Been reading Kevin's posts on two sides of a current argument

that breaks down(basically) to 'work within the system only' and 'be ready for revolution'. I'm going to point you to his site, this post in particular, for the arguments. I'll also point to this at The War on Guns. And now I'll throw some thoughts in.

I think Codrea has it right; if/when it blows up, it probably won't be someone with a history of "Burn down DC!"-type pronouncements starts up: it'll be some honest citizen faced with a raid by Feds in the middle of the night. Considering how they've done some of these it may be a simple case of "People are attacking my home and family!" and he grabs a weapon and fights; or it may be somebody with a NFA permit or something who's been jerked around and realizes "They've decided 'screw the law', they're coming to get me!" and says to hell with it and fights.

Why the latter? Consider what FBI and ATF have pulled numerous times. How many times have they been held accountable for it? How many people have finally pled guilty to something just to stop the legal costs that are eating them alive? How many judges have allowed the feds to conceal evidence and testimony so as to get a conviction? And how many politicians have actually, seriously tried to fix this?(which would include firings and prosecutions) With that sorry history to go by, (and I flat HATE saying this) what reason do we have to trust the system to work?

Think, just for one, of ATF supervisors ordering agents to lie under oath about the NFA database. If the director of ATF had any integrity, any real regard for those concepts of law and justice, those supervisors would have been fired the minute he heard about it. And if investigation showed they had ordered agents to do this in previous cases and they'd done it, or had done it themselves, he'd have pushed for prosecution(isn't that subornation of purjury, something like that?) Instead, excuses were made, supervisors protected, the law broken, and ATF just kept on. Including trying to trash ATF agents who tried to do something about bad things(check some of the links at this post) We're supposed to expect justice from the people involved in this?

And the politicians. Like Schumer*, and Boxer and Feinstein and other hypocrits in the House and Senate. We're supposed to trust them to hold the federal LE people to account? They like it when the above-noted agencies do this crap to people.

And just to add to the "We're supposed to trust the system?", how's that tax-evasion investigation on Rangel doing? Oh yeah, he's being 'given a chance to settle up' instead of being charged like you and I would be. Countrywide Dodd, how's that corruption investigation going? Or the one on Frank? Oh, yeah, the Justice Dept. isn't doing squat so far as we know; you or I would already have been subpoenaed to testify, had search warrants for records served, the whole nine yards; but not them.

The idea of a full-fledged revolution breaking out scares hell out of me, for various reasons. Other side, I can understand why some people see it as one of the remaining solutions.


*Further, Schumer said the belief that the Second Amendment was an individual right “is poisoning our political dialogue… The sickening fruit of this poisonous lie are obvious in our society…. Like flat earth fanatics, Second Amendment fanatics just don’t get it… It does not guarantee the mythical individual right to bear arms…”