By Dereck Hornilla
I used to live in Charleston, South Carolina for the better part of a decade, and I was just as saddened as others when I saw the news of the Charleston Shooting. However, that sadness quickly turned to anger when politicians and others on social media began using this tragedy to push their gun-control agenda even before the dead had been buried. In that state of anger, I wrote the following short poem . . .
I Will Not Comply
If laws will limit arms, I’ll get more quickly and immediate.
If names are to be listed, then count me with the disobedient.
If arms are to be registered, then you’ll find mine can’t be found.
If they are to be seized, you’ll hear my bullets’ deaf’ning sound.
If searches happen door-to-door, you’ll find mine will be defended.
And if our rights are to be taken, you’ll find mine won’t be surrendered.
The line’s been drawn here in the sand, there upon, it shall be written,
That “I will not comply, don’t tread on me, you shall be bitten!”
If names are to be listed, then count me with the disobedient.
If arms are to be registered, then you’ll find mine can’t be found.
If they are to be seized, you’ll hear my bullets’ deaf’ning sound.
If searches happen door-to-door, you’ll find mine will be defended.
And if our rights are to be taken, you’ll find mine won’t be surrendered.
The line’s been drawn here in the sand, there upon, it shall be written,
That “I will not comply, don’t tread on me, you shall be bitten!”
Damned straight.
While I agree with the author’s (Dan Zimmerman) mindset, he WILL comply or he will die in a hail of bullets, gassed out of his home, or torched by a tank spewing napalm (Waco, Branch Davidians). He better find another place for his wife and kids to go when the black helicopters begin circling his home. Time will be short.
American gun owners have the firepower and tactics (ex-military) to counter an oppressive government, but can they organize, stand united, and be willing to suffer great personal loss? It would take organization and planning ahead of time and the government would root out such groups as they learned of their existence.
I think the oath keepers at the Bundy Ranch did a great job of organizing armed resistance to the federal government. Not one shot was fired. As in other criminal assaults the display of righteous weaponry forced a criminal act even by the federal government to end peacefully.
There are many left and right wingers who just hate the success the oath keepers had.
I think Bundy Ranch definitely caused them to ramp up the propaganda about the threat of Domestic Extremists. I find this incredibly ironic since red-blooded patriots / conservatives / Christian conservatives / Libertarians, etc are the least likely people in this nation to ever harm innocent citizens.
They may find some mentally ill oddball lurking around the fringes, like that freak in SC, but almost all of the lunatics who have gone on shooting sprees, where they tried to pin it on the Patriot movement, actually ended up being Democrats. Rioting looting mobs? Democrats. Racial attacks as revenge for perceived institutional racism? Democrats
@Panzer. Widespread door to door arms seizures will be a polarizing event for the Military and Law Enforcement. It won’t be just people in uniforms vs civilians….it will be an event that splits this Republic in two.
Dan Zimmerman didn’t write it. He just posted it for TTAG.
Dereck Hornilla wrote it, as it notes under the picture. And this is a contest entry.
This government couldn’t even detect the “J.V. team” ISIS until long after they’d turned pro and had racked up a long string of wins. They still haven’t rooted them out….or Al Qaeda….or the Taliban.
Hell, even when the father of a would-be attacker (the underwear bomber) contacts our government, they can’t root them out. Even when they’re already monitoring them, as with the Boston Marathon bombers, they can’t root them out.
People who go around predicting massive pogroms and indiscriminate carpet bombing of U.S. civilians by our own government need to realize that we don’t even do that to vicious terrorist enemies overseas. They’re certainly not going to do it here.
If a critical mass of real people (not welfare case rabble) were reached, who took to the streets nationwide armed and ready and joined by their local officials and LEOs, most federal elected officials would resign and perhaps flee the country. The miitary wouldn’t follow their orders and federal LEOs would be hugely outnumbered. There won’t be a Civil War II.
