanding of exactly what you mean here
Can’t storm the capitol with pocket knives
The stiletto revolution!!!
" if you live in the US you should think about it"???😂
To be fair. When the us military "loses" these wars it doesn't lose them, it's that our civilian leaders fail to secure the end to the war, a political solution brought about by the pain that the military has caused. A war is ultimately expressing pain upon another to convince them that living with the owner of the army on their terms is preferable to continuation of the struggle. In Iraq and Afghanistan what we essentially did was tear down the government, provide no new one, no services, no future. So there wasn't any alternative for the oppressed population but continued resistence. These oppressed people lost almost every engagement, in the war as a whole suffering 20 , 50, 100 to one losses. They did not win the war, they simply refused to accept peace.
This is something that needs to be accepted. Gurilla methods are not superior, if they were nobody would have a regular army. Mao wouldn't have gone from gurilla to conventional fighting if gurilla was superior. It isn't. It suffers horrendous losses and essentially only "wins" by exhausting occupiers by refusing to let there be peace. If you can go conventional you do because it expresses far more force and resolves the primary violence of the conflict with far less bloodshed to your side allowing your political leaders to hash out a political solution to the conflict sooner. Or they can be like the us where all the political leaders intentionally sabotage any peace process in order to enrich themselves and their friends.
I'm very interested in this debate because I think myself as an anarchist but I'm also very anti-gun.
You start off the premise that there's absolutely no way of creating a society without guns. I just think that's a flawed premise, and it can prevent us from prefiguring a pacifist new system.
There are many countries where gun ownership is heavily restricted or outright banned, such as Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom, and these countries still function well without widespread gun ownership.
The idea that civilian ownership of guns is necessary to prevent government tyranny is not supported by historical evidence. There are also many examples of successful nonviolent resistance movements that have achieved significant political and social change, such as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
The use of violence in response to resistance movements often backfires, as it can galvanize opposition, and create sympathy and support for the resistance movement. Nonviolent resistance movements, on the other hand, often have greater legitimacy and are able to mobilize a wider range of supporters.
A good argument that you made is that societies can experience periods of instability that are accompanied by violence. However its not necessarily true that such violence is inevitable or intrinsic to the process of collapse.
It might be that a society with more access to guns is more likely to engage in such violence than a society that has different tools at their disposal.
Your argumentation is kinda flawed because you are saying that states like japan (and others) are doing fine without any guns at all but it is wrong because the state/police/military are still having guns so if any violence happen in these countries, especially gun violence, you will call a police/army and they will arrive *with tons of guns* to deal with problems. So you just can't say that these states are operated without guns
i’m from ireland and I honestly think stuff around guns are very good here as they’re very rare in general, I think it’s best if neither side has guns at all. There are still armed guards and there are still the occasional mafia/gang shooting but it’s out of the way of the general population. I’ve seen the thing before about how if the people aren’t armed at all then if there’s a protest the military can easily come in and start shooting with no resistance but even the military is quite small here relatively. Looking the the recent riots in dublin city, it was a semi violent protest from a bunch of far right anti-immigrant dole merchants, but they didn’t have guns, and the government didn’t respond with guns, I honestly thing the government were too lax seeing as they were burning buses and shops, but that kinda contradicts the argument that protests will be one sided.
If it were a pro-immigration riot, you think the government would be as lax?
Firstly, interesting insights, so thanks for that. But I can't get around the fact that these insights are distinctly American. That they belong to the US militaristic cultural matrix where gun ownership is natural and a given. I appreciate that you call gun ownership a 'grim necessity' and call for 'de-escalation'. However, even though you say that you are not advocating preppers I see this as the advocation of leftist preppers with the associated gun culture to match. Here I have some reservations.
I view guns as mere tools. Inherently destructive tools at that. As weapons of mass destruction they are inherently oppressive and have no place in the ideal of an anarchist society. The sad and haunting reality of the global rise of fascism does however call for an escalation in initiatives for self-defence. It is not realistic to even remotely assume that the population is ready for revolution so momentarily self-defence is the highest you can aim for. In that evolution of social change can exist within safe spaces facilitated with tools, tactics and methods of self-defence. It is vital however to be reflective, and to stay so, of guns as tools of violence and oppression that can, if unchecked, spiral out of control. It is that vicious cycle I want people to be conscious of.
I don't think anyone is seriously considering a protracted conflict of left vs right. In my time in the SRA, we did gun stuff maybe 5% of the time, but shared recipes, gardening tips, and community building techniques the rest of the time. Our FBI informant must have been so bored. But anyway, that's the real leftist prepping: networking. Near-term is folk like the JBGC showing up to DQSH to show the fash that they've got teeth. Long-term we pull through the collapse as best we can and rebuild with a different set of values.
Don't rule knives and rocks out so quickly, sure they aren't enough alone, but better to take what you can get, just remember that it's the plan that's most important if you're outnumbered or outgunned.
Classical strategists all agree that the mind is the most important aspect of a strong offense or defense, the idea that the advent of modern guns would change that is foolish, the reason america got btfo of Vietnam, partially.
The Vietnamese were armed with guns.
@@Anark but fewer, and of lower quality, they used traps as much as actual weapons, stealth tactics, too.
Weapons are critically important, but letting yourself give up entirely because you don't have access to a gun is reductive, in a way.
There are plenty of other viable weapons than guns, especially in the modern age of consumption, it's never been easier to get ahold of both styrofoam and gasoline, as an example.
Never pass up good weapons, but don't neglect your brain's part in it all.
