gun flag protest trump
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Nobody wants to hear the Hitler analogies, but the Brown Shirt paramilitary operation was not entirely dissimilar to this growing band of GOP weirdos. Like other authoritarian revolutionary movements, the Nazi party recruited disaffected citizens, armed them, and then fed a constant diet of hateful conspiracy. Old grievances, arrest records, and other failures were erased by the legitimacy conferred by a gun and a flag. Street violence by the paramilitaries was encouraged. All in the name of instilling fear as part of the pursuit of power.

We aren’t there yet. The embrace of Rittenhouse’s vigilantism and Massie’s Christmas card hasn’t yet brought us to an American Kristallnacht. But these are steps in that direction.

And they also defy the long-held norms of responsible gun ownership.

The first step back is going to require responsible citizens—especially gun owners—to wake up to the transformation of gun culture. They need to understand that the modern embrace of extreme gun radicalization isn’t about freedom, but about fear and intimidation.

But this version of gun culture is neither normal nor patriotic.

It’s irresponsible and it’s wrong. It’s time for gun owners to stand up and say so. Freedom doesn’t just depend on the Second Amendment. It depends on having the courage to oppose those who would rule by fear.

— Ryan Busse in This Ain’t About Freedom

75 COMMENTS

  1. Guns in the hands of responsible citizens should only cause fear in criminals, psychopaths and tyrants.

    • As a government employee I fully support having to fear my choices being held to account by those it would impact and wish it would be more widely practiced. It would probably cut the number of my colleagues remaining employed by a substantial number but I think we could keep up the workload.

      • If there’s anyone who knows all there is to know about licking boots, it’s a coward like ‘johna’ who posts under a fake name.

        Right, ‘jhona’?

        Brave, brave, ‘johna’… 😉

      • Johna Give it a rest. Trump accomplished more in his four years than Obuma the Phony did in 8.

  2. Like other authoritarian revolutionary movements, the Nazi party recruited disaffected citizens, armed them, and then fed a constant diet of hateful conspiracy.

    Street violence by the paramilitaries was encouraged.”

    Wait a minute: are we talking about ANTIFA and BLM, or are we talking about firearm owners in general? Seems to me that characterization fits ANTIFA and BLM perfectly and totally fails to characterize firearm owners in general.

    • Antifa and BLM are the Brown shirts of the left.

      Gun owners on the right just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace and raise their families.

      At this point, almost everyone on the political left are essentially Fascists/Nazis/Communists. They want to enslave everyone else, and we don’t want that.

      Everything they accuse us of doing is basically a projection of their own evil hearts.

      • In Germany the left were communists and they were as bad as the SA and the SS. I want moderate politics and to be left alone with my firearms. I live in Seattle and I despise the left and their tactics. I want the mayor, the city council, and the city attorney to do their damned jobs and run the law-breakers into prison where they belong. I am tired of the BS both of the far-left and the far-right

    • Nah, that was “approved violence.” That’s why no one was arrested. But the Proud Boys and their ilk that violently invaded the Capitol and stood up to Antifa thugs in Portland, Seattle, Charlottesville, etc. they are to be feared. We don’t care that they did not shoot anyone, we only care that they were not one of our team. Dress them in black and send them out again and everything will be all right again with the world.
      Congressman Swallowswell.

    • MOST IMPORTANTLY …. if you want to know what skullduggery the Left is up to then just look at what the Left is falsely accusing the Right of doing.

    • Wait, now, let’s get to the important part! What is this about someone ARMING me? When and where, and should I bring my truck? Or is he lying to us?

      • Damn right.

        Who’s arming us, and why haven’t I been issued anything? Is it because I live in a state that’s run by Good Democrats?

    • My very thought. That quote was the very definition of the liberal-recruited BLM and Antifa thugs, who partied for two years of lawlessness without any worries about arrest, let alone incarceration. Yet those damned “insurrectionists” of Jan. 6 – all of whom were unarmed (if misguided), set no fires and could at most be reasonably charged with breaking and entering, are being rounded up en masse.