Call me a pessimist, but I believe the reason the US government did not root out the “J.V. team” ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Underwear Bomber, or the Boston Marathon bombers is because they did not want to, or refused to believe they were a “problem.” This snide comment is not pointed at the worker bee cops and soldiers, but at their leadership in the top levels of government. However, I do think their leadership would double down on rooting out so called “patriots” because they know patriots could potentially pose a greater danger to their long term tenure in congress and the administration than all the others combined.
And I am not so sure the military and police will not follow orders if doing otherwise would result in their being fired (or worse) for insubordination. Like us, they also have mortgages, families to support, big pick-ups to pay for, etc. Some will defect to the dark side, but most probably won’t. I’d sure like to think otherwise, however.
Last time I checked, there were just a little over 2 million active and reserve service men and women in ALL branches of the military, and there are just a little over 1 million police officers across the country. I’ll be generous and say that there are 4 million people who work for the “enforcement” arm of the state. That’s it. Assuming that none would defect, they would be faced with 100 million gun owners. What is that story about the 3% again?
“he WILL comply or he will die in a hail of bullets”
I think that’s the point….for many of us. Th founders faced the very real and all but certain hanging for treason. Can we risk any less and still lay claim to that legacy?
I like it, and feel the same way.
Good job! Molon Labe..
I like it. I hope it does not end up as one’s epitaph.
Better an epitaph than the chains of servitude, mister. Just saying.
Tom
Actually, it would be a pretty good epitaph…
“We’re gonna need a bigger tombstone…”
Yep. Way more interesting than “Loving Father Nagged to Death,” and classier than “Here Lies Mr. Didn’t Get Off the X.”
Good poem. I dont mind when the propose list of weapons to ban. I just use it as a personal shopping list. The must be real dangerous if the make a gun ban list so needs then. My friends call me danger dan because of all the scary guns and ammo
I think the rallying cry: “I will not comply!” is our best means of getting through to the political class.
Our country and our 50 States work – as civilized societies – because the vast majority of us consent to obey the laws passed in Congress and our Legislatures. For the most part.
Nevertheless, there have always been laws with which large segments of the population have not complied. The ante-bellum era was infamous for abolitionists defying Federal law requiring fugitives slaves to be returned to their masters. Alcohol prohibition was substantially ignored. The “double-nickels” speed-limit laws were flouted. In our time the pot laws are flouted.
The political classes can’t cope well with widespread flouting of laws. Once the people become accustomed to the fact that one law is flouted respect for all law is undermined. If speed-limit laws are ignored why should anyone obey the drug laws? If respectable members of the community flout the speed-limit laws why should anyone consider the drug laws binding?
Today, we are seeing the full-flowering of State Nullification of Federal pot laws. Regardless of what any of us might think about recreational pot, the fact is that Federal pot laws are going to pot. The Federal government is rapidly losing control of this issue.
If gun-owners follow suite, what will happen to Federal authority? To State authority? Think of the youth in States such as Washington or Colorado. The population in these States have voted – via their legislatures – to defy Federal law against pot. PotG in these States are – by their actions – defying State laws restricting guns. These OFWGs are standing up for their gun-rights declaring “We will not comply!” Just like the younger residents of these States stood up and declared – with respect to pot: “We will not comply!”
How far will Congress and State legislatures let this “We will not comply!” movement run? What if businessmen stop complying with the regulatory regimes imposed upon them? What if taxpayers stop complying with the tax laws? What if citizens are emboldened to express contempt for the police and other authorities?
There are 5 million NRA members; perhaps 50 million gun owners. Imagine the streets populated with 5 – 50 million cars bearing bumper-stickers reading: “I will not comply!” What would be the consequences?
