Charles E., Cobb Jr. (courtesy workman.com)

“The United States does not come close to being a tyranny. President Obama is hardly a dictator. And there is no indication that government wants or is attempting to seize guns in the hands of private citizens, although there are individuals inside government who probably would like to do so.” Charles E. Cobb Jr., Guns and Freedom [via washingtonpost.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

68 COMMENTS

  2. I almost wish that I could live in the world that these folks live in but, it must get awful dry with your head in the sand like that.

  3. Nothing to see here, the government is a powerful benevolent entity above us without any bias that can’t be turned violently back against its people by those who thirst for power. Go to sleep America. Sleeeeeeeeep.

  4. President Obama is hardly a dictator, yet, outside of his own mind….but he is working on it..

    Fixed it for you.

    • It’s just like Bush, the advisers and political contributors who are the truly dangerous ones. They have less to lose pushing freedom-robbing BS.

    • “Obama is hardly a dictator.”

      There it is, Cobb just can NOT resist erecting a strawman. Yeah Obama is ust a statist, hypocritical, mendacious grandstanding scapegoating jacka$$. He won’t be our first and he wont be our last, but he is not a dictator.

      SO WHAT? The bill of rights is not about Obama. It is about recognizing already present rights that the founders knew in aggregate deter tyranny.

      Cobb cannot resist the despicable strawman that conflates responsible educated people noting the FACT that the bill of rights accrues to deterrence against tyranny as some kind of advocacy of armed secessionism or treason.

      Cobb is actually channeling and imitating J. Edgar Hoover’s “discovery” that MLK was friends with some communists, as if that nullified MLK’s message about endemic racism, and made MLK an tool of the Soviets.

      And Cobb just has to use Martin-Zimmerman complete with photo. What a specious red herring.

      Lastly “70 of murderers are gun owners.” OK, FU Cobb. Legal gun owners are actually 80% LESS likely to murder people than the national mean murder commission rate. And 90% of murder “victims” are already criminals.

  5. The USA is beginning to look a lot like 1930s Nazi Germany or 1920s Soviet Russia. I still think Ayn Rand’s ” Alas Shrugged” and George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” best describes our current situation. “1984” is closer to the truth than anyone will ever know. I really liked 2016: Obama’s America by Dinesh D’Souza and Obozo really is a Sandinista just like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Obozo and the Democrats are just chock full of Marxist-Leninist Liberation Theology.

    • When I was teaching seniors in ROTC one of the points I made to them is that in 1925 there were no German lieutenants thinking that 16-17 years later they would be exterminating villages across eastern Europe. I used this to illustrate to them the dire need and responsibility they have as future military officers to know and be aware of not just where our government is but where it may be going because by the time it gets there you are out of options.

      People like this guy are so ignorant of history and how the framework of tyranny is created and implemented make me want to weep.

    • If 1984 worries you, don’t read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. 1984 is nowhere close to our current situation.

      • Our current situation is more a mix of 1984 and Brave New World. Honestly, I don’t really think Brave New World is that dystopian – sure, the lower classes have it rough, but for those who are free thinkers and capable of seeing the chains, the government sends them to a private island to do whatever they want without the constraints of society. I guess Brave New World is dystopian from the perspective of society as a whole, but for individuals who want more than to do what they’re told, it’s really not dystopian.

  6. Man the more I hear liberals speak the more I wonder if livin with your head up your fourth point of contact causes hallucinations.

  7. Go read the entire article. Dan posted one statement, the worst statement from the entire post. I would argue the best statement was: “What does that reflect? A gun problem? No. Rather, a problem of leadership, a massive and disturbing failure of black leadership. I put that out here in this blog provocatively as the great lesson of the southern freedom movement: More than protest and challenge to white supremacy, what really defined the movement was neither nonviolence nor self-defense, but rather the challenges black people made to each other within the black community.”

    • I just read it and I have to agree. The article is far more a defense of the RTKBA than an attack upon it. While I disagree with the writer’s description of the Martin case, I see his points regarding the history of armed self-defense and its inherent right. However, I think he misses the continuing “soft Tyranny” being practiced by the Obama administration and its lackeys in Congress. Slowly and continually, they are eroding our basic rights and a little fear of the people wouldn’t hurt.

