When Citizens Become Subjects
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 7 months ago
It’s always when weapons are banned. Via Dave Hardy, this is an interesting read.
During 2012, Chávez’s approval rating reached 57% (higher than any point in time of Obama’s 2nd term approval ratings by a wide margin). Then he decided that it’s time to “disarm all citizens”.
The Venezuelan National Assembly in 2012 enacted the “Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law” with the explicit aim to “disarm all citizens”. However before the law took effect, Hugo Chávez passed away on March 5, 2013 at 58.
After his death, the contitution required that a presidential election be called within 30 days. Chávez’s hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro (a former bus driver and Chávez’s vice president afterwards), was elected president on April 14th, 2013.
Nicolás Maduro, the new president, imitated most of Hugo Chávez’s policies. He also proceeded with the plan to disarm all citizen. The Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law was pushed and taken effect in 2013. With the economy seemingly well, and people were mourning the loss of Hugo Chávez, there was only minimal pushback from some pro-democracy opposition figures.
“Venezuelans didn’t care enough about it. The idea of having the means to protect your home was seen as only needed out in the fields. People never would have believed they needed to defend themselves against the government. Venezuelans evolved to always hope that our government would be non-tyrannical, non-violator of human rights, and would always have a good enough control of criminality.”
Javier Vanegas (28), a Venezuelan teacher
All legal commercial sale of guns and munitions were banned – except to government entities.
During the first year, the law wasn’t much of a success. There were only 37 recorded voluntary gun surrenders, while the majority of seizures – 12,603 – were done by force. Estimated number of guns in Venezuela at the time range from one to six million.
The next year (2014), Nicolás Maduro invested more than $47 million to enforce the gun ban.
Yet firearms black market thrive instead, and a large number of illegal firearms are still in the hands of criminals and the collectivos (Venezuelan government employed thugs).
Then economic disaster struck, as it always will in a socialist country. The violence came with it.
On March 17, 2019 at 10:40 pm, 41mag said:
May this never come to pass here!
On March 18, 2019 at 8:27 am, anonymoose said:
Businesses were nationalized by Huge Chavez, their media outlets became “state media”. And yet Chavez didnt forcibly disarm Venezuelans?
Seems like Huge Chavez drove them to Communism without disarming first. They believed the lies he spouted or just went along with the program.
On March 18, 2019 at 8:48 am, WiscoDave said:
Was looking more into this and found this quote:
“Crimes are committed by police, a lot of the criminals are police themselves,” said Saul Moros, 59, from the Venezuelan city of Valencia.
And this one:
According to Omar Adolfo Zares Sanchez, 48, a lawyer, politician, and former mayor of Campo Elías municipality in the Venezuelan state of Mérida, it is now all but too late to make guns legally accessible to the average person.
“Without a doubt, if there had been a balance of armed defense we could have stood up and stopped the oppression at the beginning,” he contended. “But there is too much anarchy on the streets now. Making guns easier for anybody to buy now would start a civil war.”
https://www.foxnews.com/world/venezuelans-regret-gun-prohibition-we-could-have-defended-ourselves.
On March 18, 2019 at 9:13 am, revjen45 said:
Seizure of weapons in the hands of the intended victims precedes the perpetration of every outrage.
On March 18, 2019 at 11:02 am, ensitue said:
The average IQ of a central American hovers below 90, 5 points below what is required to maintain any democratic form of government. The entire continent is populated by races groomed, and pruned for 1000 years to be low IQ slaves. There is nothing that can be done to rectify this, God knows it’s been tried.
On March 18, 2019 at 11:04 am, Herschel Smith said:
@ensitue,
I don’t personally believe it has anything to do with IQ, nor do I believe there is any substantive difference. I believe it has to do with religion, philosophy and value systems. Some of the smartest people who have ever lived are wicked, and vice versa.
On March 18, 2019 at 7:43 pm, Jimbo said:
Get back to me in 10 years, no I may not be around then, make it 5 years, then we will see if the “North American” IQ has helped us keep our arms.