A full majority of Congress and most State legislatures know – whether they will so admit publicly or not – that they cannot enforce gun-control laws on a resistant gun-owning population. All these laws being proposed and passed in some legislatures is showmanship. Are these legislators willing to pander to their colleagues’ need for showmanship in the face of a widespread rising-up of defiance to any law? One law – pot – being defied is bad enough. What if the nation rises-up and defies 2 laws: pot; and guns? Will these two soon be followed by a 3’rd? Then a 4th?
Maybe wiser heads will prevail. In the face of far too much opposition, maybe these legislators will find it in their best interest to carry on with what they really regard as important agenda items: spending; taxation; borrowing the rest.
In 1948 60 yr old Berlin City council woman Jeanette Wolff, who was blockaded in Berlin and facing starvation, who had the previous week been badly beaten in the street by communist thugs, and who now found herself threatened during a council meeting by the leaders of those thugs rose said “I was not afraid of the Gestapo which destroyed my family. I kept on working, and gentlemen, I am not afraid of the ‘consequences’ with which you threaten. For I have only one life to lose, and this life belongs to freedom. And if it should cost my life on your account, gentlemen, and Berlin could remain free, I declare myself ready for death.”
Fortunately we have recourse against those who would subject us to tyranny. I will not comply (but I will grant that those are easy words for me to say living in Oklahoma with a full belly. Hopefully, when the need arises I will have even a fraction of the fortitude of that old woman).
German women were pretty good at standing up and speaking out for freedom in the ’40s:
https://youtu.be/nXtC08tWxqA
I’ve watched generation after generation draw the line in the sand…
Guv doesn’t even bother to look down. They’ve stepped over every line draw, when someone actually does something, all the big talkers back away and talk about what a nutter he was…
Big-talking cowards who do nothing but make high-sounding excuses for failing to have their brothers’ backs.
I’ve been calling for mass civil disobedience against the NFA for as long as I knew it existed. I’m just crazy, ask any of these “will not comply” weaklings… I’ve ha “I will not comply” on my name and websites for a damn long time. All it gets me is shunned by the very people who pretend to embrace it. Slap another half-dozen rattlesnake bumper stickers on your truck. That’ll fix everything…
I’ve been watching you fail to live up to your word for longer than I’ve even been alive… Draw all the lines in the sand you want… The guv knows what I know; you’re not gonna do one damn thing.
Maybe you haven’t noticed all the people ignoring the new gun laws (which carry felony penalties) in NY, CT, WA, and CO. If by “do a damn thing” you mean go shoot some place up then no, I’m not going to do a damn thing. But I will ignore their laws, which most of us do with varying degrees of frequency. Maybe you are a nutter, and that’s why people shun you.
I think what he is saying is to organize a “will not comply group” willing to peacefully stand tall with their full auto, silenced sbrs. What part of shall not be infringed is hard to understand?
Are you supplying the full auto SBRs? Because I can’t afford one.
Where do I sign up? Though it should be much like fight club so maybe we shouldn’t talk about it. Regardless, if we start we must not stop!
@Mike when WA and CO said “I will not comply to the Federal laws stopping me from smoking pot”, I don’t believe the non compliers were given free pot to start the movement.
Enough people broke the law the local government caved in and said, “We will not comply on enforcing this law”
If it makes it easier everyone could just buy short uppers, put them on a non registered lower and then march, protest, ect. With enough people the logic is “They can’t while arrest us all”. With media attention eyeing the event and no arrest happening it would then get the gears peacefully rolling in our direction
I like it but I’m sure the NSA red listed your ass lmao
If they try to take my wepons, then my front porch is where I will die. I will not comply. I have spent my entire life under the Constitution and will fight for it if need be, we all need to vote against the Liberals/socialist in our country. Be safe out there, and watch your six.
If they try to take my weapons, then my front porch is where I will die. I will not comply. I have spent my entire life under the Constitution and will fight for it if need be. We all need to vote against the liberals/socialist in our country. Be safe out there, and watch your six.
I won’t comply either. But I hope to do so in a way that doesn’t leave my cats wondering why they’re being fed by the nice old lady from downstairs.
