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If you added them all up together, they would number less than 1/20th of the number of armed citizens in the U.S., and that's not counting the military personnel that defect to the "rebellion" with their weapons and join the citizens in fighting back. The success of early PMCs like Executive Outcomes in Angola in the late 1980s/early 1990s, EO didn't have to deal with more than a 100 million armed and angry Americans with a long tradition at arms. EO fought a small number of rebels, actually acting as much as advisors to the gov't army as they did as combatants. Most of the rebels did not have prior military experience. In the U.S., tens of millions of those gun owners have had military experience, some of it extensive, and a lot of it in combat. Horse of a different feather.

It won't be the blue helmeted UN troops from Ghana doing it (at the direction of the Bilderberg Group).

It will be a slow roll of "common sense" gun safety measures coming from Pres. Hillary and her Democrat & RINO supporters in Congress. I mean who doesn't support a Federal background check on all private sales/transfers? Licensing of carry (long guns and handguns) to prevent the lunatic fringe from "walking down the street" with AR-15 assault weapons? A federal "no buy" list run by DHS, just like the "no fly list". Also a psychological pre-screening before you get your Federal buy approval. When you go to the range or out of your home with any gun that will be probable cause for any LEO federal or state to demand you show your carry license under criminal penalty for non-compliance. None of this will possibly affect us LTC holders as we're already certified good guys by the State of Texas... Some of us even have our TWICS and Security Clearances from the Feds...that should get us extra privileges, maybe NFA firearms or other stuff not for the average Joe.

The Annoyed Man wrote:If you added them all up together, they would number less than 1/20th of the number of armed citizens in the U.S., and that's not counting the military personnel that defect to the "rebellion" with their weapons and join the citizens in fighting back. The success of early PMCs like Executive Outcomes in Angola in the late 1980s/early 1990s, EO didn't have to deal with more than a 100 million armed and angry Americans with a long tradition at arms. EO fought a small number of rebels, actually acting as much as advisors to the gov't army as they did as combatants. Most of the rebels did not have prior military experience. In the U.S., tens of millions of those gun owners have had military experience, some of it extensive, and a lot of it in combat. Horse of a different feather.

The video mentions New Orleans, did you know cops, National Guard and Black water went to peoples homes and disarmed them? White and Black. It did not matter to them.

How many have stood up to the laws in Hawaii where gun owners are put on a federal list? How many stood up to californias laws? You're going to see a lot of guys wearing Molon Labe t shirts turning in their mags. I don't think it's going to happen like we think it's going to happen. People will let each other fall until it's at their door step. By that time there is no one to stand with because you're the last man standing. I hope I'm wrong but I don't believe we live in the same America anymore.With Califonias laws and other states they are testing us. The Oregon shootings were a test. They out smarted those boys.

Soap wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:If you added them all up together, they would number less than 1/20th of the number of armed citizens in the U.S., and that's not counting the military personnel that defect to the "rebellion" with their weapons and join the citizens in fighting back. The success of early PMCs like Executive Outcomes in Angola in the late 1980s/early 1990s, EO didn't have to deal with more than a 100 million armed and angry Americans with a long tradition at arms. EO fought a small number of rebels, actually acting as much as advisors to the gov't army as they did as combatants. Most of the rebels did not have prior military experience. In the U.S., tens of millions of those gun owners have had military experience, some of it extensive, and a lot of it in combat. Horse of a different feather.

The video mentions New Orleans, did you know cops, National Guard and Black water went to peoples homes and disarmed them? White and Black. It did not matter to them.

How many have stood up to the laws in Hawaii where gun owners are put on a federal list? How many stood up to californias laws? You're going to see a lot of guys wearing Molon Labe t shirts turning in their mags. I don't think it's going to happen like we think it's going to happen. People will let each other fall until it's at their door step. By that time there is no one to stand with because you're the last man standing. I hope I'm wrong but I don't believe we live in the same America anymore.With Califonias laws and other states they are testing us. The Oregon shootings were a test. They out smarted those boys.

First off, bolding all of your text won't make me read it any "harder"........ Just sayin'........

Yes, all of those things did happen........ and when the NRA took New Orleans to court on the illegal gun confiscations, the NRA won.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/2015082 ... in-america

NRA immediately denounced the confiscations as unlawful under state law and unconstitutional, and set to work rectifying New Orleans’ abuse of power and ensuring that no American would be faced with confiscation under a similar scenario.

NRA promptly filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana against New Orleans in order to halt the city’s confiscation efforts. On September 23, Judge Jay Zainey granted a temporary restraining order barring New Orleans and the surrounding communities from further confiscations, and required that the seized guns be returned. NRA also successfully worked to lift a ban on firearm possession for those living in Federal Emergency Management Agency housing as a result of the storm.

The city dragged its feet in returning confiscated firearms to their lawful owners. However, NRA persisted until 2008, when NRA and New Orleans came to a settlement in which the city agreed to carry out an acceptable procedure for returning the firearms. The agreement allowed owners to get back their guns without documented proof of ownership, which many residents were understandably unable to provide.

NRA’s post-Katrina efforts did not stop at the Louisiana border. NRA prompted mayors and police chiefs across America to sign a pledge stating that they will, “never forcibly disarm the law-abiding citizens” of their city. Further, NRA worked to limit the power of state and local governments to regulate firearms in times of emergency, by advocating for emergency powers reform legislation throughout the country. Currently, over half of the states have some form of emergency powers provision protecting gun owners from government abuse during a crisis.

