Disarmed Venezuelans ‘always hope(d) that our government would be non-tyrannical’

1. A pity there’s no way we can force all the anti gun pukes in this country to watch what happens when their ultimate goal is met, such as in Cubazuela right now. Naw, they probably still wouldn’t get it!

   • @Dennis, you are kidding right? They are watching with delight, because that’s their dream…an unarmed citizenry defenseless against a militarized police force. Their goal is not just gun confiscation, their goal is total domination. They don’t believe the same things we do, that all people have a God given right of self defense.

     • True enough, when they too become victims of their own stupidity, they’ll just blame Trump anyway. ( or anyone else except themselves).

       • Dennis Sumner,

         When Progressive ideology fails, Progressive advocates will blame their detractors for not allowing their Progressive ideology to take full effect.

         Saying it another way, Progressives advocates will say that Progressive ideology will work when there is more of it.

         Yeah, they really are that sick.

     • MB wins the Intertubez today!

       Make no mistake: Progressives despise people who disagree with them. Unlike the good and decent people of our nation who only consider you a criminal when you are a thief or attack someone, Progressives consider you a criminal if you have wrong thoughts and oppose their agenda, which therefore justifies your imprisonment or execution.

     • You both hit on key points. MB I have no doubt you are correct for those in charge of the process and the true believers who would be taking notes on how to improve the process. Dennis you absolutely hit on the problem with the useful idiots/npc/normal democrats missing the end result of ignoring the pattern of history.

     • I think the Progessives keep focusing on the how they will achieve their utopia but spare very little thought on the why and the end result.

       Venezuela used to have a thriving economy but nationalization, lack of investment, greed, (in the bad sense), and incompetence destroyed it. The same mismanagement that plagued the Communist block from Vladivostok to the Elbe River.

   • “Hope” is all you’ve got when you’ve been disarmed.

     • You can hope in one hand and crap in the other – see which one fills up first.

       • Left? Always seems to be full of it.

   • Watching a tyrannical government that claims to be socialists mow down opposition in their path isn’t a nightmare to leftists – it’s their wet dream.

     The Venezuelans voted for this outcome. They should get what they claimed they wanted – good and hard. No American blood should be shed to bail a bunch of third worlders out of a decision they made.

     • As in, absolutely ZERO American blood, precious little American treasure.

   • Or, rather than give the 95% (that get checks every month for sitting on arses) their Government Teet Check for the month, spend the equivalent wisely and send them to Venezuela to witness it firsthand.

     • Roger that!

2. Could we please go back to being a GUN blog? I can read Breitbart for political discourse. I know this is important in todays political climate, but please go back to GUNS.

   • Because gun confiscation has nothing to do with guns…

     • No. Because this is a GUN site not a political blog. We can read about this else where. We come here to read about GUNS. Also, this is preaching to the choir. We KNOW that commies are bad. We know the NRA has problems. I want gun reviews, like the new single shot shotguns from Henry. Or even about a new Glock. Please, enough with multiple stories about politics.

       • @daveinwyo I kind of agree with you in theory, but the views and perspectives I see here are educational to me. I don’t always agree with somebody’s viewpoint, but I learn how other people gain their perspective, and sometimes it helps me change mine. Or sometimes I just vehemently disagree and know they are wrong, but still entitled to their opinion, no matter how wrong.. LOL Sorry for long explanation, but in summary, Guns or politics, keep it coming guys…they are inexplicably intertwined anyway.

       • Gun politics are *welded* to guns.

         TTAG has always reported on the politics of guns, and quite frankly, the most interesting comments are in the political reporting, like this article.