Besides, Patton was right — nobody ever won a war by dying.
My grandfather apparently went to the grave calling Patton the single worst human being he ever met, but he agreed wholeheartedly with that comment. I’ve no personal interest in being a martyr myself.
Amen.
In the continuum of “soap box, ballot box, mail box, jury box, cartridge box” there is room for differing priorities of the first four. What should be agreed is that the cartridge box must be the last resort.
Absolutely spot on bullseye. Even New Yorkers outside of Manhatten, give a hearty middle finger at about a 95% rate of non compliance to simply say NO. I won’t register anything, I won’t stand in line to be photographed fingerprinted and documented as a “gun owner”.
Good! They won’t even enforce with the laws they passed.
Awesome.
Civil disobedience; sounds great. Problem is it only works with a large group. Now if somehow there were a way to get all the gun owners to collectively disobey every gun law in the nation. Now that would say something. That would take the printed Molon Labe off the page it would make it a reality. Until then your “civil disobedience” is just a pipe dream. When people quit completing ATF forms and just own what they want, quit begging for permits and submitting to mandatory training requirements; that will be the turning point. But we are all too scared to be the only one out there, afraid to let anyone know we are “fighting the power” because it would most likely cost us our job, home, family… that we as a group keep waiting for someone else to take the lead. We are the leaders! We can see based on the actions of the legislatures and the courts that a redress of our grievances has fallen on deaf ears. So while your poem sounds great on the surface, it speaks to the fact that you feel you stand alone in this and that is not how it should be.
Alas how it should be is not possible unless we actually do something, risk something, set aside our fear and stand for that which we claim to believe. Are we willing? Are we able? Trepidation, caution, hesitation, even our forefathers had these feelings before they wrote that Declaration. Would we be so bold? I for one have considered it, but as I look to who would help me, stand with me, I consider that I might stand alone. And in standing alone I fear it proves that perhaps we are neither willing nor able. So would you stand with me? Knowing that certain death awaits us should we fail? Would you stand against tyranny with your fellow patriots? Stand against the onslaught of oppression and usurpation? To not only fight for your freedoms but for the freedoms of those with whom you may disagree?
This is a great comment and I think many more feel that way then you’ll ever know we live is the last vestige of freedom on this planet. They are taking our freedoms more and more until the younger generations won’t even know what it is to be free.
Good points. Sometimes I feel like the frog in the pot of water being boiled.
I look around at the way my country has changed in the last couple of decades and I really find it unbelievable. The so called leaders of the country, both Repubs and Dems alike are a disgraceful lot for the most part. Not a Stateman among them.
I hope when the time comes and the shooting starts (I hope it never does) that I will be as brave as those forefathers who risked everything to create this country.
There is no place else to go if this country with all the freedoms we are supposed to have ceases to exist. Then we will just be another has-been country that was once great but is no longer.
Except for the hard leftists and the gun banners who love nothing more than a purge, I cannot see a deeply held desire by most Americans to harm other fellow Americans. Not even most anti gun elected officials. They dont want to go down in history as giving the orders to murder other citizens.
Agree! Wholeheartedly.
But here it’s way too late and no hope for any help, should one decide to resist.
Only sheep in the zoo!
Dying is easy it’s life that’s hard! Unlike the PCer saying You will comply or Die who is so afraid for his life he would sell out his own mother! another spineless mouth!
Having been in Combat, having been scared Sh**less, and still able to perform, I know how I would perform, so now this P***k is telling me what I will do { must be gifted knowing my thoughts and actions} actually saying what he would do {sell out} and applying it too me! the Greeks have a saying Molon Labe! after enough BS the peasant’s arise and it will not be pretty!
Short but really really to the point. I haven’t read enough into the contest prize but this one gets my vote all day long. I, like so many others here, am retired military. Our oath was not until our ETS or retirement date…it is for life.
Well done. I will not comply.
Comments are closed.