“Where there’s political will, the genie can be put back in the bottle. There was abolition of the slave trade even at the height of its profitability in Britain because there was sufficient political will. Governments worldwide depend on American civilians continuing to be able to buy guns for the sake of the health of gun manufacturers around the world. But I don’t think that means it’s impossible to find a way to put the genie back in the bottle, even here.” – Priya Satia in Guns: the Genie and the Bottle [via bigthink.com]
For a group of people who claim to be big on thinking… they never considered the simple fact that there at millions of heavily armed gun owners who would be less than persuaded that we should all live like German helots or Japanese serfs.
Wishful thinking.
Although while we’re doing that, I think it would be nice to let the genie out again for our European cousins. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to buy an H&K in Hamburg, or an FNH in Flanders?
There was abolition of the slave trade
Still defacto exists in many Muslim countries….and maybe a few non=Muslim ones as well.
It’s hardly just the Muslim countries, slavery is rampant just about everywhere including America. In fact there are more people living in slavery today then there were during the entire history of the African slave trade. This just goes to show her ignorance – her comparison to slavery actually proves she’s wrong to anybody who has a clue. Just because slavery was abolished in a legal sense didn’t make it go away, it just went underground. How would abolishing the firearms industry be any different?
Hell, the left today is just as hypocritical as any abolishonist wearing cotton in the 1850s. All the lefts favorite things, from iPhones, to cheap clothes, to the batteries in their hybrids, are all made in China and Indochina, by child “workers” who are essentially slaves.
Hell the DNC has 40million black slaves (45,000.000 x 90%) in the US. And who knows how many professional welfare bums.
Slavery is rampant in the South East Asia commercial fishing industry. To avoid detection, those enslaved are never allowed off the boats where they would encounter customs officials. Thailand has promised to crack down in the practice…but good luck with that. Slavery is a function of greed. When all you have to do is feed your workers (but not pay them or provide adequate medical care) and provide an occasional new set of clothes, profit margins are enhanced. Workers who die are conveniently buried at sea.
Sex slavery is rampant in Thailand, although it’s rampant just about everywhere else too. But Bangkok is notorious for it.
American Indian tribes made slaves of black and white people.
As well as those in the sex trade. That’s slavery in its vilest form.
Mommy, look! A maroon!
She has to go back.
Oh. There is no more slavery? Neat!
She needs to take a step outside of her bubble. There are more enslaved people the world over today than back when the US was participating. Ironically (to her) most of those slaves are in gun-free utopias.
I dream impossible things all the time… and sometimes even say “yeah, that could happen!”
The difference is I don’t take myself seriously LOL
I am amused by the term ‘political will’. It is quite a euphemism. Leni Riefenstahl made a good movie about it.
“Triumph of the Will”(my dad actually had the German book accompanied by the movie)…Hitler would love Priya. Right before he gassed her.
That’s the most sincere kind of love;-)
OK…even without guns there will be killing and murder…rape and robbery…
What are you going to offer for all of my legally purchased guns and ammo? At least double what I paid?
Total gun deaths account for a very small fraction of deaths in the USA every year…even counting suicides.
Abortions are #1 in most years…600,000+. But not counted in the totals.
Out of about 2M deaths…gun deaths are usually about 35,000…1.75%…and that includes the 65% that are suicides.
Better yet “what are you going to offer for my life when my guns are taken and I had no means by which to defend myself ” I’m sorry for you, get back in your bottle. I’m not for sale . nor are my guns. Save the 2nd , screw these hoplophobe’s and their kind.
She’s a history professor, plain and simple. In other writings she specifically and accurately details how the British ruling class/government were afraid of “commoners” having weapons in the late 1780s…. “British state established a policy of regulating and prohibiting arms possession among dissident elements and the lower orders of society. Only the upper class and noble social elements with which it shared power could freely possess firearms. Certainly, highwaymen and smugglers got them illegally, often from military deserters; disarming them remained an active official pursuit. But most people did not have firearms. If they had, we might have found them—rather than stones and farm implements—in the hands of common people in the frequent riots of the period. This empirical reality coexisted with the widespread belief that a society of armed free men was the best guarantee against tyranny.”