      Not hard to see where Busse’s loyalties are.

  3. Nobody wants to hear the Hitler analogies, but the Brown Shirt paramilitary operation was not entirely dissimilar to this growing band of *socialist progressive marxist democrat communist weirdos.* Like other authoritarian revolutionary movements, the Nazi party recruited disaffected citizens, armed them, and then fed a constant diet of hateful conspiracy. Old grievances, arrest records, and other failures were erased by the legitimacy conferred by a gun and a flag. Street violence by the paramilitaries was encouraged. All in the name of instilling fear as part of the pursuit of power.

    There…I corrected the author’s statement. Isn’t it stranger how democrats get everything backasswards?

    • Hopefully everyone knows democrats accuse conservatives of doing exactly what democrats are doing. And, of course, the media plays that tune until the next lie comes along.

      • Really has become “projection the post” for most of mainstream media over the last decade or so. Not that it wasn’t for a long while before but now it’s barely even bothered with hiding it.

  4. And for the umpteen thousandth time another Progressive proffers their standard emotional/manipulative “argument”, claiming that firearm owners who do not share the Progressive idea of firearm ownership are:

    1) outside mainstream society
    2) crazy and/or corrupt

    The standard Progressive “argument” is always the same. They claim that “everyone” will shun you for your “wrongthink” and you will thus be alone in the world. And of course they claim that your “wrongthink” means that you are stupid, crazy, and/or corrupt.

    Thus, rather than win you over with facts, reasoning, and style, they attempt to shame and scare you into compliance.

    • Your last paragraph nails the situation perzactly.

      I will probably co-opt your line and forward it to friends….most concise description of reasoning v fear I’ve read.

      • Old Guy in Montana,

        Feel free to co-opt to your heart’s content–and then some!

        When sharing this standard Progressive operating procedure, it is vitally important that your listener understand something. The prospect of social rejection/isolation is terrifying to Progressives who assume that everyone shares that same fear (and magnitude of fear). Progressives then exploit that deep-seated fear in their attempts to manipulate (e.g. frighten) people into compliance.

        I believe that is significant as it speaks to how malevolent Progressives are. Basically, Progressives are no better than wife-beaters who psychologically manipulate their wives into submission to their abusive behavior.

        Wife:
        I am sick and tired of your physical abuse. I am thinking of leaving you.

        Wife-beater:
        If you leave, I will tell everyone that you molested our children and then split, which means everyone will hate you and no one will support you. And I will make sure to post this on social media so that potential employers will see what a terrible person you are and refuse to hire you.

        Wife:
        (Crying) I guess I have to stay with you.

        That is the level that Progressives are sinking to in order to gain compliance from “others”.

    • “And of course they claim that your “wrongthink” means that you are stupid, crazy, and/or corrupt.”

      The most important part of this in terms of attempting to manipulate gun owners themselves is to make you feel as though you are part of a distinct minority. This is an attempt to gain what is known as “anticipatory obedience”.

      Since you’re a minority you might as well just give into the the majority and you might as well do it before you pay a price for initial resistance. Timothy Snyder’s small book “On Tyranny” is an excellent introduction to this and 19 other topics. Fits in your pocket and it’s about $9.

      This article also follows the other three major goals of propaganda that I’ve laid out here before.

      1. Preach to the faithful.
      2. Confuse and instill fear in the uninitiated.
      3. Demonize and demoralize the heretics.

      And yes, it’s in religious terminology because you’re dealing with a cult.

      • “And yes, it’s in religious terminology because you’re dealing with a cult.”

        *And* a religion.

        “Thou shalt bow to the ‘Science’ of ‘climate change’, and anything else we say is holy.

        Heretics shall be excommunicated and shunned from whom we say is the ‘Elect’, and think proper thoughts…”

  5. When they decide the populace Is now dumb enough, they will ALWAYS accuse the other side of the agenda they’re pursuing!! One of the tragedies of not teaching history any more.