         What puts TTAG above the other gun blogs is the vibrant comment section. 75 percent of why I read TTAG is here, in the comment section…

       • I also must point out that this is not a site advertising only stark reviews of particular pieces of hardware, it is supposed to present the truth about guns. When someone wishes to pretend that guns are always bad unless held by leftist totalitarian despots, the answer does not need to be the capacity of a certain bolt action rifle. What you are looking for might be on the home page, click “gun reviews”, and that’s what you get. Proceeding down the “truth about guns” page, that is what you’ll get. If you don’t understand that, I suspect you are a troll.

       • On the one hand I understand what dave is saying and I agree.

         OTOH, any discussion is going to have side-discussions which are topics associated with the original topic in some way but which are not directly about that topic.

         Personally, I sometimes find this annoying (stay on topic dammit!) so I get where dave’s coming from but on the other hand I think we often don’t look at secondary and tertiary topics that are just as, or even more, important than the topic of “guns” itself.

         For example, statist politics. Are those discussions about guns? Sometimes, but often not. However, they’re very important to the topic OF guns because if a bunch of gun grabbers win on HealthCare or “Universal Basic Income” or some other topic, they’re still grabbers, they still won an election and they’re still going to grab.

         As such, part of defending gun rights is defending the overall political ideology that includes the RTKB, because if the political ideology of dependence and government largess wins then we lose our guns just as surely as if everyone votes outright for gun-ban supporting pols.

         Also, with regards to BB…. yeah, if you want political commentary stories they’re a good place to go. They’re NOT a good place to discuss those topics though for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that your average commenter on BB has an IQ that’s barely double digits and the comment voting system over there promotes bumper-sticker sloganeering over actual thoughtful discussion. TTAG’s section can get testy at times but I would say that the average TTAGer is way, way smarter and much more experienced than your average Breitbarter.

         Also, BB doesn’t allow free speech the way TTAG does. It’s so bad that people have to discuss big-names in code words like $oros. WTF is that? Soros is a person, $oros is a SHL variable called “oros”. I’m writing a comment about a political story not some goddamn script for a .NET framework, in fact, I’m reading this to take a break from writing that script, so WTAF is this bullshit? Though, honestly, I wish I could just

         remove-variable $oros -force

         in real life. That would be nice and a power I would be sorely tempted to abuse.

         Either way, guns have a lot of other issues that come a long with them. Medical care, fitness, physical disability and how it affects gun/caliber choice, politics, ethics, culture etc. Because they’re all linked to guns they’re also all avenues for the grabbers to attack us and we need to understand that, study their tactics and learn to defend against those attacks even when they’re not directly on the issue of guns.

       • ” I want gun reviews ”

         Then go to the Guns & Ammo website.

       • Strych9:
         “TTAG’s section can get testy at times but I would say that the average TTAGer is way, way smarter and much more experienced than your average Breitbarter.”
         I second that motion as many times as the democrips and rebloodlicans can stuff a ballot box put together!

       • There’s a pretty simple solution, Dave. Don’t click.

   • This isn’t a gun blog. It’s a truth blog.

   • No offense, matey, but if you don’t see how this topic is related to guns, I don’t see why anyone should take any special effort to pander to you. Gun confiscation and the hell that follows it are a lot more relevant than another review of a $3,000 optic or a Taser ad posing as a real article.

   • TFB is that way ————->

     Please do not let the door strike you on the way out.

   • Actually the NRA curator of the Firearms Museum does a fine job of doing just that. I always enjoy watching their programs. The fly in the ointment is that if we all act like ostriches we will be only be left with the crumbs left over from a not just nibbled 2A but a devoured one. It won’t be long before even the history of firearms becomes taboo for being antisocial and even the crumbs will be consumed. The anti 2A crowd doesn’t just want your firearms, they want unrelenting control of your life in toto.

   • Guns and the civilian/government interface started to become a “thing” in 1775.

   • Go to “jpfo.org”….they have a good breakdown of the situation in the article “The Deadly history of gun control.” Everyone knows about Nazi Germany, but history is filled with examples on what happens when governments have a monopoly on violence.