That last sentence sums it all up quite nicely.
No question about it !! Well said sir.
all I can do is paraphrase an alleged quote from Gen. Burgoyne as he was losing the battle of Saratoga…”They’re peasants…with guns…how can peasants have guns?”……..
Truly the defining difference between subject and citizen!
There is no f**king “genie” let out of any f**king bottle. The right to keep and bear Arms is older than Homo Sapiens having been established as a common, necessary practice since the oldest known tool-making ancestral species of humankind found in the fossil record, and probably older than we know.
Sure Priya…how did being disarmed work out in (I ASSume) India?!? History majors are generally CLUELESS…😧
The decline of the American university system has progressed to the point were there are now many American universities that don’t require any American history to major in history. How can you possibly understand world history over the last 3 centuries while being ignorant of American history? The bottom line is that our ‘elites’ don’t like freedom and they want to keep us ignorant.
Those that do require ‘History’ have the wherewithal to make sure the history taught is ‘politically correct’ to what the university expects to create as a ‘graduate’…
Oh, “history” is “taught” in the universities. However, it’s filtered by the biases of the liberal professors and the education system. Thus, you have this woman ranting on about something that’s divorced from reality.
“Obviously she’s just another Lib TARD Fruitcake and EU globalist !”
Putting the genie back in the bottle? Firearms are part of the DNA of America, you can’t undo that. Not ever, no matter the political will. Guns are here to stay.
Left-wing solipsists and pecksniffs such as this female ignore the fact that if there aren’t western gun makers cranking out weapons that will end up in civilian hands, in the former USSR, there were tons of small arms being cranked out in mass numbers and exported to countries the USSR wanted to destabilize – which would then be put into ‘civilian’ hands.
In the US, the machine tool industry grew up alongside the gun industry. We have the modern manufacturing prowess we do as a result of a) the British putting an embargo on steel, guns and machine tools to the US following the War of 1812, b) US inventors designing guns of our own, c) a machine tool trade growing up alongside the gun industry to serve the gun industry. Precision machine tools arose in the US to serve the light arms industry, period.
Check out the history of such machine tool companies as Pratt & Whitney, or Starrett, etc. Why were they located in New England? Because the big gun companies were there – Colt, Winchester, S&W, etc.
Pecksniff. That is a great word that I had never heard before and will be definitely using in the future.
It originates from Dickens’ serialized book, “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit,” and the specific origin is the surname of the character Seth Pecksniff.
Like most of Dickens’ works, Chuzzlewit is a dense read, and has some rather anti-american in plot devices. The Pecksniff character, however, is instantly recognizable today in so many of our “elites.”
It’s defined as “hypocritically and unctuously affecting benevolence or high moral principles.”
Just wash your mouth out after using it.
In other words, it’s synonymous with progressives and SJWs.
Re: DG’s point about manufacturing, I’ve been reading about the history of the Sharps rifle, and they were an international leader in the area of standardized precision manufacturing. Their toolsmiths were the Johnny Appleseeds of American industry. Gun makers were the leading edge of manufacturing innovation in the 19th century. The modern world owes them a lot.
Indeed. If western gun manufacturers one day magically vanished, Russia would gladly fill that vacuum, and quick.
Governments worldwide depend on American civilians continuing to be able to buy guns for the sake of the health of American civilians.
FIFY. Dummy.
That genie has a name- “Freedom”.
WTAF, do these people read the gibberish theyre writing? Go back to wherever you came from and leave us the fuck alone lady! Genie in a bottle… smfh
She’s straight outta Compton. I mean UC Berkeley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMZi25Pq3T8
Better hide yo’ kids and hide yo’ wife before she rapes their minds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw
Some people with female private parts do not realize their safety has been and is secured by men with firearms. Maybe they would like being ravaged by invader animals, as in the uk & europe.
Lady you live in a world where we can’t keep tin pot a-holes in Asia from building atomic weapons. Now you’re going to step in and somehow keep anyone from just building simple guns out of cheap Chinese shop tools?
Self-sufficiency simply doesn’t occur to her, either as a value she should have or a value anyone else actually does. Garauntee she couldn’t even change a tire on her own
Being unable to defend yourself against an attacker and being dependent on government for protection (which comes in the form of investigation, arrest, and prosecution after the crime, sometimes) is slavery.
