If you aren’t already on it… Its never too late to start but its also very late to be starting. Community defense starts at building community. How many of your neighbors do you know? 1? 10? 100? Do your neighbors identify each other as people or just people that park next to one another every night. Do you share food, like potlucks or beers on the lanai or at the beach?
These are small examples, but the very, very first step is to begin seeing people as humans. Not seeing each other as humans; being trained to not see each other as humans: its what got us here in the first place. 100 people stepping out there front porch to confront ICE immeasurably more effective than one person with a gun showing up.
As far as actual training, take a gun safety course before doing anything else firearms related. You can sign up for one this weekend probably. Guns aren’t something to be feared, they are something to be understood. Even if its not your gun, knowing when a gun’s safety is or isn’t set; its very important. At that point you can decide if its the right way for you to defend yourself.
Most of America has no communities at all. It’s a bunch of strangers.
Sadly, it might not help you. A wrong look in their direction can mean being shot in the face.
You can die or you can be complicit.
And that’s why community defense is important?
Honestly, I misread your post to be self defense.
“Community defense organizing” is in the question
Yes.
No to self defence. You learning self defence will only provoke a stronger response from the guys who will go up to and beyond killing you, and may call in actual military support if required.
Civil disobedience feels like a better approach. Forming human walls, information networks and rapid support responses slow and mitigate attacks on your community.
Applying pressure to your representatives also can help.
Civil disobedience feels like a better approach
We really should stop showing up. Stop showing up to work. Stop showing up to buy things. Stop showing up to sign up for the military. Stop reproducing.
Many of us generally prefer to sleep inside and have food to eat. A general strike will likely never happen in the US. Being prepared as best as possible for violence is more necessary every day and making friends with like minded folks is one of the best ways to do that. They are bringing the violence to us. We cannot just lie down and take it. Arm up, train and help others do the same.
You say self defense like you’re fighting off a mugger. Your facing government backed thugs not street thugs (they wouldn’t need to cover their faces if they weren’t doing something wrong) physically resisting isn’t going to do you any good. Maybe you make their jobs a little tougher for a little while, but they will go back to work tomorrow and you will spend a few days, maybe weeks in jail or get shipped off somewhere if you survived.
You are out numbered and out matched, self defense classes aren’t going to do you any good, no half measure is going to do anything. It’s entirely up to you if feel the need to resist and/or feel the urge to become a martyr if they come for you, it’s your choice.
If you feel the need to act, your best options are to join an activist group and/or support government leaders that you feel could help. Because in the end you’re either going to be standing in front of God or a judge, you won’t be physically fighting back in any meaningful way.
physically resisting isn’t going to do you any good.
Well at a certain point that may be the only option and human history is mostly examples of us failing to appeal to our better nature. Longer we wait do do things that physically stop these thugs from doing what they are doing, the longer this goes on for.
Fear is what’s going to make them stop acting like thugs, they don’t fear the consequences of their actions. The person giving them orders don’t fear the consequences. Learning hip toss or judo chop isn’t going to stop a group of fearless thugs.
But you’re right. If reason is lost and the people that are sworn to protect do nothing then logically that is the next step, it’s sort of written into the Constitution and Amendments because our founders dealt with this sort of thing and the abuse of power.
The fuck you gonna do when they storm your house with military weapons? The only self defence is to shoot (not that I’m condoning that, just stating my opinion) because they will certainly shoot you if you appear as a physical threat.
They’ll shoot you if you try to camly drive away from a man trying to get into your car.
If they ever managed to find my house my only option is to die shooting back and hope I at least get a few of them. If they make it out to where I live the cities have already fallen. And I may not be the demographic they are openly hunting, but they have already proven that they have no compunction to killing folks who look like me with very little to no provocation. These men are the enemy of the American people.
FOLLOW-UP QUESTION: If NOT self-defense, would community defense be a bit better?
Well given that most ICE raids happen on the other side of an ocean, I’d say no.
What, exactly, do you think a community of randos is going to do against a heavily-armed extra-legal military operation?
This isn’t a jab or a gotcha, I’m genuinely curious what this idea of community defense would look like.
community defense
I think this would help: https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Community-Defense.pdf
You’re going to use some bog standard self defense class against multiple armed, stupid, violent ICE agents?
Yeah, that will end well.
If you’re going to do anything you’d better off going to a protest, finding like minded individuals and then deciding where to go from there.
Better than nothing. Also not self defense. Hit the gym. Get a gun. Go train at a gym BJJ, MMA whatever but do something. Use the hate for fascists to drive training. I’m so tired of seeing protestors get knocked out trying to act tough. Nothing sets the effort back like watching your side get beat repeatedly. We can act high and morally superior but if we reject the basics then it’s all hollow. You need to support all of it with some type of power and power comes from winning at whatever you do. If we’re protesting only because they’re letting us because they haven’t become more violent yet then we’re not actually protesting.
What we need is for more people to read the anarchists handbook