On March 18, 2019 at 7:49 pm, mtnforge said:
I have thought long and hard on this. I say this because I am speaking for myself, and I believe for many of my brothers and sisters who will never give up our rifles. Not only this, but we are the Freemen who will run off to the sound of war against our liberty and our loved ones. We are people who have already made the choice. We are resolute in this. We know we are just and our cause legitimate. We need no excuse or have any need to justify who and what we are.
All this, everything going on, it all comes down to guns. It was always about guns. Who has guns. Who doesn’t have guns. Who is ruled by guns because they gave up their guns. And who is free because they refuse to give up their guns. Guns are property. It is the first thing. Property that protects itself is the 2nd thing. We have every right to our property. Just as we have every right to defend our property, ourselves, our loved ones, and yes our country. It is our home after all.
At last we come to the stage where those who want to take our guns can not obtain more raw naked power because they can not risk further usurpation because we have too many guns, because we not only refuse to give up our guns, but we are buying, and building at home more guns, we are equipping ourselves with the accouterments of infantry combat and obtaining the training in small unit infantry tactics. This increases our effectiveness as remaining Freemen by an order of magnitude. Because we are are by a large accounting leaving our cause of freedom to God and our rifles, we are fortified in our hearts, that our resolve is unwavering, for we know what we are about, and we know who are enemy is, and it is us, and our rifles, which is all that stands in our enemies way. Yet further, it is becoming clear, it is up to us, we Deplorable’s, we dirt people, who are all in this world who effect positive change. There is no one else who can nor has there ever been anyone but us who accomplish this task. Therefore, our guns represent a myriad of precepts, ideas, traditions, even legacy, which is not only upstream of all politics, hate, and the tyrants lust for absolute power, our guns are our manifest symbol and our instrument of good.
So it has come down to the end. It is clear it was always our guns which they wanted to take from us. As we refuse to give up our guns, as is our birth right, our God granted natural right, we become indomitable, our motive power is all but unassailable, we control our destiny, we choose to withdraw our consent in the most ultimate form possible, and as withdrawal of our consent from these tyrants, it in itself the most powerful weapon ever devised. So with this weapon, and our rifles in our hands, our resolve in our hearts, we become legitimate in ways, we hold power that no tyrant, no usurper can ever obtain. As these truths of us become clear to more of us each day, we come to understand also, everything else is total bullshit.
And at this dialectic, because we have become Freemen in every aspect, that the transformation into citizen warriors comes complete, a paradigm is created. And in this defining moment, we become a legion, we are Legion. A plurality which can not be conquered, coerced, who fear has no leverage, and there in lies our most fierce-some qualities, once we choose to us our rifles in defense against these usurpers and tyrants, nothing can stand in the way of our wrath. We are unstoppable men, who can only be stopped when we choose to. We want no quarter nor give it, we know no mercy against our foe, and we will not stop till we have vanquished our enemy.
It has always boiled down to our guns.
And that is the way it is.
And so it should always be.
On March 18, 2019 at 8:09 pm, robert orians said:
MntForge speaks truth . Even if they could disarm us all what would the hives do without electric , highways , and drinking water which can all be destroyed with a simple hacksaw , rock , or can of copperkote . They should not try to disarm the dirt people . They won’t play fair .
On March 18, 2019 at 8:58 pm, Jimbo said:
Oh Mtn., you give me hope, and hope is all we can stand on. I often wonder, in spite of all that I have done to make myself and my family hardened against what I know is coming, if leviathain someday comes to my door and says “give up your arms and you can keep all the rest”, My home, my lands, my livestock and all that have been in my family for generations. I know what I will do, I will not bend my knee to sup at the teat of a godless throne of government. Oh give me 10 like minded, or give me 100, give me those will stand with me, or not. I may die then, or many years later. It matters not, I may lose all I have and become destitute, but I will never give up my God given right to protect myself and my family. They may take it from me, but I will never give it up, no matter what it may cost. I will die a free man.