Maybe ms. history-person should read about gun confiscation in the peace-loving nations of cambodia, china, india, nazi (socialist ) germany, russia and the corresponding body counts of those who were disarmed.
The “Genie” cannot be put (let alone fit) back in the bottle. The “Genie” was/is freedom and eventually Liberty.The firearms were/are just the tools to acquire and keep them.
Nous Defions
I wonder what she thinks about us making our own guns in the garage or shed. You know like how the Asians do in other countries? There be no corporate suits making big money in that case; just a man grinding a piece of metal into a gun.
I wonder what would happen to universities if they weren’t being racists towards certain Asians. If they let Asians in simply do to merit rather than political agenda. The “best” schools would be full of Asians instead of whites and blacks. The types of people who are a bunch of entrepreneurs that put family first, earn their way through hard work, don’t blame others for their failures, don’t mind owning and using guns to protect their livelihood and don’t really need a religion in order to do the moral thing. How would that change American politics and society? Instead universities are selective of which Asians are allowed to get into their school, but tend to exclude as many as they can to allow in non Asians.
By the way, Priya Satia “education” is of high quality:
Ph.D., UC Berkeley 2004 (History)
M.A., UC Berkeley 2004 (History)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHhy2Gk_xik
Growing up what were then called “juvenile delinquents” made and used “zip guns” out of pipe. Pilipino guerillas made shotguns from pipe and Australia has problems not only with smuggled guns but with guns produced in garages. Last, Israel’s arms production has roots in the homemade guns used for independence.
Hell, the Internet has directions to build your own gun.
How does she expect to “put the genie back?”
The hubris of this sanctimonious harridan prevents her from recognizing the glaring logical inconsistency she commits: slavery is a moral failing, gun ownership and thd use of guns in defense of selt, family and country is morally goos.
Historically ignorant pipe-dreaming leftist twit. To quote Cesare Beccaria, “False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from man because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. This was written in a time in which swords were the weapon of choice and guns were handmade and VERY expensive. Can this SILLY person guarantee no more despots or tyrants, or is she in favor of them?
There are other quotes on statecraft of arms control from Niccolo Machiavelli, many of them found in his less well known work, Discourses on Livy, in which Machiavelli treats the issue of statecraft with far more analytic scrutiny than in The Prince. In Livy, Machiavelli notes well how the French monarchs, in pursuit of peace and stability, disarmed their subjects, but at the same time, created a dependent population and then required mercenaries to augment their armed forces (many of those mercenaries for France in those days were Scots).
It’s another daunting read, but well worth one’s time. Machiavelli has many trenchant observations on preserving a republic that apply to the current situation in the US.
Bookmark this page readers because this is what dangerous ignorance looks like.
I have been beating this drum for awhile but many of the arms that are in civilian hands started out in some form as government guns. If civilian armament is a problem then the governments of the world are largely to blame. They own more serious weapons then all the civilians put together and they sell off their armories to make room for better weapons. It’s been happening for awhile now. And: they ship weapons on the not-so-sly to militias around the world.
And not all guns come from factories – I guess she did not get the memo. With the internet, and the proliferation of parts and materials to make weapons, it never has been easier. And 3D printing . . .
3D printing . . . The genie done left the room and made babies 2 counties over. I would state “good luck with that” but if she is “lucky” it will probably mean a bunch of people will get killed.
“There was abolition of the slave trade even at the height of its profitability in Britain because there was sufficient political will.”
Actually, the slave trade in Britain was unprofitable and in the rest of the Empire at best broke even. Getting rid of slavery was partially economic and partially moral.
Indeed.
American (and Americanized) academics love to prattle on (and on and on and on) about the evils of American slavery, but they ignore several highly inconvenient facts about the slave trade. I’ll just toss out some of the most salient here:
1. The US imported only a small faction of the slaves taken from west Africa. The slave trade was much, much larger than the US market for slaves.