In 2006, moreover, President George W. Bush signed into law the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which contained an NRA-backed amendment sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). The amendment prohibits persons acting under color of federal law, receiving federal funds, or acting at the direction of a federal employee from seizing or authorizing the seizure of lawfully-possessed firearms or imposing or enforcing certain restrictions on firearms during a state of emergency.

But even if the NRA had lost, you're still talking about the few thousand NO cops augmented by a few hundred (I'm assuming) Blackwater personnel, acting in a democrat controlled city, during a weather catastrophe of biblical proportions - and because of said catastrophe the confiscations happened in a vacuum, protected from having a light shined on the actions until after they were underway. How much of the country is laboring under a Katrina-like catastrophe at any given moment? The harder part of my heart actually welcomes those kinds of events to be visited upon democrat controlled cities, because it makes the shortfalls (i.e. corruption) of democrat government obvious to everyone, including to the local citizenry. I mean, even the NO police took part in the looting. Here's the fallout: Ray Nagin was exposed to be a weak-minded fraud, and even in the face of his continuing to commandeer the mayor's seat until 2010, the federal govt's attention was focused on his corruption. Today, he is listed by the federal Bureau of Prisons website as inmate No. 32751-034. Then Governor Kathleen Blanco was revealed as a fraud. She so hated George W. Bush because he was a republican, and it just grated on her to ask a republican for help, that she withheld a request for federal disaster assistance — a legal requirement to avoid federal Posse Comitatus violations — until it was too late for that assistance to be put into effective play. And then she tried to blame the delays on Bush - despite the fact that Bush had previously communicated with her saying, in effect, "we're ready, just say the word and we'll be there". Katrina happened in August 2005, and her career did not survive the stain on her reputation as an executive. She ran for reelection in 2008 and was beaten by republican Bobby Jindal. Blackwater's reputation suffered mightily among conservatives and libertarians (its rep was already trash for liberals) for its part in the gun confiscations in New Orleans. The company changed its name to "Xe" in 2009 to try and shed the bad publicity that came with the name "Blackwater"........in part for its role at New Orleans.

Is it possible that such another gun confiscation could occur? Sure......anything is possible. But I submit that it could only happen in large democrat controlled metropolitan areas. Sooner or later, the confiscators would have to enter the countryside and try that on a population who are a LOT more likely to shoot back (accurately, no less). Heck, out in the country, even democrats like their guns and are not nearly as likely to knuckle under to something like that as the lemmings in the city would be. How are you even going to confiscate guns in a state like Texas where FTF sales are still legal without an FFL transfer? And EVEN IF they knew I had, at one time, bought an AR15 from Such and So Gun Store with serial number XYZ12345, I can bury it in a field somewhere along with a couple thousand rounds of ammo and claim to no longer own it. "Yeah, I sold it to some dude named Joe about 2 years ago........I think he was from the panhandle, showed me a TDL with an Amarillo address......He was of average height and kind of nondescript looking....I remember that he had an east coast accent. He said he was a police officer up there. No I don't remember the street he lived on in Amarillo."

I'm not saying that Hitlery wouldn't try such a scheme. What I AM saying is that it would not be very successful, except in democrat controlled cities, and possibly in states where democrats have already dismantled 2nd Amendment protections. But even in those states, you know, outside of Chicago, there is actually a fairly large gun-owning population in Illinois, and they don't like what happens in Chicago. In California (where I am originally from), outside of the cities of San Francisco (and the bay area), greater Los Angeles, and San Diego, there are still a fair number of gun owners, and they are seriously angry about the latest raft of legislation there. In Northern California, where the republican/libertarian secessionist movement to create the 51st state of "Jefferson" is fairly popular, the backlash will be huge. In rural Massachusetts and rural upstate New York, gun ownership is still common and it is still considered to be a cherished right. The thing is, in states like Illinois, California, Massachusetts, and New York, the non-gun-owning city-dwellers may outnumber the rural dwellers by a large number, but the fact is that MOST of those city-dwellers are NOT shooters, and they are NOT likely to want to be the ones sent to confiscate guns in the countryside, and most would resist being sent to do so, out of simple self-preservation instincts. The ones who would go would be the hardcore commies, and a few of the LEOs. That's it. The truth is that not one single one of those cowardly gun-grabbers has ever volunteered to the first in the SWAT stackup outside someone's front door. They are all about passing laws, but they are not about getting their own hands dirty. They pay their minions for that. But when their minions understand the bloodbath that would follow and want no part of it, then what are the snowflakes in gov't going to do about it?

I'll remind you that, in democrat controlled Connecticut in the wake of Sandy Hook, in the one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in many decades, gun owners flat refused to register their guns and turn in their standard capacity magazines. In the end, the state police simply abandoned enforcement efforts.

Sooner or later, all of those fascists from the cities will have to face an irate and well-armed population out in countrysides..........the countrysides which produces the cities' food as well as their own, and in which the rural residents have the home-field advantage that any rural insurrection anywhere in the world enjoys. What are the cities going to do? Take over the farms and work them themselves? Yeah, that'll fly. Because that's what they'll have to do when the farmer owners and workers take a powder and vanish off the land to eke out a living elsewhere with skills they already have and know how to use, while the ignorant city dwellers try and figure out why their kale is dying.

