The left: ban all guns!
Also the left: defend yourself with guns!
Make up your mind.
Edit: as someone who arrived here from Everything who is not familiar with your community, I didn’t know that you don’t consider yourself liberals. The trans community is typically pretty liberal in my experience, so that association further influenced my response. Anyways, carry on, and don’t mind me.
“…we could remain armed and refuse to obey the new government, and we would be able, here and there, to carry out attempts at expropriation and organization of society along anarchist and communist lines. We could prevent the revolution from being halted at step one, and the people’s energies, roused by the insurrection, from being lulled back to sleep.” - The Anarchist’s Task, Errico Malatesta
“Let us continue [Bakunin’s] work, never forgetting that two things are necessary to be successful in a revolution, two things, as one of my comrades said in the trial at Lyon: an idea in the head, and a bullet in the rifle! The force of action guided by the force of Anarchist thought.” - Direct Struggle Against Capitalism, Pëtr Kropotkin
“Free people must be free to arm and defend themselves with the weapons they choose. While making all of society less violent, by changing the social conditions which breed various sorts of predation and abolishing political coercion, is the best way to stop aggressive acts, until then people should be able to have access to the means to defend themselves, including firearms.” - An Anarchist Case Against Gun Control, Joe Peacott
'Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." - Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, Karl Marx
“By direct action the Anarcho-Syndicalists mean every method of immediate warfare by the workers against their economic and political oppressors. Among these the outstanding are: the strike, in all its gradations from the simple wage-struggle to the general strike; the boycott; sabotage in its countless forms; anti-militarist propaganda; and in particularly critical cases, such, for example, as that in Spain today, armed resistance of the people for the protection of life and liberty.” - Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice, Rudolph Rocker
“Organised in grupos de afinidad, the anarchist urban guerrillas favoured clandestine forms of organisation, placing great store on the values of individual or small-group violence. The grupistas fulfilled a range of tasks, forming ‘defence squads’, which provided bodyguards for prominent activists, and organising armed collections for the unions in workplaces and on the streets…” - Anarchism and the City, Chris Ealham
“Anarchy is incessant, permanent revolt against all constituted order, war on the State and all its authorities, waged in every way and under every possible form: with the word and with every other outward sign, with acts of defiance and hostility, and above all with arms.” - Our Revolution, Carlo Cafiero
also see: “Ready for Revolution: The CNT Defense Committees in Barcelona 1933-38” which highlights FAI affinity groups doing weapons training. https://www.akpress.org/ready-for-revolution.html
and Socialist Rifle Association
Yes, worship violence and fire arms some more. That’s going to make the world a better place for sure!
Spoken like someone who doesn’t have their mere existence threatened by armed fascists on a daily basis.
I used to be a pacifist. I was robbed at gunpoint in my home in the middle of the night, And I told them to take anything they wanted, but they stabbed my girlfriend anyway.
I was no longer a pacifist. She was cooperating, she was quiet, none of us were armed, but one of those wannabe thuglets still put a knife into her arm.
I was unable to continue rationalizing pacifism if it meant the people around me got hurt. I took that kids eye out with my bare hand and tore the door off my stove ragdolling his friend.
Violence doesn’t solve many problems, but it’s one of the only things that can solve violence. I don’t regret using violence to protect the people I care about.
Do you suggest people threatened with genocide defend themselves using …bitchslaps?
‘you get further with a nice word and a gun than you do with a nice word alone’
If a fascist marches, do you ask them to please don’t do that? Do you march against them?
That’s the entire point of the saying. You dont get shot with a nice word and a gun because you’re not unarmed. The reference to “nice word” in the second half is like saying, “you could try to wash dishes with good thoughts, but good thoughts and scrubbing with soap and water is more effective.”
I hope anyone that touches a firearm drops dead on the spot. I don’t need adults with the mindset of a 8 year old in this world. I’m not debating anyone defending fire arms.
Question for you: would you rather all the guns be in the hands of the government? Because guns won’t disappear due to your wish. In countries all over the world, conflict is very real and not having guns would mean utter defeat for those fighting against fascists.
We get it, it would be a different world if guns were never invented. But they have been. And relinquishing that power to those that would see you not exist simply isn’t an option anymore.
@ackzsel @seahorse @Jaytreeman ah yes, marginalized people who are regularly threatened by violence, armed fascists, and the state being willing to use firearms to defend themselves and their right to exist are totally the ones with the mentality of an 8-year-old, not the person who thinks we should literally just roll over and let people beat us up and murder us and eliminate us from public life in order to preserve some perfect pacifist moral high ground because firearms are an ooo spooky evil shibboleth only “bad guys” touch and “all violence is bad.” Thinking all violence, even in self-defense, is bad regardless of the context is totally a mature and well thought through position and not an overly simplistic view of how morality works. Believing that using a specific implement of violence is bad simply because a group you don’t like likes that tool is totally adult thinking. Believing in pure pacifism in the face of genocidal evil as if that’s in any way practical or moral is totally a nuanced adult view of the world and not the most simplistic 5-year-old understanding of morality that you get from children’s cartoons.
I take this as a metaphorical statement, not literally advocating gun violence.
I agree wholeheartedly that, speaking in metaphorical terms, it’s useless placing flowers in the rifles that are ready to fire again. There comes a point where these absolute bigoted wankstains need to be called out, and have a fire started under the pedestals upon which they stand so damn proudly.
Given the context of what community this is on, I kinda think it speaks to the right to self defense and the right to exist in a social climate where rabid, violent, right wing extremists want to eliminate trans people in every way possible.
And, just to throw this out there, it is not morally wrong to defend yourself against lethal threat or threat of significant bodily harm. It is also legal in every state in the US (check state and local laws though, as there are nuances).
“Get bent” is kinda weak though lol.
I vote for “trans rights or else” for the white text
I’m confused is this saying that LGBTQ people should arm themselves to protect themselves or is it saying that guns have the right to exist?
But “get bent” refers to sodomy, in a typically derogatory context. It’s like saying “this sucks dick” to mean, “this is bad” (read: people who suck dick = less than). It’s the same as people saying, “this is gay” to mean bad. So really, we should be phasing out the phrase “get bent.”
This reads to me as “I am not debating my right to exist [as a trans person or trans supporter]. I’m ready to defend myself and my allies if need be, to whatever extent is necessary. Back off or else.”
So it comes across as a call to be ready to fight back, which would mean that if you’re comfortable owning a gun or another weapon (or more comfortable owning a gun than not within the context of the current sociopolitical climate), it would be wise to have one on hand. I don’t take it as a literal call to arms, it’s more like an alternate, more direct/specific take on the Gadsden Flag. Not overtly hostile, but a clear warning that aggression will be responded to with an appropriate measure of self defense.