3. Sorry, Venezuela, but you wanted “free” shit, you voted for it, now you’re finding out how much it really costs.

   If it makes you feel any better, most of the developed world seems eager to follow your same sociopolitical trajectory, which is why so many of us klutzes keep losing our guns on those damned boating accidents.

   • The problem is that while this view of Venezuelan politics is pervasive in the US, it’s not very true and is incredibly simplistic.

     Venezuela had been dominated by two parties since the late 1950’s and by the 1990’s the corruption was so rampant as to be obvious to the general citizenry. Chavez led a military coup attempt against the President of Venezuela in 1992 which led to a set off a chain of events that led to the of elections in 1998 which Chavez won running primarily on a platform of anti-corruption which was popular enough that Chavez’s party, The Fifth Republic Movement or MVR, became the dominant party in Venezuelan politics. The root of this corruption is similar to other places in South and Central America: a lack of private property rights or a lack of respect for them within the Constitution of the various countries. This has been a problem in the region for a long, long time.

     MVR promised a “Bolivarian” style of government, which is an odd mix of socialism, nationalism and cooperation within the Americas. In terms of messaging it has it’s roots in anti-imperialism and really focuses less on the socialism and more on nationalism and justice in terms of overthrowing authoritarian monarchs. As such it’s a play on the feelings people in that area of the world feel towards their history in regards to Spanish colonization and resistance to that form of government.

     To keep this fairly short, Chavez doesn’t get the term limits removed until 2009 so that he can run again in 2012 (and die shortly thereafter). The 2012 election is the closest one he’s run, winning by 11 or so percent as opposed to 30% in previous elections. This is where it starts to become apparent that he’s been buying votes by raiding the country’s oil wealth, but this fact is suppressed to a large degree within Venezuela. This is also about the time the country starts to welsh on it’s debts to outside vendors that supplied the gear for the oil industry, because the money to pay those debts has been siphoned off to pay for social programs, again something most regular Venezuelans don’t know at the time.)

     By the time Chavez dies and Maduro takes over things are starting to fall apart quickly. Maduro wins in 2013 by a comparatively razor thin margin of ~1.5%. by running on the memory of Chavez and using government money and other resources to promote his campaign in a way that gives him an advantage. It’s not until the 2018 elections, where Maduro wins again, that things start to really look hinky with a guy who won by less than 2% last time around, hasn’t really made things better and suddenly is winning by 30+%. Observers take note and a lot of the Western World rejects the election as a fraud.

     Following the death of Chavez in March 2013, Maduro is the one who, once in power starting in April 2013, bans guns in June of that year.

     This is where we start to get full-on effects that are obvious. Maduro is openly socialist and tries to correct some problems in Venezuela with price controls, devaluing of the Bolivar etc. These policies are not popular and lead to protests, people arguing for a recall and government crack-downs against those protesting Maduro and all of that leads us to today. But from a month and a half or so after this guy was in power owning a gun without government permission (working for them) meant 20 years or more in prison. It’s one of the first things the guy does once he’s in power, but he’s already in power due to some probably illegal electioneering he conducted and he’s been elected for six years.

     So, it’s inaccurate to say they voted for “free stuff”. They voted against corruption 20 years ago and got a guy who appeared, for a time, to deliver on that promise as well as promote the economy. The socialism was running in the background, robbing Peter to pay Paul. As long as Peter had the money the whole thing seemed like it was working and was relatively popular. But when Peter ran out of money the wheels came off the system in a way that was obvious even to the Venezuelan people but by that time Maduro was in power and the mask had come off and it was too late.

     Maduro is a consequence of Chavez, a guy who had socialist tendencies and beliefs but didn’t try to push them very hard. He kept those kind of behind closed doors and publicly focused on corruption and improving things.