Sure, a convoy of urban SWAT officers in up-armored vehicles might roll up on a few individual rural properties and confiscate the guns, and even throw their owners in the rumored FEMA camps.......but that will only have to happen a few times before those convoys start facing an organized resistance. Can you begin to imagine how many rural residents have access to explosives for blowing stumps (not to mention all the fans of Tannerite® ). It would not be long before those convoys started facing IEDs. One of the advantages of 15 years of the Iraq/Afghatistan wars is that we learned nearly as much from our enemies as they did from us......including how to make and deploy IEDs......and a lot of those veterans who gained that knowledge are country boys. Iraq is a nation of 168,754 sq mi with a population of around 31,234,000. Texas alone is a state of 268,820 sq mi with a population of 27,469,114 (2015).......in other words, Texas alone is a much larger state than Iraq, with a somewhat smaller population......and yet in Iraq (and Afghanistan), 1/2 to 2/3 of all combat casualties (both WIA and KIA) were caused by IED. What happens when all of those country boys currently serving in the military and police agencies, who personally support the 2nd Amendment, begin to desert their units with their weapons (and their training) and return home?

Yeah, Hillary Clinton could conceivably try to take all the guns. It would be a spectacular failure, and it would kill a whole lot of people .....including people who had supported her efforts, and eventually she would lose the political support that put her in office.

The United States enjoys ONE thing not permitted to any other nation, and that is that our founders desired an armed citizenry for EXACTLY these kinds of reasons. Those of you who have served (I never did myself, something I regret to this day) took and oath to protect the nation from enemies foreign and domestic; and as my Life Group leader said last night to us, "I've never been relieved of that oath". Yes, it would be bloody, but a fascist takeover would be doomed to failure. Yes, it would be an extremely difficult and unwanted time for those who would have to suffer through it; but if the fascists actually pushed things that far, the silver lining is that whatever came out of the ashes would probably be a lot more committed to upholding the Constitution than the gov't that created the situation in the first place.

I want to add something else, and this is taken from a blog post I put up just yesterday:

For me personally, I am very drawn to the speech that is most commonly attributed to the great Shawnee Chief Tecumseh (although it has also been attributed to other notable leaders in Native American History):

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

As a Christ-follower, I am satisfied about what will happen to me on the day I die - a day which is appointed to ALL of us, whether or not someone shares my brand of faith. If I expend my life in the service of my people, I will count it to the good. Like anyone, I want to live long enough to watch my little granddaughter get married, and maybe even to have kids of her own. I want to live long enough to watch my infant grandson grow up to be like the man his father is, of whom I am so proud. But only the Lord knows the number of my days. If it is not his will for me to die at any given point in time, NOTHING can kill me. And if it is not his will for me to live long enough to watch my grandkids mature into fully realized adults, NOTHING can keep me here. It is liberating, because the only decision I have to make is to decide what is worth dying for, and what is worth living for. God takes care of the rest.

I hope you can personally find some measure of peace in what I wrote.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Soap wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:If you added them all up together, they would number less than 1/20th of the number of armed citizens in the U.S., and that's not counting the military personnel that defect to the "rebellion" with their weapons and join the citizens in fighting back. The success of early PMCs like Executive Outcomes in Angola in the late 1980s/early 1990s, EO didn't have to deal with more than a 100 million armed and angry Americans with a long tradition at arms. EO fought a small number of rebels, actually acting as much as advisors to the gov't army as they did as combatants. Most of the rebels did not have prior military experience. In the U.S., tens of millions of those gun owners have had military experience, some of it extensive, and a lot of it in combat. Horse of a different feather.

The video mentions New Orleans, did you know cops, National Guard and Black water went to peoples homes and disarmed them? White and Black. It did not matter to them.

How many have stood up to the laws in Hawaii where gun owners are put on a federal list? How many stood up to californias laws? You're going to see a lot of guys wearing Molon Labe t shirts turning in their mags. I don't think it's going to happen like we think it's going to happen. People will let each other fall until it's at their door step. By that time there is no one to stand with because you're the last man standing. I hope I'm wrong but I don't believe we live in the same America anymore.With Califonias laws and other states they are testing us. The Oregon shootings were a test. They out smarted those boys.

First off, bolding all of your text won't make me read it any "harder"........ Just sayin'........

Yes, all of those things did happen........ and when the NRA took New Orleans to court on the illegal gun confiscations, the NRA won.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/2015082 ... in-america

NRA immediately denounced the confiscations as unlawful under state law and unconstitutional, and set to work rectifying New Orleans’ abuse of power and ensuring that no American would be faced with confiscation under a similar scenario.

NRA promptly filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana against New Orleans in order to halt the city’s confiscation efforts. On September 23, Judge Jay Zainey granted a temporary restraining order barring New Orleans and the surrounding communities from further confiscations, and required that the seized guns be returned. NRA also successfully worked to lift a ban on firearm possession for those living in Federal Emergency Management Agency housing as a result of the storm.

The city dragged its feet in returning confiscated firearms to their lawful owners. However, NRA persisted until 2008, when NRA and New Orleans came to a settlement in which the city agreed to carry out an acceptable procedure for returning the firearms. The agreement allowed owners to get back their guns without documented proof of ownership, which many residents were understandably unable to provide.

