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What are you hoping to achieve with the book?
That it will initiate a discussion that we really haven’t had in America about how to confront this monstrous situation we’ve built for ourselves. I see it as a national project that I’m willing to go on the stump for and to be a missionary for, and I very much want to see what kind of effect it will have. Hopefully, it will be instructive for people outside the US too, because a vast number of my British and European friends are completely lost when it comes to trying to understand American gun violence. So I tried to explain the history behind it.

You show how America’s love affair with guns began far longer ago than I imagined…

It started right at the beginning. The first British settlers in North America were scared – they were really frightened to death. They were few and the Indigenous population were many. The fear of being massacred was immense. So they armed themselves and made sure they were the first to attack – and our attachment to guns began right there.

In the book you say the second amendment, framing the individual’s right to bear arms, was largely ignored until just a few decades ago, when it began to be seen as a fundamental text about what it means to be an American. Why did this happen?

Because of the 1960s – the assassinations and the chaos. People were frightened. And also because of the Black Panthers, who were obviously not white conservatives, but they were the group who originally set forth the argument that gun ownership is a right and that it’s for self-defence. It is hugely ironic: the Panthers were wiped out but their ideas stuck and were adopted by the white right wing. Now, for many, the second amendment has an almost religious component to it. The right to own a gun is seen as a kind of holy grail.

— Paul Auster in Paul Auster: ‘the Right to Own a Gun in the US Is Seen as a Kind of Holy Grail’

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156 COMMENTS

  1. “The fear of being massacred was immense. So they armed themselves and made sure they were the first to attack”
    That is a lie. The colonists had arms when they came over from England. They formed Militia’s in response to being attached by indians.

    • You’re absolutely right. My earliest ancestor on these shores was one of the founders of Ispwich, Mass in 1634. Weapons (firearms and swords) were necessary and kept at the ready, including during religious services.

    • “Attacked by indians”? That is a lie. The peace loving native american indians welcomed the invaders with open arms and even taught the invaders how to plant corn. And in exchange, the native american indians were forced to move to reservations where they were forced to operate casinos and sell tax free cigarettes.

      I learned all this from wikipedia.

      (This is sarcasm in case you are wondering).

        • “…you left out the Whiskey and blankets part.”

          You would have loved those blankets, all those infected with disease lice would have been tasty snacks for a marsupial like yourself… 🙂

        • the Froggies brought in the whiskey by 1625 and used that Firewter as a tool to manipuate the Indians to eradicate the English settlers. The blankets did not come in until early 1800’s as a tool to subtly rduce the population of Indians.. much like the WooFlew was developed, brought in, and administered very successfully over the past two or three years.

        • the Amherst blanket thing has never actually been proven…but smallpox killed far of the natives than bullets did…

      • with (little) respect for the section that comes AFTER the words “and in exchange” That part was perfected by Abe Lincoln’s two nasty generals,, Sherman, better known for his twenty mile wide swath of utter scorched earth and death as his goons marched from Atlanta to Savanna after the war….. as a warmup for similar conduct against the native American tribes, and Sheridan who was in many ways even more abusive than Sherman. Both were sent “out West” to “settle” the Indians. Trail of Tears, etc was the uglyresult. The early colonials treated the folks already here as friends, nd they responded in kind.

        • sometimes yes…sometimes no…there were plenty of massacres in colonial times….some coming without any warning…when the ‘friendlies” suddenly became hostile

      • They were also environmentalists. That’s why they hunted mammoths to extinction. It’s a well known fact that CO2 from mammoth farts ended the last ice age.

    • and the Indians were provoked and supplied with arms and HARD LIQUOR and told to clear out the colonists.. to make it easier for the froggies to take over without the ard work of settling.

      READ William Brandford’s eyewitness account as he lived with and was one of te Pilgrims from before they left England for Holland, then after the rat king croaked back to England secured the Charter with George Three the nw king, came to Masschussetts Bay and formed Plymouth Colony. He then continues his eyewitness narrative over the first forty years of that colony. “Of Plymouth Plantation” is his book. It was republished sometime back in the mid 1980
      s or so, don’t know presesnt status. Fascinating read, and will prove this clown is an habitualliar OR on the take from someone biggr than he is with, a sick agenda.

      • early settlers in New England were often so terrified of indian attack they set their dead up against a tree in the woods with a broomstick painted black to ward them off…

    • if the Plymouth colony had been planted in Europe instead of the New World the colonists still would have brought swords and guns. They understood that human nature doesn’t change with location, and the best way to invite abuse is to appear helpless.
      also, this goober makes the same (deliberate) mistake many other revisionist historians make: using “Indians” to cover a spread of tribes and nations, many of whom were different from each other and some of whom were actually at war with each other. If you were at friendly relations with Tribe A it didn’t mean that Tribe B or Tribe C wouldn’t attack you on sight or even that some members of Tribe A might think stealing your livestock was ok as long as they didn’t deliberately kill you in the process.

