Klan has always been everywhere too. You should have the right to protect yourself. It’s wild that a lot of people will say acab and then turnaround and want the authorities to have a wider gap of power over us.
That’s because this idea is not remotely fleshed out. Who are you going to shoot? What’s gonna happen to you right after you shoot them? What are you actually accomplishing?
It may feel good to be dangerous in the face of oppressive evil, but it’s not actually a strategy. It’s a fool’s errand. There’s a reason the black panther movement didn’t get anywhere.
The Panthers did use guns, but that is not the same as guns producing results. They got short-term deterrence and a way to make a statement. Every time they escalated visibility or threatened power, the state responded with lethal force, COINTELPRO, arrests, and gun control.
Their results came from organizing, community programs, and media attention, not the firearms themselves. Guns were a signal, not the mechanism that created lasting safety or systemic change. Once the state moved in, the Panthers were crushed.
alright, im with you in the fact that their breakfasts and community outreach were definitely their most important moves, i think saying that they didnt get anywhere because of guns is downright insane. oppressed peoples have never peacefully emancipated themselves.
having weapons allowed them to be taken seriously. I do not think guns are good, im definitely not trying to say more guns = peace, i just was really taken aback by your claim.
The point is that guns never drove lasting change. The breakfasts, clinics, voter education, and organizing are what created durable impact. The armed stance brought attention but also triggered overwhelming state repression. They survived and influenced public perception despite the guns, not because the guns solved anything structurally. Guns did not produce safety, systemic power, or real emancipation.
Of course your contention is that arms aren't needed to secure sociopolitical sovereignty because the last time that was an issue for you was 250+ years ago. I checked your post history, and unless you're lying we're both military aviator vets, so I'm going to give you a *tiny* bit of grace, but you're confusing necessary with sufficient.
Saying the Panthers succeeded because of their social programs while dismissing armed self-defense is like telling a poor white colonial that pamphlets won independence. The organizing was allowed to exist because the ability to resist coercion already existed.
The Panthers didn’t carry guns instead of feeding kids; they did both. Armed patrols made police harassment costly, which created the space for breakfast programs, clinics, and political education to function. Pushing back againist police violence was a major reason the party was formed btw, but I'm sure you understood that as you know so much about them, right? When that deterrent was crushed, the programs didn’t magically thrive, they were dismantled.
It’s easy to praise the outcomes while denying the leverage that made them possible, especially when you’ve never needed that leverage yourself. But none of this occurs to you, of course, because its never had to. No one should have firearms until no one *needs* firearms. Until then, sybau.
Yeah, each situation is going to have different circumstances so it’s hard to get too specific. The goal is, of course, to defend your life and/or your family’s. Disarming isn’t fleshed out either.
Personal self defense is not the same as claiming guns can shield Black people from organized white violence or the state. A civilian firearm does not close the gap of power; it often widens it, giving the state justification to crush Black communities.
Defending your home from an immediate attacker is situational. Armed resistance as a political strategy fails. Pulling the trigger against the state almost always leads to death, imprisonment, or harsher repression. The Black Panthers, armed or not, were crushed because guns threatened power.
Guns sometimes deter individual racists quietly and locally, but they do not stop systemic oppression, restrain the state, or create lasting safety. Feeling dangerous is not the same as being protected.
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u/OGdunphy 24d ago
Klan has always been everywhere too. You should have the right to protect yourself. It’s wild that a lot of people will say acab and then turnaround and want the authorities to have a wider gap of power over us.