  6. As opposed to the Red Army Faction wannabe’s and the legally protected looters who drive normal people into the hands of your straw sturmtroopen, Mr. Busse?

  7. “It’s time for gun owners to stand up and say so. Freedom doesn’t just depend on the Second Amendment. It depends on having the courage to oppose those who would rule by fear.”

    That is exactly what we are doing.

  8. If either side was half as bad as the opposing side made them out to be this country would be one city of billionaires, brown skinned servants and mass graves scattered among smoldering ruins.

    Unfortunately the longer this trend continues the above outcome becomes more likely.

    Are you “diverse” enough to serve Bezos, Gates or Zuck? Are you wealthy enough to be their peer? Then I’ll see you in the pit next to all these useful idiots and media darlings.

    • Shire-man – did you see no smoldering ruins in 2020 or in 2021? I could swear that I saw video of smoldering ruins in a couple dozen US cities, all of which were mostly peacefully smoldered by the left.

  9. I skim the article, and I see the past two years of Marxist rioters being bailed out of jail, and funded to continue their rioting. It isn’t the ‘Brown Shirts’ this time around. It’s ‘Black Shirts’ who answer to the name ‘Antifa’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’.

    Once again, the leftists are using this strategy and these tactics against the USA, while at the same time, accusing the right of doing the same thing.

    • …. Here he comes now, right on schedule. Oh good, I see he’s carrying a container of TidePods – – – hopefully they have had time to kick in

  10. Excellent article and I could not agree more. The good news is that the majority of gun owners are no where near like the Far Right Nazi’s storm troopers like the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers or the majority of Far Right nut cases that hang out on this forum.

    Most gun owners realized that there is a serious gun problem in the U.S. and something must be done about the daily mass murders and the ability of criminals and extremist racist groups to buy all the heavy firepower they want on the used gun market. No civilized nation permits the trade in un-vetted second hand gun sales, none.

    The majority of American Gun Owners also realize that our Country is in deep trouble and peril when we let a Demagogue Ex-President Herr Drumpf try to take over the Government by force using Nazi Extremist Racist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. It was a repeat of Adolf’s 1923 beer hall putsch and just as Adolf did not give up neither will Herr Drumpf until he establishes a one party system and a life appointed Dictatorship. Prison for Herr Drumpf is the only way to stop him and he should pay for his crimes.

    Most Gun owners are also responsible people who do keep their guns locked up and out of the reach of children but too many nut case paranoids who are also totally irresponsible do not resulting in an averaged of 1,300 children losing their lives every year. The only solution is tough no nonsense safe storage gun laws on the Federal Level that come down hard on these irresponsible people and stop the carnage.

    Only the mentally ill Far Right fear Universal Background Checks because the Brady Bill which vets only new gun purchases or dealer owned second hand guns has never taken anyone’s guns from them and would not if it covered all gun purchases.

    And the Far Rights lies about the Brady Bill becoming registration only shows that they do not realize the Government could easily take guns without any registration law and it has happened in other countries simply by making a law so draconian that the average citizen would not be foolish enough not to obey such a law. History has already proven it in many countries. Once a certain style gun becomes outlawed it actually becomes quite useless to the owner as he could never use it in self defense or use it at a range or sell it or trade it without a great risk of being caught and jailed. Sane people realize this reality, only the Far Right paranoid lunatics do not.

    The Far Rights fantasies of another revolution in an age of total government electronic surveillance is also another one of their complete lunatic fantasies. Successful revolutions in modern times take billions in aid from a sympathetic foreign country and there is no way in hell Canada would support a hostile Nazi State on its border by supporting a Far Right Storm Trooper hostile violent takeover of the U.S. Government. You would see Canadian troops here as well as U.S. Troops crushing the Herr Drumpf Nazi Storm Troopers of the Far Right.

