1398864_merino__sheepAll the time fellow gun owners say things to me like, “Seriously, Steve, how would they possibly gather up all the hundreds of millions of guns that are out there?”
Well my naïve friend, let me tell you how it works.
Step 1: Create an anti-gun culture and make guns and gun owners the bad guys at every turn:
On the evening news, every time a crime is reported, make sure there is a picture of a mean looking gun next to the chalk outline of a body. Portray hunters and sportsmen as backwoods unsophisticated hillbillies and rednecks. Feminize the society, especially the males. Create a culture where the police* are revered as heroes whose intentions can never be questioned. Demonize war and warriors. Label gun organizations “crazed lunatics” and “unreasonable extremists.” Make shooting restrictive by forcing participants to private ranges, then close the ranges by legal means citing reasons of safety, nuisance, environmental, or whatever possible.
Create terms like “assault weapon”, “high-powered sniper rifle”, “guns off the streets”, “weapons of war” when engaging in the gun debate making ordinary guns out to have extraordinary functions. Build on this disinformation by using movies, gaming, and entertainment that creates the falsehood that guns are capable of doing impossible things like firing hundreds of times without reloading or overheating or blowing up a car’s gas tank with the strike of a bullet.
Step 2: Build “security” systems that make the sheeple feel safe, giving them a false sense of security and overdependence on police and government authority while at the same time disarming them.
Establish gun free zones. Install security cameras everywhere. Place roving security cars with strobes in mall parking lots. Create neighborhood watch programs under the careful supervision of law enforcement insisting that no one be armed and that all incidents are to be reported to the police. Install and maintain elaborate computer entry systems in buildings. Establish pat downs at sporting events, etc. Put “no gun” signs in all public places.
Step 3: Play soothing music prior to the execution:
Tell the sheeple that the taking away of their protection is for their own good. Confuse them with emotional arguments. Convince them that you’re doing it for the children. Couch it as a safety issue. Use turncoats to make illogical but emotionally appealing arguments. Tell them you’re not coming for all the guns, just some of the more evil looking ones even though they function in exactly in the same manner.
Step 4: Wait until some horrible tragedy or series of events that make the sheeple susceptible to emotional arguments and knee-jerk reactions:
Step 5: Create a system that makes registration and confiscation simple and gun ownership very difficult and expensive:
Close private sales between individuals. Create a national registration or database that can easily be turned to for confiscation. Create bureaucracies that are unaccountable to the people and can serve the purpose of registration, confiscation, and collection. Create processes so cumbersome that no one would possibly want to purchase and register a firearm.
Step 6: Begin the process of making certain kinds of guns illegal:
Take incremental steps by isolating one group of firearm and pitting its owners against the “more reasonable” owner. Then continue to redefine “reasonable” insisting that if this class of firearm or that class of firearm were “off the streets” then society could be a better place and our children protected.
Step 7: Create “buyback” and “amnesty” programs that have the effect of identifying and confiscating guns that have slipped under the registration radar.
Step 8: Use some kind of national emergency to begin final implementation once the population has been sufficiently disarmed. This can be done through economic chaos or used as an excuse to quell civil uprising as a result of a variety of circumstances.
Step 9: Throughout the process, implement draconian fines and prison sentences for those who refuse to capitulate. Encourage neighbor to turn on neighbor and gun owner to turn on gun owner. Reward turncoats with positions of power or financial gain.
THIS STEP IS KEY: To those that think, “They’re not going to take my guns away,” you are a fool. Most people will capitulate when they are faced with huge fines and prison sentences. Look no further than the holocaust less than sixty years ago. These were not guns that were rounded up and destroyed, but human beings! Does any reasonable person think that this could not possibly happen again?
And for those of you who think democracy is the answer, Hitler was put in power through the democratic process and then gained absolute power though various political moves eventually taking full control of the government.
Step 10: Welcome to disarmament!
My gun owning friends, do not fall for these steps. Resist them at every turn. Today it’s thirty round magazines, “military looking” guns, online ammunition sales and registration, tomorrow, it’s full confiscation.
One final thought: If safety, security, and protection of our children are really the issues, then why first go after something that is rarely used in violent crime? Why not start with something that kills far more innocents every year like abortion, prescription drugs, or automobiles?
Don’t be lulled into false thinking. It’s not about safety or protecting children; there are better ways to protect against random acts of mass murderers than to disarm law abiding citizens. To quote one of my favorite bumper stickers, “It’s not about the guns, it’s about the control.”
*This is not an indictment against police, as I have family members and very close friends who are members of the law enforcement community who believe as I do and are very necessary members of an ordered society.
Image: Merino Sheep; courtesy of ptogel; http://www.keux.com