    • Not only is that a lie, but there is very little in this clown’s interview – and that is no doubt also true for the book – which bears any semblance to truth or accuracy.

  2. I am not going to waste my money and buy his book. But just based on the except of this interview, I will venture out a suggestion that a) This guy is breathtakingly ignorant about american history. Or, b) This guy did a quickie wikipedia research cut and paste job on for his book. In any case, this will not change any minds. Beside which, mindless drones don’t read any further past a sms text.

    • More generous than I. Personally I just call it revisionist history. Also any love affair with guns would have begun with figuring out it kept them from being run roughshod as badly back in Europe as peasants.

      • “Personally I just call it revisionist history.”

        It’s fun to laugh at that, but don’t.

        It’s a very deliberate strategy. By presenting crap like that as being ‘scholarly research’ (gag), it lays the building blocks for future generations to ban guns… 🙁

        • My preferred term is wilful deception with a clear and destructive motive behind it. In other words, a plant, or shill, to soften the “mark” as frequently done to neutralise opposition to larger nefarious plan to take over and subdue. Marx, Lenin , Stalin, Castro, Mao, PolPot, were all masters at this tactic.

    • He is a product of the Liberal Progressive Democrat educational indoctrination system. Formally known as public education until the early 80s.

      • more recent than that…we were still doing our jobs relatively unencumbered in the 80’s…even the 90’s…”Bobby has two daddys/sally has two mommys” usually went right into the trash can….

    • Paul Auster’s grandmother shot and killed his grandfather back in 1919, after he left her for another woman. She was acquitted of murder due to temporary insanity, and moved from Wisconsin to New Jersey, where the author’s father experienced a difficult childhood and grew into a maladjusted adult, which then spilled over into the author’s own life when he was born. This is the author’s own statement:

      “The gun had caused all this,…”

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/15/paul-auster-bloodbath-nation-read-extract-guns-america?amp;amp;amp

  3. Oh noes! Eurotrash thinks poorly of me!

    How’s those weekend cartel drivebys in London sitting? Probably the NRAs fault.

    • There can’t be any drive by shootings in London. Our resident troll keeps telling us that it never happens in civilized countries.

      • for as crowded as it is, streets are often pretty empty on a Sunday. in London..was the only time I heard two guys sizing me up from behind as I strolled up from the Thames…in the end I guess they thought better of it

    • Shire-man,

      This book is simply the latest of countless billions of examples of people trying to psychologically manipulate/coerce other people.

      The magnitude/frequency of psychological manipulation that billions of people employ on a daily basis is finally sinking in to me. What a sad statement on the human condition.

      • Easy $$. There isn’t anything new or thought-provoking here. Just more gunzz bad. Actually, it’s gun lobby bad. Remember our conversation the other day about one of their motivations?

        • “There isn’t anything new or thought-provoking here. Just more gunzz bad. Actually, it’s gun lobby bad.”

          Uncommon is right, it’s very deliberate.

          If you watch the sales, it will not be a best seller. But it will be out there for sale for decades at Amazon…

      • Strych9 will get very in depth with how marketing is used to influence an undue amount of your life. I tend towards more simply saying half the cost of almost any product is convincing you to buy it.

      • The only “sales” of the book will be to studies students who are taking a course by the author who made the book a mandatory text.

        • gotta’ keep the prof happy by appearing to be buying into his bullshit…anything to get that grade….that’s usually how the game is played….

      • This is 100% true. Something we are going to have to overcome as a species to have any kind of long term success, I think.

  4. One more in the unending stream of “writers” offering whatever sells to the gullible among us. Ignoring begins in 3….2…1

      • Exactly. Years from now, this will be presented as fact.

        “Tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” Some murderous thug who loaded people into gas chambers…

  5. ‘The Right to Own a Gun in the US Is Seen as a Kind of Holy Grail’ — Paul Auster

    Allow me to enlighten Mr. Auster and the world:

    Some people view human life as immensely valuable and our inalienable right to life as a highest expression of that immense value. Said people reject emotional claims to the contrary and recognize that evil people are always seeking hapless victims to devour. Furthermore, said people recognize that they will likely have to actively and effectively protect themselves if/when evil people attack them. Finally, said people recognize that firearms are one of the most effective ways to protect themselves and secure their lives and the lives of their loved ones if/when evil people attack them. THAT is why said people are so invested in their inalienable right to life and its necessary derivative–their inalienable right to keep and bear arms.