NRA’s post-Katrina efforts did not stop at the Louisiana border. NRA prompted mayors and police chiefs across America to sign a pledge stating that they will, “never forcibly disarm the law-abiding citizens” of their city. Further, NRA worked to limit the power of state and local governments to regulate firearms in times of emergency, by advocating for emergency powers reform legislation throughout the country. Currently, over half of the states have some form of emergency powers provision protecting gun owners from government abuse during a crisis.

In 2006, moreover, President George W. Bush signed into law the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which contained an NRA-backed amendment sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). The amendment prohibits persons acting under color of federal law, receiving federal funds, or acting at the direction of a federal employee from seizing or authorizing the seizure of lawfully-possessed firearms or imposing or enforcing certain restrictions on firearms during a state of emergency.

But even if the NRA had lost, you're still talking about the few thousand NO cops augmented by a few hundred (I'm assuming) Blackwater personnel, acting in a democrat controlled city, during a weather catastrophe of biblical proportions - and because of said catastrophe the confiscations happened in a vacuum, protected from having a light shined on the actions until after they were underway. How much of the country is laboring under a Katrina-like catastrophe at any given moment? The harder part of my heart actually welcomes those kinds of events to be visited upon democrat controlled cities, because it makes the shortfalls (i.e. corruption) of democrat government obvious to everyone, including to the local citizenry. I mean, even the NO police took part in the looting. Here's the fallout: Ray Nagin was exposed to be a weak-minded fraud, and even in the face of his continuing to commandeer the mayor's seat until 2010, the federal govt's attention was focused on his corruption. Today, he is listed by the federal Bureau of Prisons website as inmate No. 32751-034. Then Governor Kathleen Blanco was revealed as a fraud. She so hated George W. Bush because he was a republican, and it just grated on her to ask a republican for help, that she withheld a request for federal disaster assistance — a legal requirement to avoid federal Posse Comitatus violations — until it was too late for that assistance to be put into effective play. And then she tried to blame the delays on Bush - despite the fact that Bush had previously communicated with her saying, in effect, "we're ready, just say the word and we'll be there". Katrina happened in August 2005, and her career did not survive the stain on her reputation as an executive. She ran for reelection in 2008 and was beaten by republican Bobby Jindal. Blackwater's reputation suffered mightily among conservatives and libertarians (its rep was already trash for liberals) for its part in the gun confiscations in New Orleans. The company changed its name to "Xe" in 2009 to try and shed the bad publicity that came with the name "Blackwater"........in part for its role at New Orleans.

Is it possible that such another gun confiscation could occur? Sure......anything is possible. But I submit that it could only happen in large democrat controlled metropolitan areas. Sooner or later, the confiscators would have to enter the countryside and try that on a population who are a LOT more likely to shoot back (accurately, no less). Heck, out in the country, even democrats like their guns and are not nearly as likely to knuckle under to something like that as the lemmings in the city would be. How are you even going to confiscate guns in a state like Texas where FTF sales are still legal without an FFL transfer? And EVEN IF they knew I had, at one time, bought an AR15 from Such and So Gun Store with serial number XYZ12345, I can bury it in a field somewhere along with a couple thousand rounds of ammo and claim to no longer own it. "Yeah, I sold it to some dude named Joe about 2 years ago........I think he was from the panhandle, showed me a TDL with an Amarillo address......He was of average height and kind of nondescript looking....I remember that he had an east coast accent. He said he was a police officer up there. No I don't remember the street he lived on in Amarillo."

I'm not saying that Hitlery wouldn't try such a scheme. What I AM saying is that it would not be very successful, except in democrat controlled cities, and possibly in states where democrats have already dismantled 2nd Amendment protections. But even in those states, you know, outside of Chicago, there is actually a fairly large gun-owning population in Illinois, and they don't like what happens in Chicago. In California (where I am originally from), outside of the cities of San Francisco (and the bay area), greater Los Angeles, and San Diego, there are still a fair number of gun owners, and they are seriously angry about the latest raft of legislation there. In Northern California, where the republican/libertarian secessionist movement to create the 51st state of "Jefferson" is fairly popular, the backlash will be huge. In rural Massachusetts and rural upstate New York, gun ownership is still common and it is still considered to be a cherished right. The thing is, in states like Illinois, California, Massachusetts, and New York, the non-gun-owning city-dwellers may outnumber the rural dwellers by a large number, but the fact is that MOST of those city-dwellers are NOT shooters, and they are NOT likely to want to be the ones sent to confiscate guns in the countryside, and most would resist being sent to do so, out of simple self-preservation instincts. The ones who would go would be the hardcore commies, and a few of the LEOs. That's it. The truth is that not one single one of those cowardly gun-grabbers has ever volunteered to the first in the SWAT stackup outside someone's front door. They are all about passing laws, but they are not about getting their own hands dirty. They pay their minions for that. But when their minions understand the bloodbath that would follow and want no part of it, then what are the snowflakes in gov't going to do about it?

I'll remind you that, in democrat controlled Connecticut in the wake of Sandy Hook, in the one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in many decades, gun owners flat refused to register their guns and turn in their standard capacity magazines. In the end, the state police simply abandoned enforcement efforts.

