POLL: Will we have to resort to the “bullet box”?

Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America stirred up controversy last week when he said he feared we might have to resort to the “bullet box,” specifically if this November’s presidential election resulted in Supreme Court justices who think that they, and not the Constitution as written, are the ultimate authority under (and over) U.S. law.

This week’s poll asks whether, and if so when, you think freedomistas in the U.S. might have to resort to that fourth box of liberty.

Although the poll asks only if and when, it would be even more interesting to hear what you think might bring us to the box of last resort — what policies, what catastrophic events, what seemingly small trigger event, what change in law or thinking could provoke armed opposition to tyranny? Or, if you think that can be averted, what would help us regain freedom while steering clear of violence? So please … comment away!

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11 thoughts on “POLL: Will we have to resort to the “bullet box”?”

  1. Maybe never. In the bizarre support for Trump (and folks who’ve said they decided to support him when they saw anti-Trump protestors fulfilling Trump’s claims), I see the early symptoms of a backlash against the freedom-killing Social Justice Warriors testicularly-challenged howler monkeys, criminal-enabling victim disarmers, and power politics as usual. (To forestall debate: I’m not expressing an opinion about Trump; merely stating that the phenomenon is an indicator of an immune reaction to the bubonic plague of anti-freedom.)

    If the pendulum swings back to a general respect for individual rights and freedom, that’s good. But if the pendulum swings too far, it could be as stifling to liberty as what we’re already experiencing, but starting with other things.

    Too close to call this early.

  2. I think prediction is a mug’s game right now, since the situation is so fluid. I think that as the pressure increases on people from whatever source, federal or otherwise, the weak seams will begin to pop. We saw it years ago with poor old Joe Stack and his Cessna, and it’s been accelerating ever since, particularly at the Bundy ranch and the Malheur refuge. I look to see more incidents, more pressure, moving closer and closer to mainstream society until one day a critical mass of people channel Popeye and say, “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!”

    Whether it happens all at once across the country or in discrete locations, in households and neighborhoods and communities, more people will begin to disobey, tune out, go Galt, and basically require that they be forced to comply. That force will be applied, through bureaucratic tools at first but more directly as people learn to insulate themselves from paper tyranny and the License Raj. Where and when the breaking point is reached, I couldn’t hazard a guess.

  3. Carl, That’s pretty good and I think you’re largely right. Not that trump is for freedom it’s that his political success, this time around, is emblematic of the frustration with the system in general and the sissyfiedness of the crybabies specifically. I don’t think the current mood will help in the long run to prevent shooting, be it low level engagement or civil war, there is a nationalist streak in the tenor of the backlash that is as scary as the socialist crybaby streak. I see it more as a slow run in the left-right-left-right that was at a marching pace last century. Shades of 30’s Germany, their only blaming rich and white, or poor and Hispanic right now but all the gov needs is proper scapegoat and this thing could take hold.

  4. How close is the total devaluation/crash of the dollar, and therefore the regular economy? What happens when people in the cities begin to starve and there’s no way to continue to rob the productive? What happens when millions of people decide that they are most definitely still “owed” a living and decide to do the robbing themselves – robbing anyone who seems to have something they want? What happens when most of the victims in the big cities have no way to defend themselves? You can bet the farm that the robbers will have guns…

    If you are still living in a big city or sprawling metro area, you probably don’t have much time to get out and get established in flyover country… where you are far less apt to need the bullets. But it could happen here too… Unlike most in Calif. and NYC, we’ve GOT the bullets, and we know how to use them.

    There are not enough police or military to impose martial law or total tyranny on the entire population, and it is only the continued compliance of most folks that gives the government the confidence that they can control us all. Once that compliance and “trust” in government and their bogus “authority” evaporates, the game’s afoot.

    So, how much longer will all of the transfers of wealth continue? How long will the police, military and endless others be able to live on stolen goods? Will they be willing to work for nothing? Will they turn to “living off the land” as troops always have? How long will there remain anyone to steal from? And how many of those people will continue to allow it?

    Maybe more Americans need to think about some of these things, and prepare for it. Many of us already have.

  5. Short answer.
    I fear that yes we will have to resort to actual use of the tyrant removers hanging over our fireplaces. (Or locked in safes in our houses) While still hoping for it not to be required.