    In other words, if government outlaws effective means to protect our lives, we really have no right to life at all. And, while some people are totally fine without any right to life, others are not and demand their right to life–along with the necessary derivative right to keep and bear arms to effectively protect their life.

    • uncommon,

      VERY well stated, sir!! That was uncommonly articulate and rational (pardon the pun), so it would be beyond the understanding of Leftist/fascists (like MinorLiar, dacian the demented, and Prince Albert) . . . which is a shame, because they need it the most.

    • for the early colonials on this continent life boiled down to have and keep and use arms freely OR die of starvation. Meat in the hoof and wing was very abundant. Farmland took time, toil, resources to develop.

      WHY do you think the Militia in Massachussetts were so skilled? Because their life depended upn being crack shots. Daniel Morgan’s little band of volunteer militia had to prove their skill with the long gun as a “test” to join Morgan’s Rangers. The test? tack a wooden shingle about nine by eleven inches (our current measure) onto a tree or post at a measured distance of 250 yards, then walk back to the line, load, then fire one cold bore ball. If the shingle splits you were now a mamber of Daniel Morgan’s Militia. If you missed, try again next year when we swing back through.

      The Brit Regulars were taught NOT to even fire beyond about 75 yards as “its too far away and you cannot hit it”. Meanwhile our guys were picking off the officers at ranges of 150 to 250 yards. Gage lost nearly half of his officers the day he was silly enough to think he could walk all over the Colonials and their half-baked militia. The most feared, largest, best equipped and trained military force on the planet got trounced by a bunch of “stupid farmers with their squirrel guns”.

      • pretty hard to hit anything at a distance with a smoothbore musket…thus, march right up to them…fire a volley…then charge with the bayonet was the standard tactic…reloading was usually viewed as a waste of time…

    • Thank you. Very well said. If I may add, those who view life as immensely valuable and believe they have a right to life but at the same time refuse to take responsibility to protect that life, do they truly deserve that right to life? Just wondering as I have read anti-gun people say they have right to life.

  7. lol
    It isn’t like there is no one else on the planet that owns guns.

    This isn’t anti-gun. It is using antigun to be anti-American. People like this might feel the need to impune American gun owners but are actually just telling the world how horrid the USA is in their minds.

  9. But are you ready to come and take it? I am quite ready to die right here. It’s been a good run, so just exactly what are you willing to do to disarm me? Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

    • “But are you ready to come and take it? I am quite ready to die right here.”

      That plays right into their narrative to a ‘T’.

      They will point at that and say “See how crazy they are? Take those guns and make us all safe!”

      They are masters at manipulation…

      • except that the one blustering about coming and taking it AND killing we who have them will wither and wilt and slither away at the first sign of effecgive resistance. WHY did the Japanese and German military pass on the opportunity to phusically invade our soil mid-last century? Simple… they KNEW that behind every blade of grass lurks an armed American with the skill to make a difference.
        And THAT is pr4cisely WHY perverts like this guy above writing that silly birdcge liner of a book is getting paid to shame us out of our right to ars.. to pave the way precisely for that takover once we have been foolish enough to let some pervert like Bay Toe Oh Rook shame us into surrendering our birthright.
        Maybe some, or even most, of our fellows may fall for his ruse. But rmembr: it were only about three percent were actively involved with our first war for Independence. Even if 97% fall for his lies, the rest of us can hold fast and send them back to from where they came. Or to place where it is very dark and their only task is to poke daisies up into the sunshine.

      • sadly true…the tougher you talk the crazier you look to others….they want you portrayed as a threat…

    • What he is doing is creating history, just like the book a few years back that claimed the ‘Wild West’ had very few guns in it, when in reality, they were everywhere, because many of those settlers were civil war combat veterans…

    • You really do need to think up a new line. That one got old long ago, after the 100th time you used it…

      • Most likely a plant just waiting for someone to agree with it…

  12. Quotes from the article:
    “…these often rather ugly buildings in the middle of rather nondescript, depressing American landscapes. There’s an emptiness to them…I think that emptiness does reflect the emptiness of this world we’ve created in which people are slaughtered with so little effect on the life of the country.”

    Okay, you have my attention. You might be onto something here.

    “We all get upset, we all complain, and yet things stay the same.”

    Agree. I’m listening.

    “And the gun lobby remains very, very strong.”

    And … you completely missed the mark.

    “Why did this happen? Because of the 1960s…”

    Again, so close, yet so far away. The answers are there if anyone bothered to take an honest assessment of the problem.

    • From your cold expired hands I’m not giving up my gats. If I had a “pistol”you wouldn’t get my plastic brace.

