Since Trump’s election, gun groups catering to progressives and people of color report a surge in interest as they look to defend themselves in a country that, to them, feels increasingly unstable.
Since Trump’s election, gun groups catering to progressives and people of color report a surge in interest as they look to defend themselves in a country that, to them, feels increasingly unstable.
I fervently hate Trump, his cronies, and his supporters. However, buying guns is a laughable response to a serious threat.
Maybe you buy a 9mm. Maybe you buy an AR15. The US government has stealth fucking bombers. Tanks. Fighter jets. Satellites. ICBMs. Your pea-shooter is fucking useless against a government that has decided its own people are the enemy. Trump is in the midst of authorizing the military to fire on civilians. Do you think he is going to specify that they use commercially-available firearms just to keep things fair?
You know what is not useless? General strikes. Civil disobedience. Protests. Boycotts. Journalism. Do you want to hurt Trump? Sell your stocks before the bubble bursts. Don’t shop. Cancel your phone and read a newspaper. Call in sick. Organize. Collaborate. Help each other. Bring the economy to a screeching halt and the billionaires who put Trump in the white house will put his ashes in a shoebox in about 10 days.
A civilian populous that already has small arms and some ammo, will make the opening stages of a war less difficult for the side that is willing to engage with them in hand, and bring their arms into military service.
Even now, your standard gun is very valuable in the Ukrainian defense against Russia. A rifle or shotgun is useful for taking and holding ground. An artillery battery is good for blowing shit up, but it can’t take land nor interact with people that goes in a way beyond pure destruction. An armed soldier can keep bread lines in good order, prevent sabotage, scout, build fortifications, escort armor, and many more unremarkable but key functions.
On top of that, fancy gear requires severe logistic chains. A civil war in America would shatter many links. Further, the military isn’t a hive mind, many experts on both sides will go their separate ways, which inherently means that many difficulties with deploying complicated items will become much greater. A rifleman is relatively simple to train and field, while a tank or aircraft requires many manhours to train and maintain.
I recommend watching the German War Files regarding Germany’s military vehicles in WW2. Many of the issues you see there, still apply to the modern world.
The German War Files: Panzer III
The plan is never armed warfare on equal terms against the full might of the national military. It’s for Proud Boys, the Klan, Zimmerman and Rittenhouse, countless other real threats that want to see Democrats and minorities dead. It’s for the implicit threat that keeps right-wing authorities from pushing too hard.
The groups you mentioned have the implicit backing of your government. In some cases these people were pardoned by Trump himself for their various crimes. Trump is the real problem. The klan and the proud boys are gonna keep coming as long as Trump is in power. Small arms can’t fix Trump.
Also, i think you have it backwards: the implicit threat of gun-toting progressives is not going to keep the authorities at bay - it will be the excuse Trump uses to escalate. He is going to escalate anyway - I understand that - but it is harder for him to order the army to shoot a guy in a frog costume than to shoot somebody who just killed an ICE agent.
I feel like i need to emphasize that i really fucking despise MAGA. There will be a party at my house when decent Americans turn on Trump and put him in the ground. I just think that small arms fire is going to prove ineffective.
Someone should have told the Vietnamese that their guns were useless back in the 1960s. The USA had bombers, tanks, fighter jets, satellites, etc. I bet if someone would have let the Vietnamese know that their guns were useless they wouldn’t have won that whole war.
I accept your point. An insurgency can drag on for decades. Look at afghanistan for a more recent example: all that time, money, and materiel wasted for the Taliban to pop back up the instant US troops left.
Maybe progressives could drag out an insurgency long enough that MAGA will give up and hand power back to the people. Trump and his gang would have to flee the country, but i suppose it could happen. American troops had somewhere else to go: back home. Where will Trump’s millions of supporters go? I don’t think the people who pledged their lives to avenging St. Charlie have anywhere else to live.
In the meantime, though, there will be purges, bombings, terrorism, secret police, torture, surveillance, massacres, etc. The vietnamese people had to endure unbelievable horrors before they drove out the Americans. Trump has bragged, though, that if he had been in charge, the vietnam war would have ended in US victory. I wonder what he had in mind: death camps? nuclear weapons?
The responses i have had so far have not addressed the second part of my argument: that strikes, protests, and civil disobedience can be wickedly effective. Trump’s friends are making money like crazy right now - that is, some of them. The farmers hit by his tariffs? They’re mad. The ranchers who are about to see their market flooded with Argentine beef? They’re mad too. That is Trump’s greatest weakness. He promised the ultra-rich that his presidency would make them even richer. If they start to think that Trump is costing them money, his ass is grass.