     People, ultimately, fell for the sales pitch which downplayed the unpopular/questionable things and focused on the ways Chavez would fix the obvious problems. That sales pitch, which specifically DIDN’T focus on “free stuff” is what got Chavez elected and ultimately led to Maduro. Really, by the time Maduro is elected it’s already too late. He doesn’t run on “free stuff” either but once he goes full socialist and becomes unpopular he simply rigs the elections to keep himself in power forever because back in 2009 the country got rid of term limits.

     Drowning people grab at anything that floats without asking questions. The answer here is to learn to swim so you never get desperate enough to grab at anything that might float.

     • Slow clap, Strych9, slow clap. Excellent analysis. I can always tell when things slow down in your academic life because the comment section here gets a lot richer. A handful of regular commenters, including you, and articles by JWT are the reason I stick around.

4. Nothing wrong with hoping for the best so long as you prep for the worst. Otherwise you’re just a naive child destined to be beaten and discarded.

   • Si vis pacem, para bellum.

     Surrendering your weapons and ‘hoping’ you won’t become a slave to a tyrant is a fools errand.

5. I think we should air drop the opposition some MRAPs so we can watch an APC demolition derby. Be something like a Socialist version of NASCAR.😎

   Maybe throw in some M60s and ammo.

   • Better yet, Barrett .50 BMG rifles with saboted, depleted Uranium projectiles. Just FYI, Uranium is an Actinide group metal that is EXTREMELY pyrophoric. The explosive effects when it hits armor are not nuclear but quite spectacular.

     • Best observed from an A-10, I understand.

6. No such thing as a free ride. People it seams never learn from history.
   I sure hope the 20 somethings here have. But I doubt it very much.

   • For that to happen someone at the Clinton News Network or MSNPC would have to admit this is happening.

7. “He was talkin’ about hopin’ for shit, changing some shit, and I’m all about that, y’know? Cuz I mean, anyone can hope; you can sit on your ass all day & hope. If you too lazy to hope, you a lazy motherfucka.” –Thugnificent

   I wouldn’t read too much in to this latest putsch by ‘the people.’ It’s May Day (aka “communist revolution day”), folks; this is most likely just a different brand of communist trying to topple the last one. Some of the good folks there have learned the lesson (or were never idiots in the first place) but not yet nearly enough to matter. Oh, does anyone notice the same people who agitated for intervention in the Middle East on behalf of populist Muslim uprisings, are suddenly stridently opposed to knocking over *this* particular oil rich dictator abusing his people?

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=39&v=MZnzvUIEzGQ

   https://freebeacon.com/issues/msnbc-report-on-venezuela-makes-case-for-second-amendment/

   Reporter discovers the truth…won’t see him on TV after this I bet.

   • Probably in a re-education camp as we speak!😆

9. “When the talkin’ is over, it’s time to get a gun.”, Miranda Lambert, .. Miranda Lambert for President, 20XX. ? -30-

10. Say a prayer for Venezuela…I sure hope we don’t send anything else like blood & treasure.

    • Watch for Guido the Foolish One to get thrown under the bus’ wheels soon. After yesterday, he seems to be worth a lot more to the US dead than alive. He’s probably still in whatever hideyhole he scurried down yesterday, but if he remains in the Country, he’s a prime candidate for a CIA murder that they can then blame on Maduro.
      They could just poison him with some shit from Porton Down and then claim that only Maduro has the chemical that they’ve been making for decades. Or shoot him from a rooftop and then claim only Maduro has rifles, or some other “dog ate my homework” level of infantile thinking.

11. My problem isn’t with getting the government I deserve; it’s when I’m stuck with the government you deserve.

    And their tanks.

12. ANYONE who professes to be against the Second Amendment should be called out as the unAmerican person they actually are. Maybe first they should be asked to provide a philosophical reason why a lawful population should be disarmed. No philosophical reason then there cannot be a “practical” reason.

