Anarchist take on gun control

Theoretically your contact is quite right.

I can recall a debate on Urban 75 about this though, which brought home to me the problems between theory and reality.

Someone dug out the figures for the number of under 16 year olds killed by firearms in the USA each year, (where gun ownership is widespread) and the number of under 16 year olds killed in the same manner in Japan each year (where private gun ownership is virtually unknown)

The figures shocked me to the core, and were the best argument for gun control I had ever seen.

In this case, I would go with the reality and say bollocks to the theory.

Yeah I think I would generally go with the theory - the state should not have a monopoly of violence. Paul, those figures don't tell the whole story. Gun ownership in Canada is higher than the US, yet gun deaths are virtually non-existant, like Japan or here. Like the NRA say - "guns don't kill people, people kill people" . Stupid obviously, but some truth in it.

Yeah I think that's fair enough, in a communist society that should be the case - although TBH I think arms should be spread as evenly as possible, because any group who controlled the collective gun stores, would basically de facto control society. The state now might be "much more than armed groups of men" but at its root that's all it is.

What john said. Two posts ago, I meant when I was typing this. The difference between Canada and the US is very important.

Overwhelmingly its not the legally held firearms that are used to kill people (if we remove the figures for state forces from the equation) its illegal ones. Barring suicides carried out with firearms of course - though if someones that determined to top themselves they'll probably use another method.

A lot of chucks have been demanding that people with shotguns (issued for vermin control and sporting purposes) in the north are disarmed - its not because loads of people get killed by shotgun wielding maniacs the problem of course is the perception that its only prods who have shotguns. While the figures may be disproportionate there are plenty of catholic farmers with shotguns who can also grant permission for others to shot on their land - and quite a few protestant farmers who don't mind what religion the bloke shooting magpies & rabbits on his land is.

I actually prefer Bernadette McAliskeys position that more people should apply for permits.

When you remember that some of the first militias set up in the states were organised by immigrant socialists, anarchists and trade unionists and you look at the right wing fuckers who are the militias now you have to wonder at the damage a lot of pc hand wringing has done.

And revol68 are you gonna democratically tell someone when its time to bag a few duck? I know local doesn't relate too closely to the type of shit people can own in the states (maybe that has some psychological impact on the difference between Canada & the US?). I mean some guns are for hunting, some for 'personal protection' and others are obviously for mowing shit loadsa people down (and if its individual self defence yer on about thats not what these are for either).

Well yeah but the point is whoever controls the guns can get whatever food they want - the Bolsheviks weren't too handy with the horticulture but they still ate pretty well.

But yeah agree re: licenses. Like no fascists, former businessmen or sex offenders allowed etc.

If gun control increases in the US, the trade would simply go underground and lots of people the control was aimed at would maintain ownership. Same as all the kitchen knives that turn up in amnesties here.

In the UK, I'm pretty happy with there being gun control, as long as the police don't get guns as standard either. That's going out as we speak, so I'm more interested in stopping the police getting guns than anyone else at the moment - what with Harry Stanley and de Menezes.

A libertarian communist mate in the US (stopped calling himself an anarchist ten years before this site), owns several guns, partly because he lives in a part of the US where lots of very right wing people also own guns, partly because bears, literally, shit in his woods.

haven't gun deaths in the uk gone up since they banned handguns? as goldie looking chain say "guns don't kill people, rappers do!"

You're deliberately being obtuse here - cut it out!

It's not a 15 year-old anrkist mindset to say that if you have a small group of people in charge of all the arms in society (NOT the licenses as you later decided you meant, then started talking about instead of arms to make my argument look silly), then that can cause problems.

Hi

I’m quite tempted by the idea that gun control is anti-working class, sort of like the Black Panthers’ position.

Loosening up gun control laws in the EU would certainly separate the men from the boys at those G8 protests, not to mention throwing out time in chav-town.

From where I’m standing, as tempted by the idea of my own AK as I am, I think more gun control in the States would be progressive for the international working class.

As for defending ourselves from armed reactionary and anti-social elements, I think I could live with a democratic professional military and an elected armed police.

Peace and Love. Sorry for dragging up an old post.

Chris

You, I thought

this seems obvious, but gun control is bad.

more power to the state, anyone? it's just one more way that people are taught we can't solve our own problems.

and as has been pointed out already, it's the culture that is the problem, not the guns.

there's some interesting fundamental issue here about life and death, and how insulated we are (in the states certainly) from actual clear consequences. it's one reason why the abortion issue is interesting too, the idea that yes, we can kill, that death is a part of making choices in this world... but maybe that's getting too meta.

reminds me of "nature-lovers" who are part of the polarity of nature is good vs. nature brutal in tooth and claw (i'm probably butchering that quotation).

again, it seems like industrialized life is so much about mystifying the fact that we are animals.

fairy nuff.

Hi

I’m pretty sure the U.S. government gains more power by capitulating to the gun lobby than it does by antagonising it. A society that is habitually armed is not a sign of a working class full of confidence and optimism, rising to implement a programme of direct democracy and poverty elimination.

When U.S. style gun culture is presented in a positive light, it does make it harder to minimize the risk of firearms being let off by school children and the mentally disordered.

Love

Chris

i don't think the status quo/state (which cannot be limited to the govt) gives much of a shit whether guns are legal or not. much in the way that illegal drugs make money and legal drugs make money. (you made a comment re: porn along those lines, didn't you?)

who was doing that?

are you chris day, by any chance?

no, it's the culture, combined with the fact that it has access to huge amounts of heavy weaponry that's the problem. getting rid of the guns is a pretty good short term solution.

a lot of people don't consider abortion killing.