Here’s where you can go if you want to dig into “how many slaves were taken from west Africa?” and “where did they go?”
http://www.slavevoyages.org
Click on “Examine Estimates of the Slave Trade” to poke around their database. If we get very, very generous with estimates, we might get to 400K slaves taken from West Africa to the US by all routes. Meanwhile, Brazil (which was a colony of Portugal) was the destination for nearly 5 million, and the Caribbean Island holdings of the UK were the destination for over 2 million.
2. Slavery has been an institution in Islam since the very inception of the religion. Most of their slaves, however, don’t do low-economic-value work. No, most of the slaves taken by Islamic raiders are for sex trades. The harems we’ve heard about in the past of sultans and high ranking men of the Islamic world? Yea, most of those women were not from Islamic lands – because holding Muslims in such harems is forbidden in Islam. The sex slaves and concubines were from south/southeastern Europe, north Africa, India, etc.
The Islamic sex slave trade continues to this day, yet American academics and feminists seem rather nonplussed by this sordid reality – because it doesn’t fit their meta-narrative of “only white males are evil.”
A major difference no one mentions is that while slavery was allowed for in Juadism(s) and Christianity so was abolitionism. Islam calls for slavery as Muhammad himself was not only a slave owner, he enslaved men who were once free; he was a “slaver”. He is considered perfect in Islam and his example is for all mankind to follow as per Surah 33:21. It is a sin in Islam to render a thing God calls “halal” (acceptable) as something “haram” forbidden. Slavery is halal in Islam.
Interestingly, Great Britan’s Support of the confederacy during the Civil War came from its ruling class. They more readily identified with the Southern plantation owners, or at least with what they thought they were like.
It was the masses that supported the abolishment of slavery. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he seized the moral high ground. Great Britain had taken the lead in ending the slave trade and now had to face the fact that the Union was committed to ending it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIDWgqDBNXA
What bottle did Priya Satia crawl out of, and how do we put her back in it?
Ha ha ha she thinks that slavery doesn’t exist in this world or this country.
Ask Hillary how easy it is to put gin back in the bottle.
You couldn’t pay me enough to let this hypocritical bitch sniff , my peck. Crawl back in your bottle , I’ll gladly toss ya in the ocean. You can float over to England & spout your spittle there.
Give a good person a nuke and they’ll try to find a way to render it useless or buy the best vault to lock it in.
Give the ayatollah a nuke and,,,,,,,,,,
I wish more books where written about the manufacturing of weapons and how this technology was used in other industries. I believe the threaded screw was invented to assist in the Assembly of firearms hundreds of years ago.
Maybe “connections” the TV show could do a program about it. I know the series is not on the air. Its just my wish.
““Where there’s political will, the genie can be put back in the bottle. ”
Where there’s political will, and firearms, the evil POS (D) and McCain’s rinos can be compelled to hide that genie bottle in their a_ _es.
2A or 2nd Paragraph if the Declaration of Independence, fuckers, take your pick.
Wasn’t slavery ended in the US by …..Guns…?
“Where there’s political will, the genie can be put back in the bottle.”
So, politics to form (progressive), or reform (reactionary) the society to what you think it should be.
“There was abolition of the slave trade even at the height of its profitability in Britain because there was sufficient political will.”
People got wised up, changed their minds, and the politics n government followed the culture?
Somehow, this “Make things better.” always comes down to politics, to harness government coercion, to force *those people* to do what someone else has decided should be. Somehow, if that means those proles end up dead in the process that’s OK. (Venezuela, anyone.) Somehow, their opinion of “better”, like not getting dead, for example, never counts.
This author is an(other) example of academics overreaching. Academics shift from solid, informed, well-reasoned takes on what they have studied, to vague, data-free, squishy and mystic conclusions about great sweeps of How Things Must Be, without even noticing they are doing it. They do get annoyed if you ask “How do you know?” or push back.
“Magical thinking” at its finest.
Honey, how old are you, twelve?
You’ve apparently never heard of 3D printers, CNC machines… or sheet metal breaks.
It’s like an eighth grader rewrote “The Time Machine” to make the Eloi the villians.
The false equivalency is strong with this one. The author is essentially saying that they can abolish all crime… And home tooling apparently.
“Gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment is slavery” seems like the hot take of the moment.
Next year: “The Nazis believed in gun ownership”.
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