13. The sheep always HOPE that the wolves won’t eat them. And their false hopes are always disappointed. But they keep on hoping for the wolves to turn into grass eaters anyway. Even though they know it won’t happen.
    That’s what make a sheep a sheep. Faith in idiotic false hopes that they base their whole short little lives on. It’s the defining factor in their makeup. They are ruled by their blind faith, plus their ignorance and fear. But those last two require an entire article on their own.

    • Actually It is DNA the makes a sheep a sheep. No matter how much you may fornicate with one. Typically they are apolitical but if Republicans are Elephants and the Democrats are Jackasses, a Sheep may be a good fit for the NRA.

      • Would you prefer my typical term(sheeple) for people who act like a sheep does?
        I was using “sheep” as a metaphor. Or perhaps a simile. English. Learn it. Know it. Make it yours.
        Good luck with that.

    • But sheep pulling out their own teeth hoping the wolves won’t eat them makes as much sense as giving up your guns to be “safe”

14. His tactics included “grandiose displays of public weapons demolitions…”

    …like scores of like minded United States police chiefs.

15. Americans always hoped their government would be non tyrannical, not quite there yet but it’s coming, NWO.

16. I don’t care what skin color they have. I don’t care what sexual orientation they are. I don’t care if they are male or female or can’t decide what they are. I don’t care if they are atheists or religious.

    If they want my guns they are the enemy. They are the definition of an evil human being.

17. Come on guys they want to disarm us for our own good right?

    • Yeah, I dont know how I’ve made it all these years without shooting myself or someone else! Should listen to our benevolent wanna be masters.

18. Is America so bad that we can be compared to Venezuela? Ok we both have Fascist Dictators but I think it pretty much ends there.

    • @Hugo Noriega Yes, but Obama left office Jan 20, 2017, after 8 years of Muslim dictator, we are no longer burdened with his bull$hit. BTW, perfect choice of avatar name for a troll = Hugo Noriega.

      • Beat me to it!😄

19. The current difficulties in Venezuela are not in any way related to the government confiscating guns.

    It’s far more complex than that.

    • @Longfisher: Yes, but the people lost the ability to change the direction of their government once they complied with the confiscation orders. It started with the greed and fantasy of “free $hit” fueled by their burgeoning oil industry many years ago, then they continued to raid the profits from that industry to support more and more government social “free $hit” projects, and did the same to other industries that were nationalized, and raided for profits like their pharmaceutical industry, until it all collapsed. The people of Venezuela voted for free $hit, without realizing how expensive “free $hit” is….

      • The people had already lost that ability back in 2009 or so.

        The loss simply became apparent after Maduro’s “reelection”, which is why he took the guns after he nearly lost his first election.

    • Of course it’s not just about confiscation! But confiscation is a requirement if you want to implement all the other things. You know that’s what the revolution was all about, right?

20. It’s a shame we can’t arm the right people and let nature take its course. The citizens are a lot more motivated than the army and that’s what wins.

21. So much for wishing and hoping.

    I’d rather have a constitutionally RECOGNIZED right.

    “The hand of the aggressor is stayed by strength — and strength alone.”
    Dwight D. Eisenhower
    From a 1951 speech at an English Speaking Union Dinner.

22. Merry Christmas.

23. the greatest mass murderers in history are always governments.

    at the current US murder rate (murder plus non-negligent manslaughter) it would take about 5,800 years to rack up Stalin’s and Mao’s combined body count.

    • Only if you don’t count all the causalities caused by us in: Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. etc. Include them and we’ve likely surpassed Hitler and are fast closing in on Stalin’s record.

      • not even close.

        • And never will be, for so long as most of them get ignored. That’s the way you get 100% agreement. Just ignore anything that disagrees with one’s own prejudiced position. But it’s pretty childish.

24. This example is why the democrats are so hot to confiscate your guns!
    People say that would never happen here!
    The Venezuelan people said that it would never happen here!
    It happened!
    Is our democrats thirst for power any different than Not really!
    This is why the 2nd Amendment is important!

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