Spoiler Alert: Political Rant by a pissed-off Kiwi below. The opinions expressed in this journal are mine alone, and are bloody good ones.

If there's been one constant of living in a world where (for "Western" society at least) the United States is the dominant cultural influence, it's that any time you bring up the absolutely horrific US record for gun violence and the absence of the sorts pf gun control as is standard in the rest of the world - particularly as in the UK, Australia and New Zealand after the Dunblane, Port Arthur, and Christchurch massacres - certain Americans are VERY quick to lecture the rest of us how their "Second Amendment" naturally grants them the right to own sufficient heavy weapons to outfit an ISIS brigade, and that any country that implements gun ownership qualifications beyond "upright and breathing" was a dictatorship. And this justification is usually quickly followed by how an armed populace is a deterrent against authoritarianism because "a government should be scared of its people", all these guns are really needed to defend against a government run amok, that those who doesn't subscribe to this line of thought are "sheeple", and so forth. You get the idea.

Now since the beginning of 2025 after the end of the Biden presidency the Trump regime has been systematically dismantling all semblance of the "rule of law" and implementing measures by which US legal immigrants, residents and citizens who offend Dear Leader (either by their utterances or their skin colour) are whisked off the streets in ICE raids reminiscient of the Gestapo and sent to foreign jails. Foreigners who make the tiniest mistake on their border entry paperwork, criticise Dear Leader or post in public that Palestinians are human beings deserving of not being genocided are being clapped in irons and stuck in jail conditions not far off those in Guantanamo Bay before eventually being stuffed on the next plane out. And now the Trump regime is bragging about building their "Alligator Alcatraz Auschwitz" to house the multitudes of people that they intend to summarily evict from the country - including actual US citizens if Trump gets his way.

In other words, the thing the Second Amendment-quoting gun advocates in the USA explicitly said they need guns for - and their gun ownership was supposed to be a deterrent against - is actually happening. And yet... silence. It seems that these Americans like to talk a big game about owning weapons to overthrow tyrants - but when they finally have a tyrant to overthrow, all their patriotic posturing immediately goes out the window and they behave exactly the same as their non-armed compatriots. Presumably, this is because LARPing "American revolutionary patriot" is a lot easier than when you're having to do the real thing. Either that, or they like the idea of a tyrant... when it's their tyrant (see: January 6 insurrectionists).

And as far as an armed populate being a "deterrent" against government tyranny - well, ask the people that have been summarily swept off the streets by ICE how that's working out. Oh wait. You can't.

So I say to all those "brave" Second Amendment fetishists: "Where the bloody hell are you?"

It seems that those who talked a big game about using their weapon collection for "standing up for liberty against a tyrannical government" (as opposed to those who simply enjoyed target shooting and hunting and made no pretences otherwise) were basically using this as a pseudo-patriotic shield against the simple fact that "they like guns" and didn't give a damn about the safety of their fellow citizens as long as they could own and operate a fuck-ton of murder toys without restriction and play at being soldiers or revolutionaries.

PS: Posting this on FA will probably mean I'll now be insta-deported the moment I try and set foot in the US under the Trump regime. But frankly, it's not like I plan to travel to the US any time soon anyway, so I don't care. And don't get me started about the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.

He aha te mea nui o te ao?
What is the most important thing in the world?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
It is the people, it is the people, it is the people.
- Maori proverb

Posted using PostyBirb