“Moammar Gadhafi's regime passed out guns to civilian supporters, set up checkpoints and sent armed patrols roving the terrorized capital Saturday to put down a revolt in his main stronghold by residents inspired by the success of rebels elsewhere who hold about half of the North African nation,” AP/The Huffington Post reports.
“Pro-Gaddafi Gangs Terrorize Capital,” the story headline tells us (and yes, I noticed they apparently can't settle on a consistent internal editorial standard for spelling the man’s name).
It must be a point of view thing, because "terrorists" are what Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam calls “pro-democracy protestors.” The ones his father’s regime opens fire on when unarmed. And the ones Libyan Air Force pilots are strafing from the sky.
As an aside, will anybody else not mind seeing this tyrant-in-waiting opened up on the table like a Kel-Bowl-Pak à la Uday and Qusay Hussein?
That the elder Gaddafi had to open up his arsenals is telling. That means the people—even his supporters—typically don’t have the means to challenge his “monopoly of violence.”
That’s the unchallengeable power imbalance endorsed by leading “gun control” advocates in this country. Besides, they ask, what chance do the people have against a modern military that can deploy troops against them, and that have modern weapons and military aircraft at their disposal?
That point is typically made in tandem with the assertion that civilians should not have access to even semiautomatic firearms, because their only purpose is to kill. And if further punctuation is needed to sway the argument, ridicule positing privately-owned bazookas and nuclear weapons can be added--—and generally is.
Then just call gun owners who believe their right to keep and bear arms is another check and balance against tyranny “extremists” or “hatriots” or—what does Saif call them?— “terrorists.” It’s not like media supportive of that government monopoly of violence, either here or in the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, are going to challenge it.
Speaking of which, what exactly is the difference between a “socialist” and “progressive” again?
After all, they both believe in what they term “human rights” and “social justice” along with that monopoly of violence, meaning they get to decide what’s right and what’s just. Or else. And has their fellow progressive in Tripoli got a contest for them:
The Algaddafi International Prize for Human Rights!
Good grief.
I don’t see a nomination form on the official web page. Apparently, like with everything else when you enjoy a progressive monopoly of violence, those decisions are just made from on high for the good of all.
Still, I can think of a few American monopoly players I’d like to nominate. And I understand with donations down, they could probably use the prize money.
Also see:
UPDATE: I see Kurt Hofmann has a new column out about my first choice for the award.
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Comments
Maybe it's diningenuous, but I side-step the quibbles about bazookas and nuclear weapons.
Some doubt the "insurrectionary" purpose of the 2A by saying that civilians with small arms can't fight a military power (they're wrong, but that's aside)
Others question it by asking why civilians need military squad-level light arms and such like assault rifles (which are illegal and unavailable to most in the US)
Put those two questions together and they answer each other.
If the tyrant uses warplanes to strafe peaceful dissidents, they need anti-aircraft weapons and machine guns. If he sends armor and infantry in APCs against them, they need LAWs, RPGs, Carl Gustavs and other modern equivalents of the Bazooka.
They ask if I'd trust just anybody with nuclear weapons, I say hell no, I don't even trust our government with them. But the principles behind them are available and useful in plenty of other ways, so should be opened up with proper international controls) to innovation (See the old nuclear pulse rocket proposals, for a good example Useful for breaking the power & resources monopolies the governments hang onto and fight useless wars over, but killed by their politics)
Civillians do not need to be armed because they are protected by "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" passed in 1948 and enforced by the UN Office of the High Commisioner of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council.
Anyone who believes otherwise has had their coffee spiked with hallucenogenic drugs by al Qaida operatives.
You're right! I'm going to sell my shotgun right now; the U.N. has never failed stop a genocide of any size!
Epiphany!!! How could I have been so blind. How could we have been so blind??? So those young people strolling around the local "hoods" in colored shirts are actually UN Peacekeepers. I will call our glorious State Atty General and ask if I can receive a recycling bin for all my ammo, accessories, and gun porn.
Seriously, great post man.
Ed_in_Sac.
"gun porn"..... Which is your fav, the "Girls 'n Guns" calendar or the Dillon Blue Book?
;-)
Great Article David. You could have also mentioned that the United Nations wants only states like Qaddafi's Libya to maintain arms and not individuals. I wonder if the United Nations STILL thinks self defense is no justification for an individual to own a gun; even in view of what's going down in Libya.
I don't think the CIFTA treaty will be ratified by the U.S. Senate. The U.N. absolutely cannot impose gun control on the U.S.
"The U.N. absolutely cannot impose gun control on the U.S."
Wrong!
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." -- Frederick Douglass
The short form is that the UN can and will do anything to the American people that we will accept.
Well, David, it looks like Examiner.com's summer intern in the IT department is "improving" the site again. Yesterday, after reading the article following this one I found I couldn't comment on it unless I signed up for Facebook. Even an old Examiner.com login would not work. Today that article shows it has 5 comments but you can't see any of them or post any new ones.
Two sayings come to mind:
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
If they drop the Facebook requirement I'll be back. Otherwise, I'm going to miss exchangeing ideas with you and the other "regulars" on here, even the ones I disagree with. But I'm currently not interested in Facebook. "Don't want to be on no list". ;-)
Sorry man, it's above my pay grade. Hey, I'm positing here without using FB--I thought you could select a box to not have comments go there...have not had time to find out how this latest "upgrade" works--they never tell us in advance, we always find out when our readers tell us they are sick of Examiner making them jump through hoops and discouraging them from visiting the site.
The UN has no power over the US Constitution. I could really give a rip about being on a list. Who is stupid enough to * try * to disarm me.
I send 30 years defending this country and I'm not about to let some idiot disarm me or the citizens of this country. This I shall defend!
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