      • well,..the sixties did change things in my neck of the woods..pistols weren’t all that common…gun permits even less so…then TSHTF and everything changed in a heartbeat…our suddenly peaceful, tranquil, placid existence was no more…and its been downhill ever since….

    • he may well be on to something when he blames the 1960’s.
      We had millions of kids being raised by incompetent parents who were swallowing every word oozing from Doctor Spock’s insane book on childraising. We had Castro just offshore allowing some of his goons to :escape” to Miami to infiltrate. We had widespread ridicule of Senator Joe McCarthy as he warned against the spread of marxist thinking. We had the first open election fraud known nationwide. We had Hollywood being further corrupted by marxist principles. we brought in abortion in demand. Mrijuana and “free love” and the whole hippie thing oozed into the public consciousness. I believe it was early 1960’s we had the Texas Tower massacre. Progressive thinking and values began to overrun the school systems.

      • thoght that Whitman thing happened a little later on…most viewed it as a shocking aberration… but with the brain tumor and all…possibly explainable

  13. Lose the 2A, we lose all rights. The greatest impediment the central authority (NWO/Davos types) is an armed citizenry. The Founders knew this. They are loath to directly confront citizens who say “NO”. Auster is simply one of their useful idiots attacking indirectly.

    • defunding the cops and making people afraid was probably one of the biggest miscalculations of the left…causing an explosion of gun ownership…not what they wanted at all….

  14. Dear diary, today I learned that Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass were members of the Black Panthers.

    Amazing. Thanks, I’ll be sure to not buy this book twice.

  15. If only one sector of the violence was eliminated the America would be very peaceful. Gangs.

    Make illegal use of a firearm zero tolerance. 1st violation 5 years. 2nd violation life. If done as a minor begin the sentence in juvie and finish it in prison. No plea bargaining and no early release. Make the punishment as severe as the crime.

    • Funny enough we did that in the 90’s and crime dropped like a rock but it had other issues that people bitched about.

    • and bring back the Firing Squad as mandatory punishment for those who wilfully kill innocents with firearms.
      Reap what you sow. don’t forget two immutable laws of nature: the Law of Increase, and the Law of Kind.

  16. Come and get them. You, personally, Mr. Auster, not agents of the state. You can lead as many of your fellow bleeding hearts as you want, but they must be stuck-up, egg-head, non-government so-called “intellectuals” like yourself.

    Stack up. We’re waiting.

    • Have you noticed yet it got printed?

      This all feeds into the BS they claim that America is systemically-racist.

      And to prove that you’re not a degenerate racist, you have to give up your guns… 🙁

      • sorry, suckers, Ive got nuthin ta prove. But I WILL defend my life and liberty. And for those round about me who also treasure them.

      • just think what the stats would look like if we eliminated black on black crime…they’d have to go find something else to lead with on the evening news…

      • LOL by that reasoning I am off the charts racist as I encourage “oppressed minorities” (read anyone with critical thinking ability here in NY regardless of color) to get the weapons best suited for their needs/budget while reducing reliance on the government and where to look for information that is relevant and useful.

  18. The atheist will do anything they need to do. Play any trick they need to play, in order to deny you your civil rights. Yes there are atheists who believe in civil rights. And they themselves also know they are a tiny minority among atheists. Because Atheists are s0ci@list Pr0gressive in their p0litic@l 0rient@tion. They have never supported the first amendment. And this is not a biblical argument. But they do want to make it a biblical argument. Because they hate religion. But they do worship government.

    I’m sure that the anti-civil rights left monitor TTAG and other gun civil rights websites. They know about the many books written by Christians referencing american birthright to the second amendment. But most of the American population don’t read the Bible sadly. They don’t know about the recognizing of the right of armed self-defense in the bible.

    And actually I was wondering when the gun grabbers would be getting around to attacking religion. Especially religion involving the use of armed self-defense.

      • Yep…
        “It is the absolute duty of Social-Democrats to make a public statement of their attitude towards religion. Social-Democracy bases its whole world-outlook on scientific socialism, i.e., Marxism. The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism—a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion… Marxism has always regarded all modern religions and churches, and each and every religious organization, as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class…

        Marxism is materialism. As such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion… We must combat religion—that is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism. But Marxism is not a materialism which has stopped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion.”
        -Lenin

        • fyi
          The Tom Woods show. From Nov 2022.

          “Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College and editor of The American Spectator, joins me to discuss the curious story of Bella Dodd, once a committed communist who says she helped Marxists infiltrate the Catholic Church, and later a crusader against communism.”

          “Communism is the Opium for the intellectuals.”
          Raymond Aron

          audio 31 min long
          http://tomwoods.com/ep-2238-a-communist-reveals-her-secrets/

    • they’ve been attacking religion for quite a while….it provides the core values they detest….

