Re Chicago / Armed self defense

Dale Jacobson writes and my response follows.

I appreciate your recent post, Hunter, on self-defense (and John's comment also).  As homicide rates (most of which involve guns) have leveled off for some time now, from their spike in the eighties and early nineties, it baffles me why liberals would deny guns to people for the purpose of self-defense.  I would think they might be less vociferous in the absence of a viable alternative to a violent assault.   


I know of a situation involving a close friend where a number of people very righteously condemned the use of a firearm in what was determined to be justifiable self-defense but they could provide no alternative, other than to be pummeled and possibly killed.  Very easy to say that no gun should be used, not being in the situation themselves...


On another note, not sure I am receiving all your posts, Hunter.  My email address is changed to:--------- if you want to enter it?  It is nice to hear a sane word every so often.


All my best, Dale

My response:

Thanks very much, Dale.  Wish we were chewing this over at Hardees in the Forks.

I do have your correct e-mail address.

I am aware, of course, of the situation involving your good friend who was forced by events to kill an intruder bent on very serious violence.  I agree there was no other alternative.  I think that's been widely recognized over the years that have passed.

I am obviously not a Gandhian but I do and have always supported and practiced strategic non-violence in demonstration situations -- even as I support cool-headed armed self defense in the case of myself, home and family and others similarly situated.  I respect people who, in their daily lives and justice pursuits, have consistently practiced the Gandhian philosophy.  If they take polite exception to my armed self-defense position, they won't change my mind -- but certainly no hard feelings on my part.

I do have a serious beef with liberals and radicals who, on the one hand can talk glibly and supportively about violence in the abstract and in some overseas situations, and then, on the other, condemn firearms, gun rights, and gun owners in this country.  And I have a serious beef with those liberals and radicals who simply can't and won't listen.   It's safe to say that virtually all of those foregoing people know little or nothing about firearms -- and have never been in a personally precarious and dangerous position.  Many seem to be caught up in the brittle extremes of  anti-gun "political correctness."

I am quite sure that any bona fide grassroots organizer -- and certainly those in Labor -- working in the tough and dangerous "borderlands" situations, or even in many instances in the presumably safer regions -- would know what you and I are getting at in the realm of armed self-defense and would certainly agree.

And I know we both agree, along with a vast number of others, that it's consistently great to see U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota doing her good things in DC.  Strong support from the NRA and gun owners in general, along with many Natives, Labor and small agrarian interests, got her in there.  She's secure.

Hang with it, amigo.

Hunter or John.

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice website with much
material on grassroots organizing techniques:
www.hunterbear.org  The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
.
See the new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," 
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introduction by me. This book is a full, very detailed 
discussion of the rise and development of the Jackson  
Movement of 1962-63.  And this book is also an organizer's
how-to manual:  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm   

And see the related http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm 
and also "Fifty Years: Remembering Medgar Evers" :          
 http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/3876

See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Many photos.)