Sooner or later, all of those fascists from the cities will have to face an irate and well-armed population out in countrysides..........the countrysides which produces the cities' food as well as their own, and in which the rural residents have the home-field advantage that any rural insurrection anywhere in the world enjoys. What are the cities going to do? Take over the farms and work them themselves? Yeah, that'll fly. Because that's what they'll have to do when the farmer owners and workers take a powder and vanish off the land to eke out a living elsewhere with skills they already have and know how to use, while the ignorant city dwellers try and figure out why their kale is dying.

Sure, a convoy of urban SWAT officers in up-armored vehicles might roll up on a few individual rural properties and confiscate the guns, and even throw their owners in the rumored FEMA camps.......but that will only have to happen a few times before those convoys start facing an organized resistance. Can you begin to imagine how many rural residents have access to explosives for blowing stumps (not to mention all the fans of Tannerite® ). It would not be long before those convoys started facing IEDs. One of the advantages of 15 years of the Iraq/Afghatistan wars is that we learned nearly as much from our enemies as they did from us......including how to make and deploy IEDs......and a lot of those veterans who gained that knowledge are country boys. Iraq is a nation of 168,754 sq mi with a population of around 31,234,000. Texas alone is a state of 268,820 sq mi with a population of 27,469,114 (2015).......in other words, Texas alone is a much larger state than Iraq, with a somewhat smaller population......and yet in Iraq (and Afghanistan), 1/2 to 2/3 of all combat casualties (both WIA and KIA) were caused by IED. What happens when all of those country boys currently serving in the military and police agencies, who personally support the 2nd Amendment, begin to desert their units with their weapons (and their training) and return home?

Yeah, Hillary Clinton could conceivably try to take all the guns. It would be a spectacular failure, and it would kill a whole lot of people .....including people who had supported her efforts, and eventually she would lose the political support that put her in office.

The United States enjoys ONE thing not permitted to any other nation, and that is that our founders desired an armed citizenry for EXACTLY these kinds of reasons. Those of you who have served (I never did myself, something I regret to this day) took and oath to protect the nation from enemies foreign and domestic; and as my Life Group leader said last night to us, "I've never been relieved of that oath". Yes, it would be bloody, but a fascist takeover would be doomed to failure. Yes, it would be an extremely difficult and unwanted time for those who would have to suffer through it; but if the fascists actually pushed things that far, the silver lining is that whatever came out of the ashes would probably be a lot more committed to upholding the Constitution than the gov't that created the situation in the first place.

I want to add something else, and this is taken from a blog post I put up just yesterday:

For me personally, I am very drawn to the speech that is most commonly attributed to the great Shawnee Chief Tecumseh (although it has also been attributed to other notable leaders in Native American History):

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

As a Christ-follower, I am satisfied about what will happen to me on the day I die - a day which is appointed to ALL of us, whether or not someone shares my brand of faith. If I expend my life in the service of my people, I will count it to the good. Like anyone, I want to live long enough to watch my little granddaughter get married, and maybe even to have kids of her own. I want to live long enough to watch my infant grandson grow up to be like the man his father is, of whom I am so proud. But only the Lord knows the number of my days. If it is not his will for me to die at any given point in time, NOTHING can kill me. And if it is not his will for me to live long enough to watch my grandkids mature into fully realized adults, NOTHING can keep me here. It is liberating, because the only decision I have to make is to decide what is worth dying for, and what is worth living for. God takes care of the rest.

I hope you can personally find some measure of peace in what I wrote.

TAM cracks me up everytime I read the post!

Words of wisdom and well put.

Great post TAM - full of wisdom.

There is another factor, as yet unmentioned that I have seen, that a great many of us, especially my age and older, were raised to avoid knowingly breaking the law, respecting the law whether we happened to approve of it or not.

Example, residing in California, I scrupulously avoided having any weapons defined in those statutes as illegal assault weapons. I didn't even leave the house in my car without my drivers license. I would never carry a pistol except in strict compliance with the statutes, unloaded, in a case, locked in the trunk, etc. until I had my carry permit in my hand, and never without it. I avoided robbing banks, throwing litter on the highways, illegal handicapped parking, illegal subdivision of land, selling real estate without a license, charging usurious interest, public drunkenness (albeit with occasionally imperfect results), whacky tabacky, unconsented to sex, especially with minors, all kinds of homicides, and a whole list of acts and omissions the State of California is pleased to define as criminal.

Had I been caught and convicted, I would have immediately lost all the licenses I had worked hard to acquire, and my mother would have died humiliated. It would be very, very difficult to overcome the habits of a lifetime to suddenly defy the law, however wrong headed.

JALLEN wrote:There is another factor, as yet unmentioned that I have seen, that a great many of us, especially my age and older, were raised to avoid knowingly breaking the law, respecting the law whether we happened to approve of it or not.

Example, residing in California, I scrupulously avoided having any weapons defined in those statutes as illegal assault weapons. I didn't even leave the house in my car without my drivers license. I would never carry a pistol except in strict compliance with the statutes, unloaded, in a case, locked in the trunk, etc. until I had my carry permit in my hand, and never without it. I avoided robbing banks, throwing litter on the highways, illegal handicapped parking, illegal subdivision of land, selling real estate without a license, charging usurious interest, public drunkenness (albeit with occasionally imperfect results), whacky tabacky, unconsented to sex, especially with minors, all kinds of homicides, and a whole list of acts and omissions the State of California is pleased to define as criminal.