  19. “The first British settlers in North America were scared – they were really frightened to death. They were few and the Indigenous population were many. The fear of being massacred was immense. So they armed themselves and made sure they were the first to attack”

    Well that’s kind of false.

    The fear of being massacred was immense, but they did not arm themselves to make sure they were the first to attack even though there may have been those isolated cases. Overall, they were outnumbered by the Indigenous population, namely the ‘American Indian’ population whose country and territories had basically been invaded and they overall objected to the ‘first British settlers’ because they took land that belonged to the Indigenous population instead of trying to share it by negotiating with the Indigenous population. The ‘first British settlers’ were doing as the crown demanded, taking land and trying to subjugate the Indigenous population as Britain had done so many times to its other areas they colonized. So the ‘settlers’ did arm themselves but were largely afraid to travel outside their own areas because the Indigenous population did outnumber them and were hostile towards them overall. So the ‘first British settlers’ mostly armed themselves for defense against the outnumbering ‘Indigenous population’ when they showed up. And they did, in isolated cases in a military context (forming their own ‘militias’) carry out ‘first strike’ efforts in attempts to take more land and decease the Indigenous population whose land they had invaded.

    Britain has a long history of ‘murder’ in the name of the crown. And eventually the crown wanted to do it to the colonists and subjugate them as well. So the crown started confiscating firearms. A confiscation in order to impose their tyranny for plans to turn the colony’s into basically one big enslaved labor production point for England like they had done to other areas they had colonized. They enacted ‘rules’ (e.g. basically law by decree) requiring firearms and gunpowder to be ‘declared’ (e.g. ‘registered’). Once declared their knew exactly who had what. In 1774 they imposed an import ban on firearms and gunpowder, and in 1774-1775 confiscations of firearms and gunpowder started and it was an intentionally violent confiscation with British troops under the 1774 Parliament passed ‘Coercive Acts’. Reasoning with the crown did not work. And the confiscations of firearms and gunpowder was the turning point where it was basically either then or become a conquered people enslaved to the crown – so this confiscation was the event that changed a situation of political tension into a shooting war.

    And now today we see the same pattern with democrats, anti-gun, our own government (and state governments, e.g. Illinois more recently). This kind of tyranny is one of the reasons why the founders saw a need to include the Second Amendment because even back then our then new government had already started imposing control over the rights of the people and had started turning them into privileges they could decide for whom they applied and leaning in the direction of repeating the British tyranny being driven by special interest to do so. The Bill of Rights came at a very critical time and it affirmed and further defined the inalienable rights we have inherently and one of these is the Second Amendment.

    So actually, the only original sin we have in our history in relation to firearms is Britain which today is known as the United Kingdom which still today imposes tyranny upon its people, a modern day form of feudal tyranny, and keeps their military with plans and training specifically to put down a rebellion by the population aimed at deposing a tyrannical government and their governments live in fear of that so keep their population disarmed as much as they can. Its the same in all gun ban countries. Even our democrat administration government fears that happening and has ‘proposed’ (read that ‘created’) plans to put down a rebellion of the populace to depose a tyrannical government and seeks even now to disarm the American people to put in place more fully a tyrannical government.

    The founders warned about this, and here we are today with the same actions (updated for modern times of course) by our own government they tried before which resulted in the Bill of Rights, and that of what the British did. Our democrat administrations is following the same pattern and driven by anti-gun entities who also would like a socialist-marxism tyrannical government.

    • basically they’re control freaks…and we’ve seen recent evidence of that with the pandemic…

  20. “vast number of my British and European friends” – this says you’re an ignorant hating America slu t that needs to find a new group of “friends”. Get out of your urban cesspool bubble.

    Then go purchase a pint of testosterone for yourself and “Spencer”.

    • the “European model” is something they would very much like to see here…they’ve never quite gotten over their fascination with subjects, serfs and peasants…America came into being because of people who rejected all that…..

  21. “After graduating from Columbia University with B.A. and M.A. degrees in 1970, he moved to Paris, France, where he earned a living translating French literature. Since returning to the United States in 1974, he has published poems, essays, and novels, as well as translations of French writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Joseph Joubert.”

    What an utterly useless boil on the butt of America.

  22. “And also because of the Black Panthers, who were obviously not white conservatives, but they were the group who originally set forth the argument that gun ownership is a right and that it’s for self-defence.”

    It is always interesting to me how these racist white leftists who hate gun ownership, always bring up the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. But they never mentioned the group who came before them. The Deacons for Defense and Justice.

    Is it because they’re just ignorant people who don’t read history??? Ot is it because they are just ignorant and stupid people who don’t read history???