You can't beat a larger, better equipped and supplied force without getting crafty, is all I'm trying to say, love the videos 👍
@@jasonrobinson401I would argue the guns they had access to were, for all practical purposes, at functional parity with what the Americans were fielding. An AK-47 or SKS with irons isn't *that* much worse than an M16 or M14, especially at typical combat ranges.
@@SavageArms357 that's still missing my point, let me put it another way, how did the Vietcong air force stack up against the Americans? How was their support from the global community? Did they have chemical weapons of their own?
My point is that you can't let the disparity in force stop you, the Vietcong weaponized the environment itself, avoided direct conflicts they couldn't win, and used whatever they could get their hands on however they could, it's that tactical adaptability that led them to taking Saigon, not because "they had guns too", because even if they weren't bad guns, they didn't have even half as many, you just can't play that "who has more resources" game with the state, because it has more than you. So get crafty, steal from the enemy, hell, steal their guns, but don't just sit there thinking "there's nothing we can do😢" just because you don't have what your enemy has, that could change in an instant with a good plan anyway.
@@jasonrobinson401I don't disagree with anything you said there! I think you're absolutely right. I was only responding to the point of their weapons (and I was thinking you were only referring to their firearms) being inferior. I misunderstood you, sorry about that.
I'd have to disagree with this opinion. I don't see how some far off presumed violent revolution is more important than the lives being lost right now. And in our current political situation guns serve no purpose. Protests and mutual aid is what is going to gain us the most power today. And even when faced with violent fascist/police, gun use will only be framed to make us look bad. Victims of police violence and Ex-police themselves have stated they purposefully escalate situations to make us violent, therefore justifying their abuse. There have also been multiple accounts of fake leftists entering our communities/organizations and then trying to push for more violent actions to delegitimize and destroy us.
Said mutual aid will be destroyed if the powerful perceive it as a threat to their power. We will have to defend that.
We will be framed as terrorists and hooligans regardless and even if they were to murder us all unprovoked, the mass media would still lie that we startes it or that ThEY FeARed FOr THeIr LiVes, plant a gun , anything that is necessary.
Fake leftists joining the organizations? Snuff them out.
We will bleed if we fight back and we will bleed if we don't. But if we fight back, one day we may not have to fight anymore.
The way I see it, we're never going to get to a point at which the US creates strict enough gun laws to stop shootings. So rather than wasting time begging those in power to enact laws that they would never enact, better to organize your community to the extent that you can actually start discussing armories/weapons depots wherein weapons can be stored and shared when needed, but would not get into the hands of those who would do harm. Instead of thinking "how can we get the state to solve a problem it has caused?" we should ask "how can we organize in such a way that state enforcement becomes unnecessary?"
@@otherperson I can definitely agree with the first part about the state's uselessness. But what is the point of stock piling weapons? They are useless in solving any problems that i can think of in which we are now facing. Do you all really think we're on the precipice of civil war or violent revolution?
@@KiddKyle67 we don't know and cannot know. What we do know is that the far right is actively arming itself and forming militias, and that over the past decade, we have seen a deeply fascistic push by Republicans and the unwillingness of the political center to do anything about it. Voting rights and trans rights are actively crumbling, even as multiple states force schools to conform with republican views of what ought and ought not to be taught. Every time a drag show is met by far right militant protesters carrying guns, they are building power and intimidating those who may not have access to adequate defense. This is one reason why a militant left should exist in the here and now--to stifle and defend against the already highly armed right wing.
@@KiddKyle67 and in any case, as I said, the point is that, whether we like it or not, Americans are going to stockpile guns, so do we organize to do it safely and with minimal risk of harm or do we continue to do it as we always have? Plenty of leftists disagree with this, and think they should personally own guns. So if you disagree, rather than argue with them about it, you should turn to your neighbors and build the necessary structures in your own locale to effect change.
Hey, hey Daniel. You got any giraffes? .... Go fish.
What is your view on red flag laws
They're good and we need more gun control, not less.
Bro, you live in Tulsa why are you afraid of the state you should be afraid of armed decentralized movements, you know. Just based on the history.
It's both
never done =/= never will.
probably impossible. but i rather try the impossible than the easy way. if the easy way involves many innocent lifes lost.
but then again daily deaths from capitalism is already too damn high. and this system is already violent.
but i wish and hope i never need to harm someone.
but if they don't accept peace we need to defend ourselves from their oppression as greed tends to escalate against equality, as equality means less power to the greedy 😭
This may be a controversial position, but i think everyone should be allowed nuclear weapons for self defense. If an external threat, or an internal one from a safe distance, threatens me, i should have the right to defend myself by whatever means i have available. As it happens, i have a nuclear arsenal.
found skullface
Lol they are not worried about him
Libertarian socialism is an oxymoron.
I: Why would it be?
Socialism can only be libertarian
@@Anark If I enter into a voluntary contractual relationship with another person to use my property (my body/my material possessions) in conjunction with theirs, in order to further my material wealth, I have just engaged in a free market/capitalist transaction. That transaction is perfectly compatible with a free and open society with the absence of a ruling class(Anarchy). I am not being extorted, my rights aren’t being harmed, the person I am entering into the contract with is not having their rights violated in any way, and nobody else’s rights are being violated. Contrast that with your ideology, which prescribes violence being done unto those who wish to enter into such voluntary contractual relationships if only you deem them to be “exploitative” and “capitalistic”.
@@iamnohere Freedom is antithetical to coercive collectivism.
@VoluntaryPlanet Capitalism is not "trading things." Capitalism is wage slavery and parasitism of the labor of the masses. The destruction of capitalism is therefore self-defense against slavery.