Had I been caught and convicted, I would have immediately lost all the licenses I had worked hard to acquire, and my mother would have died humiliated. It would be very, very difficult to overcome the habits of a lifetime to suddenly defy the law, however wrong headed.

I think we as LTC holders, and lovers of this great country, all try to be as law abiding as possible, do I occasionally exceed posted speed limits? Sure, but like you I never would dream of doing anything to lose my rights, whether it is my right to own firearms,, vote, or even the ability to look a my family in the eye and know that I had not let them down in some way. That being said, I think all of us have a tipping point at which we will no longer give in to the law, especially when we know that it flies in the face of the principals, that the framers of the Constitution, set down as an example of what a free society really is.
I agree with TAM, in that, I don't foresee a massive gun confiscation as ever being a successful venture, for anyone in this country, for all of the reasons he listed, as well as the fact that, the entire idea would be soundly defeated with the checks and balances still in place within our Federal government.
I do believe that Hitlery will do everything she can to continue to erode the rights of gun owners, and will, if elected put SCOTUS members in place that will try and assist her, but she will still have to deal with Congress, and If we can continue to root out the left, and their co-conspirators dressed in Republican suits, her efforts will continue to be thwarted, just as Barrack Hussein's have been. At least that is my prayer, but as TAM stated, we can only choose our battles, we can't know God's will, so if He sees fit to allow her to come to power, we will have to Gird our Loins in anticipation of long protracted battles, not with guns and IEDs but with our votes and voices, and never give in no matter how much we may be branded as criminal, by her minions.
And, if I am wrong, and there does come a day when troops, or contractors, show up at my door to try to disarm me, then that's when my voice and votes will no longer matter.I may go down fighting, but I will know that what I died for was the right things, and that will be all of the comfort I will need.JMHO

There is another factor, as yet unmentioned that I have seen, that a great many of us, especially my age and older, were raised to avoid knowingly breaking the law, respecting the law whether we happened to approve of it or not.

There are laws based upon Natural Law that uphold the natural Rights of mankind, and then there are other laws. The former pose no issue for a civilized man to follow. The latter may in some cases be not only wrong-headed but clearly against Natural Law and Rights. While I am a law-abiding person myself, I don't consider it the duty of a free man to obey such laws.

I have a close friend who contracts with Dyncorp. He is as red blooded a patriot as you will ever meet and I can never imagine him on U.S. soil fighting Americans.
I agree with ScottDLS. Our greatest threat is a slow and gradual erosion of our 2A rights by the courts and bureaucracy under the guise of public safety and common sense. I think that the political elite are a long way off from fostering enough public support to allow for gun confiscation and the current eruptions of riots and anti law and order protests are not going to help their cause.

Middle Age Russ wrote:

There is another factor, as yet unmentioned that I have seen, that a great many of us, especially my age and older, were raised to avoid knowingly breaking the law, respecting the law whether we happened to approve of it or not.

There are laws based upon Natural Law that uphold the natural Rights of mankind, and then there are other laws. The former pose no issue for a civilized man to follow. The latter may in some cases be not only wrong-headed but clearly against Natural Law and Rights. While I am a law-abiding person myself, I don't consider it the duty of a free man to obey such laws.

So, in California, do you carry? Will you take your suppressed SBR there and go for a walk? .50 BMG, maybe?

Where is the line?

So, in California, do you carry? Will you take your suppressed SBR there and go for a walk? .50 BMG, maybe?

Where is the line?

Each person will have their own line, of course. Note that I did not say that one has a duty to disobey any laws. A person may choose to obey laws they have no real duty to obey. In my case, I don't see travel to California in my future largely due to laws in effect there.

The reason for a Federal government of limited, enumerated powers was so that States could have their own laws according to the wishes of the people who lived there. People who felt the legal atmosphere in one state to be oppressive might therefore find another locale more to their liking and move there. I seem to recall several members here having done just that in moving back to Texas.

karder wrote:I have a close friend who contracts with Dyncorp. He is as red blooded a patriot as you will ever meet and I can never imagine him on U.S. soil fighting Americans.
I agree with ScottDLS. Our greatest threat is a slow and gradual erosion of our 2A rights by the courts and bureaucracy under the guise of public safety and common sense. I think that the political elite are a long way off from fostering enough public support to allow for gun confiscation and the current eruptions of riots and anti law and order protests are not going to help their cause.

Your friend may not but there is obvious proof that there are those willing to violate our rights. It happens everyday on the highway's with civil forfeiture. New Orleans was proof that there are plenty willing to take guns away and the peeps in the ATF I believe are not friendly to your 2A rights.

That being said, I do not believe there will be enough willing to follow thru with confiscation. It may start and be ordered from the federal government but I do not see it lasting very long if at all.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Soap wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:If you added them all up together, they would number less than 1/20th of the number of armed citizens in the U.S., and that's not counting the military personnel that defect to the "rebellion" with their weapons and join the citizens in fighting back. The success of early PMCs like Executive Outcomes in Angola in the late 1980s/early 1990s, EO didn't have to deal with more than a 100 million armed and angry Americans with a long tradition at arms. EO fought a small number of rebels, actually acting as much as advisors to the gov't army as they did as combatants. Most of the rebels did not have prior military experience. In the U.S., tens of millions of those gun owners have had military experience, some of it extensive, and a lot of it in combat. Horse of a different feather.