    • I’m quite comfortable talking about the Black Panthers and the hundreds or thousands of FBI informants and FBI agitators that were also in that organization. And the COINTELPRO operation conducted by the FBI. Just like the FBI has inserted informants and agitators at the January 6th protest.

      • The government plant false flags to distance Americans from their rights? Impossible that’s just a conspiracy theory.
        Do I need to add sarc or is the small ocean under the post enough?

        • Don’t pay attention to those Twitter files being released behind the curtain. And people think Watergate was bad. Just you wait and see what happens now, that the Republicans control the House of Representatives. And all the committee hearings that they will be having, over the next 24 months.

          “That’s not true. You’re just making it up. You’re just paranoid. Why won’t you accept the election results???”

          “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”

          https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

        • ^And there they are openly bragging about it. If you say it was rigged, then you’re a conspiracy theorist.

  23. “And also because of the Black Panthers, who were obviously not white conservatives, but they were the group who originally set forth the argument that gun ownership is a right and that it’s for self-defence. ”

    That’s not true.

    Among gun owners overall its always been regarded as a right and means of self-defense in some aspect be it against criminals or tyrannical governments or others seeking to do us harm. Even the government in the past regarded it (treated it) as a right and for self-defense. The Second Amendment reasoning when it was proposed its self said so and they even put it in writing and that came way before the Black Panthers. This is all wayyy before the Black Panthers. self-defense is not just about criminals its also about self defense against a tyrannical government, and it is a right. All the Black Panthers did was dust off what had been forgotten by the courts.

  24. Reckon he can change a tire? Do a tuneup? Set a post? Any damn thing except tell us how smart he is?

  25. “And also because of the Black Panthers, who were obviously not white conservatives, but they were the group who originally set forth the argument that gun ownership is a right and that it’s for self-defence.”

    Oh yeah the Black Panthers and the Mulford Act.

    Well, it was co-written by a Jewish lawyer. Who was a board member of the ACLU. And since this guy is bringing up religion and guns. I think that is an important point in civil rights history. My question is was California state senator Alan Sieroty an atheist???
    A JINO, a polish immigrant, Jew In Name Only.

  26. Before writing about constitutional matters, authors should be forced to read the federalist papers, and the writings of the founders and other people during the adoption of the constitution and the bill of rights. They explain in clear detail that the all of the terrible implements of the soldier are the birthright of an American. Nowhere does it say you have to be in a militia to own these arms. The thought at the time was you would bring you own to the militia when called upon.

    This reimagining of the second amendment that they say occurred a few decades ago is just a flat out lie. If you want to hear something that really blows your mind, listen to the Jimmy Stewart led radio show that FDR participated in. The show was right before World War II and there is a segment on the importance of the right to keep and bear arms and the ability of the people to use it to fight government tyranny. Imagine a democrat president attaching themselves to such a project now?

    Books like this are what happens when you have a narrow view of a subject and reject information that doesn’t support your thesis. Of course the purpose of propaganda is to convince someone into a position they would not otherwise have if they had all facts and data presented to them.

    • hell,..even Madison grabbed his gun and joined up when his home was threatened…even though they burned it anyway…proving that looting and burning are not just an American thing…

    • I just now listened to the entire hour of “We Hold These Truths”. It commemorated the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights on December 15th 1791. The December 15th 1941 broadcast was heard on all four major radio networks by 63 million people, nearly half the population of the United States at the time.

  27. This individual is so ignorant of history it goes beyond absurd. Armed resistance by blacks against night riders during Reconstruction caused many of the anti-firearm laws in the South. And the only thing that kept the Civil Rights marchers safe was the Deacons for Defense:

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

    Let’s ask his British and European what kind of rights they have now. America for better or worse is made up of people from all over the world — white, black, red, yellow, whatever– that share one thing in common, they are not ass-kissers and they do not bend the knee to the royalty. That means guns when it comes down to it in very real terms.

  28. But let’s not forget the leftists religions, climate change – worshiping the creation rather than the creator, the abortionist in their baal worship, and those that worship at the altar of government, but what do I know.

  29. Austerlopithicus I say
    We’ve already got a Holy Grail
    I fart in your general direction.
    his book was written by computer AI sht program

  30. re:
    religious attachment to guns
    hes correct you know
    its all in the book of Nehemiah
    Chapter 4

  31. “because a vast number of my British and European friends are completely lost when it comes to trying to understand American gun violence. So I tried to explain the history behind it.”

    I think Paul Auster needs to try reading some British history. Just like I have read British history. And learn how the British never really had the right Armed self-defense. This way he can learn how the British government murdered his own citizens. Since only the government was allowed to have arms.