Hi

I was, for a start, with my Panthers point. You were too, by saying that gun control was bad and would increase state power. The impression I get from our news is that the American right (NRA etc) really despise gun control.

Having said that, I’m a fan of some NRA types, like Hunter S. Thompson and Charlton Heston, who I can’t really accept as a rightist. Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, fantastic.

Isn’t supplying a locale with cheap guns a good way of destabilising it? Didn’t the CIA pull something off in Norman Manley’s Jamaica along those lines?

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/sep01/jamaica.html

Don’t think so, but whatever’s cool with me.

Is he good? Would you give him money? If so, then yes.

Best wishes

LR

Anarchism starts off from individualism and builds up to communism. I dislike it when anarchists use individualist as a bad word. The individual comes before the collective, just as the collective comes before the federation. That's the meaning of "from the bottom up". This brings up the question of what should be an individual's right to decide and what should be the collective's. In certain collectives in Spain, members had to apply to a transport comittee to have permission to use a vehicle to visit another area - definitely a bad thing.

I should think that in an anarchist society (post revolution) everyone could easily be trusted to have their own guns... not that there'd be much need for them.

Maybe, but I detected a hint of everything being up to the collective and people not being independent enough in certain of the descriptions of the libertarian collectives in Gaston Leval's book. I think there were still ways to increase individual freedom at no loss to everyone else.

Of course the individual does exist before society, in the sense that the right to secede is supreme in anarchism (see Bakunin). Anyway I explained what I mean by "from the bottom up".

Anyway my take on gun control in the current society is that it should be minimised, I can see the pragmatic issue of reducing accidents (control won't reduce crime) but can't abide strengthening the state. 15 year old anarchy rulez side note: I had the pleasure of firing an AK47 at an anarchist social a few days ago

that sounds like the sort of thing jack dreams of...

Motor vehicles were very rare in 1936 spain though 888!

i'd like to live in a world without guns, or indeed any technology whose sole purpose is destruction of human life.

but i'd very definitely not like to live in a world where the state has guns and everyone else has not... which is what "gun control" is about, not the removal of guns from society altogether (whatever deluded pacifists think).

joe strummer said it best in "guns of brixton" imo 8)

as to individual vs collective and the right to secede, i definitely believe the right to secede is a fundamental part of anarchism, and that the individual exists before society - the whole point of society is that legitimate society comes from the free and uncoerced agreement of sovereign individuals, surely?

in their attempts to distance themselves from right-wing "libertarianism" (which are understandable, because it's extremely crappy), imo too many anarchists run straight into the arms of authoritarian "communism", and neglect the "lib" element altogether... maybe we should be less afraid of individualism?

ursula le guin's "the dispossessed" has a very good critique within it of the unintentional tyranny of over-collectivism and over-suspicion of individualism... i recommend revol to read it and see what u think of it...

individual freedom and class struggle aren't mutually exclusive...

The sole purpose of guns is not the destruction of human life.

As for the right to secede, ok here goes, call me a reactionary old fucker but I actually prefer the notion of "to each according to their need from each according to their ability".

I certainly don't wanna see a society thats got rid of capitalist exploitation allowing a loada drop outs the "freedom" to sponge off the rest of us while not contributing to that society. If people decide to secede and not to be productive why should they share in the wealth produced by society?

In a post-revolutionary society we'll need to hold onto some guns to shoot the fuckers when they try and start stealin' off us

Guns?

Heavens, such frightful things. I prefer talking things out over a nice cup of tea with some lemon meringue.

Hi

Guns aren’t special magical things. They require as much control as common sense suggests should be applied to any similarly dangerous product.

There’s no point in hoarding guns to use against the state come the revolution. If it comes to a fight with the military with their fighter planes and psychotropic toxins, all our precious firearms will be useless. I’d plan for the armed wing of the state to defect to our cause, after all they’ll have families caught up in popular revolutionary change as much as the rest of us.

Now let’s imagine “Anarchists” in the UK campaigning for less draconian gun laws, the logical consequence of taking a decisive position against gun control. I suppose with the right presentation it could come over as wittily subversive, but it would take skills that we have yet to display to prevent is from being marginalized even further from all but the most fervent Red Star Commandos.

Love

Chris

Perhaps the whole desire to hold arms is an admission that many people in america have little idea about how to assault the ruling class apart from with this romanticised view of baring arms against them?

Obviously it is not simply the fact that weapons are so prevalent in the states that leads to many people getting killed each year, if this was the case you'd have a similar percentage of peoples getting killed in canada, switzerland and other places which isnt the case, i really dont know what it is that makes gun deaths more prevalent in the sates, you could say a greater sense of alienation, a lack of responsibility, greater unemployment, a lack of a sense of power in the general say of things, but i really couldnt begin to back any of these statements up with any concrete theory or statisticts so i wont bother!

This often repeated argument ignores the entirety of military history. For example the mighty US military doesn't seem to have achieved complete victory over Iraq, does it? This doesn't mean that I'm some kind of revolution-through-military power nut, by the way, before anyone start making up ridiculous arguments.

Fuck off you marxist wanker... What I was talking did not seem justified in the context it was in - but it's useless discussing this unless I manage to find the account again, and I don't have the book anymore (Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval). Do you not think there is a potential for conflict between the freedom of individuals and the possibility of agreements decided by the collective being excessively limiting?

Boulcolonialboy - secession does not mean still enjoying the products of the federation you have seceded from (except maybe if there is large excess, which hopefully there will be, so that people genuinely work out of free choice rather than to survive).