    Longer answer includes the above plus the following.
    To my knowledge the Powerful have never relinquished that power without a strong and or severe application of physical power as a rebuff from those harmed by those power drunk tyrants.(Even Charlemagne was faced with an internal revolt of his vassal Lords if he did not sign the Magna Carta.)

    The framers of this much abused Republic knew full well that it was/is possible/inevitable for power to corrupt the elected or appointed leadership. Hence the Second amendment being required to be included by the populaces of several of the sovereign States before they would accept and ratify the Constitution as it reads. Most folks don’t know that there is a preamble to the Bill of Rights that clearly states that fact.

    We May see a redirection or restructuring of the governing bodies of this Republic BUT I seriously doubt that any real, true return to the original concept will be established without that application of physical power by those governed. The power drunk tyrants actually believe that they know what is best for all of us without asking OR they’re after the money/power and are blind to the consequences. More the latter than the former I do think.

    I do not relish the thought BUT If it is to be then let it happen while I am still fit enough to be helpful so that my grand children and their children may live in Peace and Liberty.

    Holding out Hope that the populous will awaken to the dire consequences we face with both of the offered candidates I will go be quiet now. And load a couple more magazines.

    1. Nit: King John of England, 1215, Magna Carta. Not Charlemagne (France/Germany, 800). Though Charlemagne may have had a rebellion by his nobility too (I don’t know that history well at all).

      1. Point Made and I stand corrected.

        Charlemagne was the King who pointed out to his court that Kings cannot do “Everything” and his example was the rising tide.
        (He ordered the tide to not rise knowing full well it would and having those nose ringed sycophants to move his throne back out of the tide when it, of course, did rise.)

        I dropped his name in error and for that error I do apologize.

        Quote Joel
        “Hate to say it, but people who believe there will be organized revolt any time in the forseeable future are living in a dream world. ”

        I am under no illusion that anything will be “organized” either revolt or meltdown.
        Balkanization would be the absolute best and I don’t see even that much “organization” in evidence either.

  6. “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…….”

    The evils are still plenty sufferable & the usurpations still have plenty to come yet and when the day comes that they be beyond our limit may GOD help us because there won’t be no Jefferson’s, Adam’s nor Franklin’s around to lead us to the other side for sure!

    IMHO it is & will be all about local; your Clan, Kin, and tribe! No person is an island and those that think they can be will find themselves up the metaphysical creek with no paddle when the SHTF and it gets around to them too.

  7. I am saddened by what we saw last week in San Jose–it seems that we can no longer rely upon OUR government to protect us from the mobs–almost like Nazi Germany of the 1930’s–must we now “keep our powder dry”–and ready??? דמד

  8. Hate to say it, but people who believe there will be organized revolt any time in the forseeable future are living in a dream world. No insult intended, I lived there myself when I was younger. But if it were ever going to happen we’d have seen its seeds before now. The closest thing we have is the comically dysfunctional militia movement and nearly as many political points of view as there are political people. By far the majority suck down the Soma and either live on the labor of others or try with increasing desperation to make it through one more week. Either bunch would be terrified by the prospect of actual independent freedom. What we’d recognize as real freedomistas comprise so tiny a minority as to be functionally nonexistent.

    American/western society may well tear itself apart, over quite a number of issues. The government may well become much more authoritarian, using quite a number of excuses. But I see absolutely no sign that the response to any of these things will be an organized armed movement to restore liberty.

    Possibly a new and somewhat free society will rebuild itself in one of the smaller balkanized states that might form after this country flies apart, but that’s the only scenario I can imagine. It’s up to us as individuals to find ways to live as freely as we can on our own and in our own small communities.

  9. I think it is coming. When, I can’t say. I do believe we who are patriots are nearing critical mass – meaning that point where one small event topples the entire system.

    Who knows what that one event might be? An attempt to confiscate weapons in one of the non-compliant kind of states? Another federal overreach? Another POTUS fiat decree enforced by armed thugs from some alphabet agency?

    But when it does start, wherever, it will spread. Of that I’m certain. Government can’t handle dissent, and it will always double down on it’s enforcement. Always. So escalation by the feds or states will happen, and ratchet up the resistance, over and over. It’s gonna be messy when it arrives folks.

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