    I might add that after Herr Drumpfs beer hall putsch the jack booted fanatics were turned in to the government by their own relatives and families showing that a new Far Right Storm Trooper dictatorship would go over about as well as a balloon made of concrete. This is not to say we should remain complacent because Herr Drumpf if not caged up and soon will attempt to enlist the help of a renegade storm trooper General like Michael Flynn which could result in civil war with other Generals that would uphold the Constitution of the U.S.

    • So we’re not moving to Canada dacian? Or are we. I’ve got half my stuff packed up already and by the time you get here I should be ready to go.

      • 😀 I don’t think either of you are going anywhere.

        If the USA knows what’s good, it won’t let you leave. And as much as we wish they would, no country with anything resembling a functional society is ever going to let that poltroon move in and take up residence.

    • dacian, Back at it again, huh? Spreading manure. The Proud Boys and the “Oathkeepers” are being dealt with. Most gun owners are law abiding, God fearing citizens who enjoy the Right to Bear Arms guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment which you so loath. The real Storm Troopers are your BLM and ANTIFA thugs.

      The serious problem is NOT guns, but criminal violence. As it has been pointed out to you repeatedly, a gun is an inanimate object which is incapable to committing an act of “violence”. All of my firearms are locked up except the one I use for self defense. That’s right. SELF DEFENSE, That thing you call “vigilantism. I remind you that when seconds count police are minutes away.

      The first step to gun confiscation is in fact registration. Why do you need to know what guns I have in my possession? Is your Lefty voyeurism? Is it your Lefty desire to control what people own, think, etc.?

      You have no exposed your real goal. You want to out law “certain guns” like AR’s which are nothing more than a semiautomatic rifle. You Lefties like to call them assault rifles, military rifles, etc. All of which they are NOT. If you can ban one “type of firearm”, what stops you from banning all firearms?

    • People do not like background checks because this puts you on a list. IF the list is used as it is supposed to, it will point out firearms owners in a roundabout way, but in this day of data mining, most do not believe these laws are followed in every jurisdiction.
      Most are not scared of a background check(except maybe those that have been falsely accused and “convicted” for domestic abuse). If there has been no misuse of firearms(meaning the people in control of said firearms are responsible users), they should be legal to have one for defensive, sporting, or hunting uses, just like anyone else. In some states, if you raise your voice, they can take your guns from you.

      • California maintains a database of every person who purchased a firearm, and every firearm purchased. If a firearm is lost, stolen or sold, the original record is not purged. For some reason that I cannot comprehend, the State DOJ claims that this is NOT gun registration. (They use another euphemism.)

      • I wouldn’t mind a back ground check if they threw it away after they found out I wasn’t a prohibited person. Nope , its kept forever. Why’s that?

        • Becuz the guvmint never lets go of any any information the guvmint gets a-hold of. Information is power.
          Every NRA, Gun Owners of America, Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Committee for the RKBA, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership of America, etc., member is known to the government. How? Our names and mailing addresses are on every mailing label.

    • Oh, so dacian the stupid now purports to speak on behalf of a majority of gun owners. Child, your delusions are getting worse. Get help. And get an education. And get your neds checked.

      • Lamp that went out in his head you have got to be one of the dumbest Dotards on the forum. Your idiotic statements show you spend no time on accredited news sites.

        More than one national survey proved many Republican Congressmen support Universal Background Checks and Safe Storage Laws and Mitch McConnell stated after the horrific mass murder in Texas followed hours later in Dayton, Ohio that the Republicans under Trump were only awaiting his approval to introduce and pass those laws. Trump said no so they were withdrawn. Where were you Dotard when all this was going on. Probably masturbating while watching Fox News.

