by John Gault
This may break some hearts but as preppers we are obligated to look honestly at future challenges and attempt as best we can to prepare for them. Per the rules of this site I will keep politics to a minimum. I hate rules but like everyone else I try to follow them. This may end up long but your a curious bunch so hopefully you’ll stick it out till the end. Let’s get started….
Fast forward to the year 2019. The balance of power has shifted in Washington as well as the Supreme Court in a dramatic and for many, disastrous direction. Gun control has become the number one issue in Washington. Likely because the previous administration’s 8 year run had been so successful at solving all this countries other problems…chuckle… Per the Presidents directive congress drafts, votes on and passes a new and sweeping gun control bill. Here we could dicker over the specifics and legalities, but toward what end? We know with certainty that the next atrocity “which never happens anywhere but here” would usher in even stricter controls, so for this exercise let’s just go full monty.
“I stand in support of this common-sense legislation to license everyone who wishes to purchase a gun,” she says. “I also believe that every new handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry, such as Chuck is proposing.”
Hillary Clinton
They pass a complete ban on semi-auto rifles, shotguns and pistols. Anything that self loads another round all by its own-self becomes illegal within 8 months. In a calculated ploy to take advantage of the now perpetually under performing economy a generous buyback program is initiated with an incentive paying 2 to 3 times market value, its only money and they have the keys to the vault. To sweeten the incentive they include an up to 10 year prison sentence for anyone in possession of a self loader once the buyback period ends. Possession of a non-permitted machine gun or silencer currently carries an up to 10 year prison sentence. See how well it works….
Home break-ins and gun thefts immediately spike.
A third of the country revolts, but break no laws. There are huge rallies, protests and marches, the government ignores them. Talk of revolution fills social media. “The time has finally arrived, tyranny is at our doorstep”. “Don’t Tread On Me”, “Cold Dead Hands” and all that. “Molon Labe” becomes the clarion call. A thousand + one lawsuits are filed. But they will take forever or near enough to adjudicate and everyone knows what the outcomes will be once SCOTUS has its say. The government is under no obligation to wait for any ‘predetermined’ rulings and besides they tell us…”it’s for the children.”
During the months preceding the vote every brick & mortar and online gun store is stripped of its inventory, every avenue of purchase is exhausted. After the vote gun and accessory suppliers act as if semi-autos never existed. Soon rumors spread of backroom deals between the government and the main players in gun manufacturing. Whispers of lucrative guaranteed contracts, subsidies and zero interest bailouts that need never be paid back are all but admitted to. The smaller manufacturers will either convert to manufacturing legal items such as car parts, or will shutter their doors. Their skilled craftsman forced to trade in their calipers, micrometers and bore scopes for part time service jobs at 7/11, a local Jiffy Lube or if lucky, a full time position at Walmart. New job training is promised, it always is. But like the displaced coal miners in West Virginia and displaced manufacturing workers across the country who were trained for jobs that didn’t exist, the skilled craftsmen are forced to join the hundreds of thousands of others who’s talents grow stale in a country that doesn’t make anything.
“Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.”
Vice President Joe Biden
As each month folds into the next government commercials run endlessly touting the benefits of the buyback program and its “stimulus” effects, and the promise of a new, safer America that’s sure to follow. They compete with looped NRA fundraising commercials warning of lost liberty and of encroaching tyranny, but everyone knows the fight has already been lost. Meanwhile the buyback deadline looms. Few guns have been turned in but the effects of the ban are obvious. Webmasters across the interweb proactively begin to scrub any and all content related to the now offensive semi-auto. Once reliable links return only ERROR messages. Trading and enthusiast sites are disappeared. Videos and pictures, now seemingly more objectionable than child porn are deleted. Repeat offenders are banished. Printed publications suffer the same. No more reviews, no more tests, no more comparisons. No more drooling over glossy centerfolds of the latest and greatest in semi-auto weaponry. In their stead are the industries latest in revolvers, bolt actions and new lines of ‘tactical’ lever actions along with ‘refreshed’ tactical pump guns sans the pistol grips and flash hiders which are now illegal. Everything anyone might need to fight off the next round of tyranny….sigh….
As the buyback period nears its end so to do the rallies, protests and tough talk on the internet. There’s been no bloody confrontations and the protesters are bored and tired of being ignored. Few guns have been turned in and this has created an imaging problem so a week before the deadline the buyback period is extended 2 months. Another $200 per weapon enticement is added. A small price to pay for crime free streets. No matter, the new deadline passes, hardly any guns have been turned in. The totalitarians in Washington declare victory. Two days later a Syrian refugee walks into a Catholic church during mass in New Jersey with an AK smuggled across the Mexican/Arizona border. He kills 33 before killing himself…….
“We have federal regulations and state laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than three rounds. And yet it’s legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines.”
Senator Dianne Feinstein
And what of all the guns not turned in? Some are hidden or buried, most are simply stashed away and out of view. There are no mass confiscations, no door to door searches. The government doesn’t want a bloodbath anymore than the gun owners do. Besides it wouldn’t play well on the nightly news. Occasionally there’ll be a news story about some poor sap who’s house was searched because of some unrelated issue and will be found to have a couple of the banned semi-autos and a stockpile of 300 rounds. The media will make vague references to militia groups, separatists and the Tea Party, and the countless lives that may have been saved…..
I believe we are much closer to this or something like it than many realize…..