The video mentions New Orleans, did you know cops, National Guard and Black water went to peoples homes and disarmed them? White and Black. It did not matter to them.

How many have stood up to the laws in Hawaii where gun owners are put on a federal list? How many stood up to californias laws? You're going to see a lot of guys wearing Molon Labe t shirts turning in their mags. I don't think it's going to happen like we think it's going to happen. People will let each other fall until it's at their door step. By that time there is no one to stand with because you're the last man standing. I hope I'm wrong but I don't believe we live in the same America anymore.With Califonias laws and other states they are testing us. The Oregon shootings were a test. They out smarted those boys.

First off, bolding all of your text won't make me read it any "harder"........ Just sayin'........

Yes, all of those things did happen........ and when the NRA took New Orleans to court on the illegal gun confiscations, the NRA won.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/2015082 ... in-america

NRA immediately denounced the confiscations as unlawful under state law and unconstitutional, and set to work rectifying New Orleans’ abuse of power and ensuring that no American would be faced with confiscation under a similar scenario.

NRA promptly filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana against New Orleans in order to halt the city’s confiscation efforts. On September 23, Judge Jay Zainey granted a temporary restraining order barring New Orleans and the surrounding communities from further confiscations, and required that the seized guns be returned. NRA also successfully worked to lift a ban on firearm possession for those living in Federal Emergency Management Agency housing as a result of the storm.

The city dragged its feet in returning confiscated firearms to their lawful owners. However, NRA persisted until 2008, when NRA and New Orleans came to a settlement in which the city agreed to carry out an acceptable procedure for returning the firearms. The agreement allowed owners to get back their guns without documented proof of ownership, which many residents were understandably unable to provide.

NRA’s post-Katrina efforts did not stop at the Louisiana border. NRA prompted mayors and police chiefs across America to sign a pledge stating that they will, “never forcibly disarm the law-abiding citizens” of their city. Further, NRA worked to limit the power of state and local governments to regulate firearms in times of emergency, by advocating for emergency powers reform legislation throughout the country. Currently, over half of the states have some form of emergency powers provision protecting gun owners from government abuse during a crisis.

In 2006, moreover, President George W. Bush signed into law the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which contained an NRA-backed amendment sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). The amendment prohibits persons acting under color of federal law, receiving federal funds, or acting at the direction of a federal employee from seizing or authorizing the seizure of lawfully-possessed firearms or imposing or enforcing certain restrictions on firearms during a state of emergency.

But even if the NRA had lost, you're still talking about the few thousand NO cops augmented by a few hundred (I'm assuming) Blackwater personnel, acting in a democrat controlled city, during a weather catastrophe of biblical proportions - and because of said catastrophe the confiscations happened in a vacuum, protected from having a light shined on the actions until after they were underway. How much of the country is laboring under a Katrina-like catastrophe at any given moment? The harder part of my heart actually welcomes those kinds of events to be visited upon democrat controlled cities, because it makes the shortfalls (i.e. corruption) of democrat government obvious to everyone, including to the local citizenry. I mean, even the NO police took part in the looting. Here's the fallout: Ray Nagin was exposed to be a weak-minded fraud, and even in the face of his continuing to commandeer the mayor's seat until 2010, the federal govt's attention was focused on his corruption. Today, he is listed by the federal Bureau of Prisons website as inmate No. 32751-034. Then Governor Kathleen Blanco was revealed as a fraud. She so hated George W. Bush because he was a republican, and it just grated on her to ask a republican for help, that she withheld a request for federal disaster assistance — a legal requirement to avoid federal Posse Comitatus violations — until it was too late for that assistance to be put into effective play. And then she tried to blame the delays on Bush - despite the fact that Bush had previously communicated with her saying, in effect, "we're ready, just say the word and we'll be there". Katrina happened in August 2005, and her career did not survive the stain on her reputation as an executive. She ran for reelection in 2008 and was beaten by republican Bobby Jindal. Blackwater's reputation suffered mightily among conservatives and libertarians (its rep was already trash for liberals) for its part in the gun confiscations in New Orleans. The company changed its name to "Xe" in 2009 to try and shed the bad publicity that came with the name "Blackwater"........in part for its role at New Orleans.

Is it possible that such another gun confiscation could occur? Sure......anything is possible. But I submit that it could only happen in large democrat controlled metropolitan areas. Sooner or later, the confiscators would have to enter the countryside and try that on a population who are a LOT more likely to shoot back (accurately, no less). Heck, out in the country, even democrats like their guns and are not nearly as likely to knuckle under to something like that as the lemmings in the city would be. How are you even going to confiscate guns in a state like Texas where FTF sales are still legal without an FFL transfer? And EVEN IF they knew I had, at one time, bought an AR15 from Such and So Gun Store with serial number XYZ12345, I can bury it in a field somewhere along with a couple thousand rounds of ammo and claim to no longer own it. "Yeah, I sold it to some dude named Joe about 2 years ago........I think he was from the panhandle, showed me a TDL with an Amarillo address......He was of average height and kind of nondescript looking....I remember that he had an east coast accent. He said he was a police officer up there. No I don't remember the street he lived on in Amarillo."