    And if he reads this book, about his own nation’s history??? He will learn why our founding fathers, chose to use the term “arms”. Instead of using the term “guns” when writing the second amendment.

    “To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right Paperback – 1996”
    by Joyce Lee Malcolm

    https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Bear-Arms-Origins-Anglo-American/dp/0674893077/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1P1866ATKD2QM&keywords=joyce+lee+malcolm&qid=1673890828&sprefix=joyce%2520lee%2520malcolm%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-1

    • Here is some more Light reading for Mr. Auster and his European associates. Perhaps they can learn something about their own history that they have never read. But many Americans in fact have read about it.

      From 2017

      “Examining the Armed Citizen: the Historic Struggle Between Man and the State for the Control of Small Arms”
      by Mr Paul G Markel

    • even a rapid cursory romp through British colonial history round the world has them studiously and stteadfastly denying the subjects they have brutally overrun all round the world their own right to self-protection as well as self-determination.
      Britan, over the centuries, has overrun, subjugated, disarmed, and largely destroyed the cultures of several Caribbean islands, British Guyana, British Honduras, Guatelama, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador Chile, Congo, Nigeria, Algeria, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South / Africa, India , Pakistan, HongKong, parts of China , Philippines Australia, New eZealand, Malaysia, Ireland Scotlans Wales, Canada, Greenland, Gibraltar, and another handful I have forgotten for now. In EVERY nation they overrun, disarming the commin man was key early on. Ths disarmed, they could not resist. AMerica is unique amnigst them all as as the Brits pressed their intent to dsarm and thus subjugate, we said NOPE. Not Happening. HOW is it we were able to do that?Simple.. we had lived NOT under the Brit thumb for a century and learned not only how, but the value of it. So when George Three sent his orders to GeneralThomas Gage in December of 1774 to disarm those rebellious colonists, Gage was “chust followink oadahs” when he dispatched 800 men to Lexingtin and Concord for the purpose of taking without compensation certian personal property held by the Colonials he was sent to subdue. As he admitted later to his boss the other side the Puddle in his After Action Report, he had seriously misjdged their skill at arms and their determination to use them as the correct tool to set his planned tyranny to naught. He had very seriously misjudged his adversary. And WE remember that, and the lessons taken from it.

    • English were big on archery though..at least for a time…as long as you didn’t kill the king’s deer!….

  33. And I do like it when the atheists bring up the combined subjects of religion and guns.
    These people have a long history of discriminating against people of faith and gun owners.

    From 2016

    “The Intolerant Christian: Examining the Persecution of Faithful Christians in the United States of America.”
    by Mr Paul G Markel

  34. The White naked apes that invaded America were on the sub-conscience level harboring immense guilt feelings for stealing Indian land, and then raping their women and then murdering them and their families including even their children. To justify the bloodbath they tried to tie it all in to their depraved versions of Christianity which is in and of itself pure depravity.

    The Christian horror of sex has damaged more people lives perhaps more than any other religion until of course the rise of the copycat religion Islam which is so little different from Christianity one wonders why the two groups of naked apes hate each others religion with such fervor. Both believe sex is obscene and only should be used for procreation and both religions believe that women should be subservient to men and be used as nothing more than sex slaves for men’s pleasure.

    The Ancient Pagan Romans stated that these Christians were a lot of depraved nut cases that believed in depriving themselves of the basic pleasures of life and would gain grace the more they suffered in the this present life and would therefore then receive a better life after death a well as immortality. Just what they were supposed to be able to do in the next life the Christian fanatic’s could not answer considering the facts that eating, having sex, accumulating material goods, or gaining power and conquering other peoples would likely not be possible. Singing religious songs all day would actually be more like hell than being put in the hell they feared that they might go to if they did not obey their religious teachings.

    Perhaps Milton was correct when he said “It would be much better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven”.

    Most Historians have stated that the Apostilles were almost certainly illiterate fisherman and or farmers as very few people of that time in history were able to read or even afford a handwritten book. Literacy was found only among people that had to use it such as tax collectors , architects, engineers, and military men in charge of paying out the salaries to troops.

    The Bible was written decades later by Church Elders using the Apostles name to legitimize their own versions of what Christianity should be. None of course gave any credit to Mary Magdalene who’s existence was verified by the discovery of Coptic writings buried in the sands of the desert for centuries and it was she who revised its teachings to appeal to the women because she realized that it is the women who indoctrinate (brainwash) the children and when you win over the women to a new religion the older religions are doomed.

    Church elders hated all women in general and it went double for any woman who achieved any kind of power over men which Magdalene certainly did. The apostle Peter probably ended up wished he and his colleagues had not tossed out Judas who then went on to start his own religion and “The Bible according to Judas” was still being worshiped 450 plus years later in Rome during the reign of Constantine who certainly was the antithesis of any saint.