        • Don’t watch Faux News, dacian the stupid. And the stupidity of your statement proves you the fool. IF the Dimocrat Socialists had the support of “many Republican congressmen” for their idiotic “universal background check” nonsense (they don’t) they would have passed it by now . . . and they haven’t. And the existing “universal background check” jurisdictions (CA, for example) are a living example that that sorry-@$$ scheme is doomed to failure. IT CANNOT BE ENFORCED. Even IF we allowed an “national gun registry” (we won’t), the ONLY way to enforce that nonsense would literally be house-to-house searches and confiscations. Since you’re so hyped on the idea, why don’t you lead a search and sieze team??? I’d pay money to watch THAT s***. For the VERY short time it lasted.

          Why are you Leftist/socialist/authoritarian/fascists all the same?? Scratch a Leftist; find a fascist. Try it, dungbeetle. It would be entertaining as hell . . . for about a day or two.

          Your parents must be very proud. As I asked before, did they have any children that lived??

        • Yeah, all your SUPER-RELIABLE polls probably explain why your senile, serial-child-groping idiot of a “president” has gotten exactly jack diddly squat accomplished, his administration is a world joke, and your vaunted “progressive” Dimocrats have accomplished squat with their supposed majority.

          Oh, and you guys are “in control”. How’s that workin’ out for you, dacian the stupid???? I REALLY want to hear your wails and lamentations come November this year. I’m going to be enjoying a plethora of sweet Leftist/fascist tears. Sucks to be you, dacian the stupid, sucks to be you.

        • dacian, Name any Republican who is NOT a RINO who supports your drumbarse “universal background checks” which are far from “universal”.
          Someone dropped you on your head recently? Or what that at birth?

          O this woodcock, what an ass it is! (The Taming of the Shrew) Seems very apropo for you, dacian.

    • Not a “full of shit democrat”. A full of shit Leftist Socialist, who wants to control the population.

  11. Well other freedom hating opinion piece.
    Gun control is racist. It has always been racist. And it still is racist. This Ryan Busse character is a perfect example of a racist white leftist. All of his examples are of honest law-abiding white people with guns. Like all leftists this guy is terrified of white Christian males. Which does make up the majority population in the United States.

    He avoids any mentioning of Maj Toure and Black Guns Matter. And he doesn’t even talk about the NFAC either. Because this guy will tell blacks to call the police and sit and wait for help to come. While he calls the police racist???

    This white leftist is terrified of white Christians with guns. Because he knows they’re willing to shoot back if necessary. And a tyrant like him is always afraid of any civilian with a gun.

  12. Ryan Busse – poster child for metrosexuals hauled around by the short hairs by his idiotic prog woman.

  13. this author, Ryan, apparently doesn’t realize that out of all the legal gun owners in the U.S. the combination of the extreme radicalization and Nazi dacians of which he writes is actually about 1.1% of the total gun ‘culture’ ownership base and a lot less than any other demographic radicalization like for example BLM and democrats.

    I’ll bet is the author Ryan were faced with being attacked like Rittenhouse was and had a fire arm he too would have pulled the trigger. Its called self-defense moron and a jury of responsible citizens said so.

  14. In case you missed it, the author (Ryan Busses) is the guy who left his job at Kimber to publish his “insider memoir” about his time in the gun industry.

  15. It’s long been a given liberals and Democrats will claim umbrage for what they themselves are doing. Contrary to Busses contention this really is about freedom which has come under an increasing attack from the Left and those who use them as shock troops to frighten politicians into getting their way.

  16. Oh for God’s sake!

    This article appeared in the pseudo “conservative” Bill Kristol rag “The Bulwark.” It was written by Ryan Busse who is “a former award-winning executive in the firearms industry who is now a senior policy advisor for Giffords. He is the author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America.”

    It’s nothing more than Gifford’s anti gun agitprop.

  17. Just remember the author of this screed ….
    1) Believes men can get pregnant.
    2) Believes a woman can have a swinging urethra.
    3) Thinks pedophiles are just misunderstood.

  18. Kristallnacht!? What the hell does this scribe think has been going on in nearly every blue city in the United States for the last 24 months?

