There's a lot of *wildly* irresponsible rhetoric floating around right now about how all queer folk should arm themselves to resist what's coming. And, deadass?

If you're armed, and you're not 10000% sure that you can shoot to kill, the only thing you're gonna do is get yourself and everyone around you dead.

Period.

A weapon is a *massive* escalation. Meanwhile, the tool that really gets you out of deadly trouble in a fascist dictatorship?

A silver tongue and steely guts.

(2/?)

everything you said, yes.

If you are not *trained* (and anyone who thinks going to an air conditioned, indoors, well lit, controlled spaces range, to shoot at a fixed paper target, once or twice a month is "trained", they are woefully deceiving themselves) you are far more likely to hurt someone around you, usually someone you care about.

The myth of firearm for home protection? If a firearm is SAFELY STORED, it's NOT READY. If it's READY for use, it's NOT SAFE. Far more likely some kid or a dumbass ends up hurting/killing someone who belongs to the household. See also about "training", above.

Wanna get trained? Another bag of cats, entirely.

Signed, someone who rolled with operators, and was, at some point, issued and used some pretty exotic bang-bang.

Gossman's book "On Killing" talked about this. Only about 4% can really do the "shoot to kill" without it being pounded into their heads, there has to be extensive training otherwise.

(I hate his association with militarizing the police and all, but he wrote this book way before that & it DID have some great info on psychology and killing).

@lori @MrBerard @MisuseCase It is a version of the might of pen v sword.

In my work (union organizing) binders that document the behavior of abusive employers remain a useful tool, even in the internet age. They are pretty handy to present to each member of a Board of Supervisors or City Council, to provide overwhelming evidence of what is really happening to workers, no matter how many lobbyist the bosses hire to claim otherwise. But that is but one use of the mighty binder....

And sending money to fascist gun manufacturers so they can make more guns?

Our brand of fascism is capitalist. Their means to power is fear.

I'm not buying it.

@noricenolife @zdl @Dani

Martyrdom is a method of control used to get those at the bottom to sacrifice themselves for those at the top

I have had someone try to kill me, I don't recommend it

I'm homeless. I don't carry any kind of weapon or even silverware like a fork(yes, kops are afraid of forks).

If I can't deescalate with words I use open hand techniques. No weapons. Find places that teach self defense without weapons. Now, having said that, I grew up with guns and am a veteran. I can shoot 😛 but I again say "no weapons".

Just being near someone, kop or not with a gun, keeps me on super high alert for THEM to use it. As a veteran, I believe in and swore to defend EVERY part of the US Constitution but EVERYTHING has a time and place.

The statistics about how many trained soldiers actually shoot in battle haven't improved much since WWII.

Local law enforcement's recruitment efforts being what they are, they don't seem to suffer from the same problem. But while officers seem trained to empty the clip before stopping, they miss the target about half the time. Sadly, it's the other half that counts.

The book _Generation Kill_ by Evan Wright is a good read on people not being able to shoot to kill and the amount of training needed to get them to do it, amongst other “strange” reactions to war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Kill

@alex

book by Evan Wright

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