I'm not saying that Hitlery wouldn't try such a scheme. What I AM saying is that it would not be very successful, except in democrat controlled cities, and possibly in states where democrats have already dismantled 2nd Amendment protections. But even in those states, you know, outside of Chicago, there is actually a fairly large gun-owning population in Illinois, and they don't like what happens in Chicago. In California (where I am originally from), outside of the cities of San Francisco (and the bay area), greater Los Angeles, and San Diego, there are still a fair number of gun owners, and they are seriously angry about the latest raft of legislation there. In Northern California, where the republican/libertarian secessionist movement to create the 51st state of "Jefferson" is fairly popular, the backlash will be huge. In rural Massachusetts and rural upstate New York, gun ownership is still common and it is still considered to be a cherished right. The thing is, in states like Illinois, California, Massachusetts, and New York, the non-gun-owning city-dwellers may outnumber the rural dwellers by a large number, but the fact is that MOST of those city-dwellers are NOT shooters, and they are NOT likely to want to be the ones sent to confiscate guns in the countryside, and most would resist being sent to do so, out of simple self-preservation instincts. The ones who would go would be the hardcore commies, and a few of the LEOs. That's it. The truth is that not one single one of those cowardly gun-grabbers has ever volunteered to the first in the SWAT stackup outside someone's front door. They are all about passing laws, but they are not about getting their own hands dirty. They pay their minions for that. But when their minions understand the bloodbath that would follow and want no part of it, then what are the snowflakes in gov't going to do about it?

I'll remind you that, in democrat controlled Connecticut in the wake of Sandy Hook, in the one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in many decades, gun owners flat refused to register their guns and turn in their standard capacity magazines. In the end, the state police simply abandoned enforcement efforts.

Sooner or later, all of those fascists from the cities will have to face an irate and well-armed population out in countrysides..........the countrysides which produces the cities' food as well as their own, and in which the rural residents have the home-field advantage that any rural insurrection anywhere in the world enjoys. What are the cities going to do? Take over the farms and work them themselves? Yeah, that'll fly. Because that's what they'll have to do when the farmer owners and workers take a powder and vanish off the land to eke out a living elsewhere with skills they already have and know how to use, while the ignorant city dwellers try and figure out why their kale is dying.

Sure, a convoy of urban SWAT officers in up-armored vehicles might roll up on a few individual rural properties and confiscate the guns, and even throw their owners in the rumored FEMA camps.......but that will only have to happen a few times before those convoys start facing an organized resistance. Can you begin to imagine how many rural residents have access to explosives for blowing stumps (not to mention all the fans of Tannerite® ). It would not be long before those convoys started facing IEDs. One of the advantages of 15 years of the Iraq/Afghatistan wars is that we learned nearly as much from our enemies as they did from us......including how to make and deploy IEDs......and a lot of those veterans who gained that knowledge are country boys. Iraq is a nation of 168,754 sq mi with a population of around 31,234,000. Texas alone is a state of 268,820 sq mi with a population of 27,469,114 (2015).......in other words, Texas alone is a much larger state than Iraq, with a somewhat smaller population......and yet in Iraq (and Afghanistan), 1/2 to 2/3 of all combat casualties (both WIA and KIA) were caused by IED. What happens when all of those country boys currently serving in the military and police agencies, who personally support the 2nd Amendment, begin to desert their units with their weapons (and their training) and return home?

Yeah, Hillary Clinton could conceivably try to take all the guns. It would be a spectacular failure, and it would kill a whole lot of people .....including people who had supported her efforts, and eventually she would lose the political support that put her in office.

The United States enjoys ONE thing not permitted to any other nation, and that is that our founders desired an armed citizenry for EXACTLY these kinds of reasons. Those of you who have served (I never did myself, something I regret to this day) took and oath to protect the nation from enemies foreign and domestic; and as my Life Group leader said last night to us, "I've never been relieved of that oath". Yes, it would be bloody, but a fascist takeover would be doomed to failure. Yes, it would be an extremely difficult and unwanted time for those who would have to suffer through it; but if the fascists actually pushed things that far, the silver lining is that whatever came out of the ashes would probably be a lot more committed to upholding the Constitution than the gov't that created the situation in the first place.

I want to add something else, and this is taken from a blog post I put up just yesterday:

For me personally, I am very drawn to the speech that is most commonly attributed to the great Shawnee Chief Tecumseh (although it has also been attributed to other notable leaders in Native American History):

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

As a Christ-follower, I am satisfied about what will happen to me on the day I die - a day which is appointed to ALL of us, whether or not someone shares my brand of faith. If I expend my life in the service of my people, I will count it to the good. Like anyone, I want to live long enough to watch my little granddaughter get married, and maybe even to have kids of her own. I want to live long enough to watch my infant grandson grow up to be like the man his father is, of whom I am so proud. But only the Lord knows the number of my days. If it is not his will for me to die at any given point in time, NOTHING can kill me. And if it is not his will for me to live long enough to watch my grandkids mature into fully realized adults, NOTHING can keep me here. It is liberating, because the only decision I have to make is to decide what is worth dying for, and what is worth living for. God takes care of the rest.

I hope you can personally find some measure of peace in what I wrote.

I just bolded because I wasn't sure how it'd come out since I was quoting the huge message.