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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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kestrel77 wrote

it's a huge leap from "some men use guns to terrorize and abuse their partners" to "more armed leftists = patriarchy." for my part i don't see how arming women to fight patriarchy is very patriarchal. would you say that john brown was pro-slavery?

guns are tools. just like any machine they can be oppressive or they can be freeing depending on how they are used.

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zorblax wrote

There are two ways to fix a power imbalance: make it normal for nobody to have power, or make it normal for everybody to have power.

There will always be some small amount of people who will have guns no matter what, even in some hypothetical demilitarized anarchist utopia. I'd rather make it so that if those people choose to use their guns unwisely, they can be met with equal force.

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ycymroflin wrote

Improved physical fitness also creates an imbalance of power, as does one person being physical disabled and the other not being, or one person having had boxing lessons and the other hasn't. In such situations, firearms can themselves be an equaliser. Firearms only create an imbalance of power when one side has them and the other does not.

The other thing to remember is that an anarchist society can only remain so for as long as it can defend itself from outside influences attempting to assert control over them, and that potential exists so long as any given society chooses not to disarm. Given that there is no way that you'd be able to get literally everybody on the planet to disarm without the use of force (which would necessarily require access to firearms), this would obviously be the case.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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ycymroflin wrote

Personally, I'm of the opinion that anybody who can demonstrate to the rest of the community that they can be trusted with the responsibility that possessing weaponry brings should be allowed to possess whatever weaponry they consider appropriate. What that demonstration entails would be down to any given community, but ultimately I believe it should include basic principles of responsible firearm ownership (e.g. the safe storage of firearms and ammunition, if that's the kind of weaponry they intend to possess), target identification in a timed and stressful environment, and general proficiency with the weapon in question.

Before we get to that point, however, there's one thing that needs to be understood: we don't need to attempt to overthrow the state for the revolution to become violent. We can be entirely peaceful in our action, but eventually, if we're successful, we'll be seen as a threat and the state will use violence against us. We need to be able to defend ourselves against that.

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