Every Terrible Implement of the Soldier

Column by Alex R. Knight III

Exclusive to STR

Imagine for a moment (in case you don't – and if you're reading this, you most likely don't), that you live in Syria. Or Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or Myanmar (Burma, if you prefer). Or any one of any number of Third World hellholes currently throttled by political, social, religious, ethnic, or other kinds of violence. In all likelihood you are just an average person trying desperately to make your way in that society – trying on a day by day basis to provide food, water, and shelter for yourself and your family while dodging the bullets and bombs and trying not to look like too good of a target for either killing or plunder by the local warring factions – be they “officially” governmental or aspiringly so. Not to mention foreign occupiers like, say, the United States military.

It is perhaps then no stretch of the imagination to suggest that you might be amenable towards possessing some form of weaponry capable of safeguarding yourself and those you love, and what few meager possessions you might be able to call your own amongst the rubble. 

The modern-day Western world gun control advocate – probably not unlike yourself – has never seen, much less experienced first-hand, any such scenario, save on a television or computer screen. And it's more than likely they don't care to.

Which is also why they don't care about your freedom to own guns. In fact, most of them at day's end are actively antagonistic towards an armed “civilian” populace, and for no complex reasons. The ruling class have ever feared the peasantry owning and keeping their pitchforks and torches . . . and swords – and firearms. Even whilst in command of vastly more well-armed and trained police and military forces, replete with full-auto submachineguns, shoulder-fired rockets, armored vehicles, tanks, combat aircraft, body armor, naval flotillas – and far more, nearly ad infinitum – they also understand (as does anyone familiar with the logistics of guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency) that this is ultimately still no match for millions of even untrained personnel armed with semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns. In any full-scale confrontation, government shock troops will still lose their lives in great numbers. Military grade weapons will inevitably fall into the hands of rebel resisters. Some of them will even be government military veterans with detailed knowledge of how to operate such gear. Others can learn trial-by-fire style – necessity being the mother of both all invention and much education. Loyalties will splinter as the death toll rises and the internal infrastructure burns. Chaos will reign, and political leadership will become all but impossible. The ruling class's ultimate nightmare will be a hellish in-your-face reality. And who to turn to for help? The Chinese? The Russians? Play that hand and likely end up in an internment camp yourselves, Amerikan Pols.

It was in a 1788 speech that Tench Coxe, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress, asked and then said the following: “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American . . . .”

Of course, the majority of today's bureau-rats share no sympathy with this viewpoint, and for precisely the reasons outlined above. They could care less, in truth, about everyday street crime committed with weapons, or even mass-shootings (so long as it's only we cattle who are involved). Those are just selling points they feel they can use towards the next election cycle, much as allegedly “pro-gun” politicians wave the banners of the NRA and profess how much they care about Amendment 2 and our allegedly inalienable “rights.” But disarmament of you and I is the only aim which in any lasting way leads to their advantage.

The ownership of firearms as a basis upon which to mount and successfully execute an armed resistance against a political tyranny (in addition to general protection of person and property from would-be mini-rulers, AKA, criminals acting privately) is a very sound one, and the rulers and their lackeys understand this only too well. We must do so also. And that means recognizing that the able-bodied among us are all potentially soldiers if and when need be. 

With every restriction on gun ownership that wins approval by the political class, that need intensifies just a little bit more. Not to mention with every tax increase; every additional loss of privacy; every tightening of restrictions on virtually everything we say, do, make, or own.

Will there come a tipping point? I devoutly hope not. The ensuing landscape promises to be brutal, unimaginably grim. But in the meantime, I have plenty of firearms and ammunition, and intend to acquire more while I still can. Along with bayonets, knives, axes. It's not difficult to make Molotov cocktails either. Or IEDs. Just ask the Cuban rebels, or the Viet Cong. Or ISIS. Or any member of a thousand similar armies over just the last hundred years or so. Every terrible implement of the soldier, indeed.

Message to tyrants – existing ones, future ones, and all the wanna-bes: You want my weapons? I know the popular Latin phrase has become rather cliché' by now, so I'll just use plain English here.

Come and take them.