    One wonders what the Christian Church elders were thinking when they deified Constantine who was a cold blooded killer.

    I guess Constantine’s most disingenuous and most famously quoted speech “I have seen a cross of light in the sky” impressed the Church Elders so much they swept the actual legacy and lunacy of his depraved life under the rug. What was even more bizarre was that Constantine only consented to become Christian while on his death bed but even that has been called into question by Historians as to its authenticity. The fact that Constantine (contrary to popular belief) never officially made Christianity Rome’s official religion certainly casts doubt as to him ever becoming a Christian.

    If Christ (who scholars believe probably really did exist) were to be brought back to life he would be angered at being called a Christian when in reality he was a Jew and was practicing his own version of Judaism. And after reading the Christian bible Christ would have exclaimed “Where in the hell did they come up with all these stories about me, were these nut cases all on drugs or drinking bad wine?”

    When one studies the world’s religions it is no accident they are all more alike than different because as newer more advanced religions were invented from the fertile and panicked mind of men they simply copied most of the previous teachings of the popular religions of the day. Case in point: the Egyptians worshiped a god called Horus who was the son of their God, Osiris. And this was a good 1,000 years before the Christians copied the story as their own. I might add that “the Virgin Birth” was a popular story among many Mid-Eastern religions long before Christianity came into being.

    Its also interesting to note that the Great Buddha told his followers he was not God and to quit comparing him to God. Nevertheless after his death his followers then worshiped him as a God. The parallels to Christianity are hard to ignore.

    The Christians tying in guns to God reminds me of Adolf Hitler telling the German people they did not deserve him because they failed him even after all he had done for them.

    • The only “Depraved Nut Case” on here goes by the name of “Dacian.”
      Dacian of the Cherry Picked References

      Buddha was a fat f**k who diddled little boys.

      • you know you guys make a star out of dacian by answering him, I gave up on that not case a long time ago. I don’t even respond to his foolishness. I think he’s just playing it on the site to irritate everybody. last thing I said to him is dumb as his picture looks, and that’s the last remark I ever made to him. just ignore him he’s another fool out there.

  35. Perhaps this genius can explain the European 5,000 year worship of swords, knives, spears, and armor until the proliferation of the gun.

  36. “Auster” eh? Every time, every damn time.

    More on Auster who supports convicted rapist and pedophile Roman Polanski:

    Wikipedia:
    Auster was married to the writer Lydia Davis. They had one son together, Daniel Auster,[24] who was arrested on April 16, 2022, and charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide in the death of his 10-month old infant daughter, who consumed heroin and fentanyl he was using.[25][26] On April 26, 2022, Daniel, who was found to be in possession of drug paraphernalia, died from an overdose.[27][28] Daniel was also known for his association with the Club Kids and their ringleader Michael Alig, and was present during the killing of fellow Club Kid Andre Melendez.[29]

    Yeah we should all be taking advice from “Auster” and his tribe, NOT!

    • it wasn’t like that, it was the guns that did it I tell ya…the guns. Those mean guns all by their selves came to life and did it then framed those people…it was gun violence and not people violence. Just read his book.

      /s

      😀

  37. The people of the old world were not scared of guns, that was after WWII when they collected guns in most countries and established rules for the few subjects that were allowed them. Before WWII, firearms were very expensive and most people(that did not have a strong use for them) did not own them. People that hunted for family food were able to keep them, but having handguns for self protection in the cities after WWII was frowned upon(Remember that the Nazis did 90% of the dirty work getting the people unarmed.

  38. The reason firearms and religion go together imo is due to a religious concept about the time the country founded called self murder. Idea being creator gave you life and a body and it was your responsibility to protect it in the face of evil. Salvation is not a right it’s a responsibility. You have a contract with creator to do the best you can accepting responsibility. Why people like subcontracting their responsibility to the state is beyond me except people are lazy.

    The reason I have rights is because I have responsibilities. Even if I don’t want responsibility I don’t have a choice. The buck stops with me whether I want it to or not. This is not states law this is higher law. The state lacks standing. Even a squirrel knows when push comes to shove nobody’s helping him in the face of a hawk except his ability and his creator.

  39. you can address the hypocrisy of religion and leave the most capable means of self defense out of it.

    • Great self-own, Chief . . . very subtle way to tell us all your attention span is shorter than your johnson. Here’s a suggestion: if you can’t maintain rational thought long enough to read his posts? Don’t read them. You’re welcome.

  42. Well, I do keep a Bible in my gun safe, but only because it’s over 100 years old and a tad fragile. My Great Uncle carried it on him in the trenches during the Great War. So it has a bit of sentimental value.

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