    • Lead and acted upon by their blue constituents, make no mistake.

      This pile of manure trying to be passed off as an article is nothing more than thinly veneered prog disinformation and propaganda trying to disguise itself as ‘talking sense’.

  19. We experienced an American Kristallnacht in several cities during 2021. A prime example was the riot in Kenosha against which Kyle Rittenhouse tried to aid and protect innocent victims. CHOP in Seattle, the riots in Portland, Oregon, and the one in Ferguson, Missouri, a few years ago, are other examples. In every case, these were left wing, not right wing riots, and they were supported by the cities’ political leaders.

  20. A kid defending himself at a riot and a Christmas card are steps towards Nazism.
    These people are beyond neurotic and hysterical

  21. Ryan Busse is a former award-winning executive in the firearms industry who is now a senior policy advisor for Giffords. He is the author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America. Twitter: @ryandbusse.

  22. Unless someone is a immedeate threat to me and mine, there is nothing to fear from any firearm I own. Anyone I speak too out here in flyover country, or on the web who is anything right of center has no particular desire to overthrouw the governmet. Although many of us do question the irregularities and discrepencies of the 2020 election. As well as the current narrative over the Jan. 6 demonstration/riot.
    Much of what I do see is projection of the leftists who don’t trust themselves or their possible reactions to minor issues.
    Much has been made of the back ground checks. Never had a personal problem with it, but why should I as a law abiding citizen have to submit to such when Bobby Joe meth head or Billy the burglar, or Tyrone the crack dealer don’t bother with such? How many of the young thugs running around the inner city high crime neighborhoods bother to get a BG check when that buy that how pistol or stolen rifle? Safe storage requirements? Plan on going door to door to check out how everyone stores their firearms?
    How about putting those who commit violent crimes in prison? With no plea deals or parole. And if someone committs beyond a reasonable doubt, first degree, intentional murder, you are lose your life. Period. Yes, double check with an independent Judge from another district, and make sure you have the right person. After that, you’re done.

  23. This isn’t Sparta, and that is madness.

    If the vast and widely-diverse conglomeration of gun owners was nearly as bad as the Leftist bleaters make them out to be, very few, if any, Leftists would still be free and/or alive. With our numbers, and without the help of direct, organized military intervention on their behalf, every Liberal could have been herded into a ‘Happy Camp’ or dispatched humanely long ago. Instead, despite our innate awfulness and WhiteSupremacistWhiteTrashWhiteCastleRacistKlanNeoNaziNeanderthal outlook on life, they still survive, and sometimes thrive.
    If it had been even vaguely intended and promoted, the Great Insurrection Of January 6th would have had very little difficulty in destroying the Capitol, and wiping out every bureaucrat with a ‘D’ tattooed on the back of their necks (they all have one, a ‘mark of the beast’; It’s usually covered by their collars). But, instead, some middle-aged retired slightly-obese Floridians led by a painted guy wearing a horned headdress merely wandered about taking selfies and asking the Capitol Police where the restrooms were, and then went home.
    The only person shot and killed was an unarmed female military veteran, murdered by a half-wit affirmative-action-hire Capitol Cop.
    Some insurrection, that.

    The Left is very, very fortunate that most of those Evil Gun Owners are nothing at all like them, and are not eager to have everyone conform at the point of a government gun. However, knowing themselves all too well, they ascribe to everyone else their own seriously perverted world view, when the only thing they really have to fear is themselves.

  24. You will note the brave folks at The Bulwark don’t have the guts to allow comments on their articles.

  25. If Ryan Busse has done nothing wrong then he has nothing to fear from America’s legal gun owning citizens. It’s that simple.

  26. Becuz the guvmint never lets go of any any information the guvmint gets a-hold of. Information is power.
    Every NRA, Gun Owners of America, Second Amendment Foundation, Citizens Committee for the RKBA, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership of America, etc., member is known to the government. How? Our names and mailing addresses are on every mailing label.

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