    • I could write a wall of text, but yes, it is a failure of black leadership. It is also a failure of big city liberal soviet socialist polices by the liberal elites.It is a failure by many statists in power and their dismal economic, family, self defense, political, and social policies. It is a failure by the Hollywood and media elites for pushing the socialist anti-capitalist agenda that they do. Of course blacks are never to blame, especially when thy go right along with the stupid policies and support them.

  8. From the article:
    Bluntly speaking, the manner in which stand your ground was used and defended in this case seems fueled by prejudice.
    This had something to do with “Stand Your Ground”?

  9. From the article:
    Why was it assumed that the slightly built Martin was threatening to the bigger Zimmerman? Only if you follow the photos posted on MSN-NBC.

  10. He asks what would happen if Trayvon had been the one with the gun. That scenario, sadly, is actually somewhat common, and typically results in no charges for the Trayvon, not because he asserts a successful self defense case, but since he generally evades capture and the police can not get the witnesses to testify. With all the gang violence in this country, nobody really bats an eye when a black gangster kills a hispanic gangster, or vice versa… unless maybe you refer to him as a “white/hispanic.”

    • If you think the gang violence is bad now, just wait until the gang/cartel-connected “children” coming across the border get settled in and start moving into Bloods/Crips territory. To quote Yogi Berra: “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.”

      • Been underway for awhile, Jus Bill. Compton is in that stage now. Bigger problems than ethnic group competition are the narco-terrorist tactics imported, human-smuggling, child-sex slavery, kidnapping, all more lucrative than drug smuggling, and enforced thru assassination, beheadings, attacks on family. Tucson has become the kidnapping capital of the US, and Phoenix is not far behind. The movie End of Watch touched on some of this.

        Yet, strangely enough, one hears little of the from the current Administration, or the StateRunMedia, just as the truth of the stats in gun-crime in Chicago are ignored.

        Inconvenient truths. A lost generatio, due to the abject moral failure of leadership in the black community, starting at the top. What would Dr. King say about POTUS squandering that chance, I wonder. What stuns me is how journalists like Mr Cobb aren’t outraged, calling this out. Blood of the children is on their hands, too.

  11. Well; it’s all a matter of perspective; to a black person; they have a black president that publically defends a black teen that a jury of his peers unanimously agreed (one of which was a black woman)initiated a violent attack upon an official neighborhood watchmen. They have a black attorney general that publically states he won’t prosecute blacks that commits any crimes. The old media won’t publish any stories that paint blacks in a negative light; and if your black; there are tons of government programs to sign up for not available to the rest of us. If your a black in today’s world, the government really is your sugar daddy.

    • That’s really only true at the top and the bottom of the income structure. It’s what’s left of the Middle Class that’s footing the bill. And more often than not the Middle Class in the larger cities is composed mainly of Municipal, State and Federal contractors and/or retirees from those groups (including military and “double-dipping” retirees).

      So the Government is in effect funding itself. Which is one reason they’re creating money 24/7.

  12. ‘The United States does not come close to being a tyranny.’ – As long as you don’t attempt to start a nonprofit corporation to promote a conservative cause. We have a politicized federal bureaucracy, and while we might not be shipping people off to reeducation camps the mere fact that people are targeted for political reasons means the end of everything the founding fathers sought to create.

    ‘President Obama is hardly a dictator.’ – No he’s not a dictator but he’s working hard to expand the power of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative taking us one big step closer to totalitarianism.

    ‘And there is no indication that government wants or is attempting to seize guns in the hands of private citizens, although there are individuals inside government who probably would like to do so.’ – There is no attempt at seizing ALL guns in the hands of private citizens, only the types that would be useful in an armed rebellion. Why do you think they’re so concerned with the AR15 when handguns are used in the vast majority of crimes. Handguns are nearly useless against troops. And both the people who would like to SOME guns out of the public’s hands and those who would like to take ALL guns need to be weeded out of the government. Probably should be tried for treason, but at the least anyone who despises the constitution should have no place in government.

    • …while we might not be shipping people off to reeducation camps

      Well, a substantial number of people are trapped where they live because they can’t afford to move. This doesn’t necessarily apply ONLY to the urban poor, either. How many times have we seen “I can’t afford to leave my job” or “I’ll lose money on my house” here? So you’re stuck where you are because of economic reasons. All the while the local MSM is constantly spewing the latest partisan propaganda.

      So yeah, we ARE stuck in what amounts to a reeducation camp.

      • The land of the free is trapped by wage slavery. Can’t leave your job because of your credit card/house/car payment. Can’t get a job because you’d lose your medicaid or unemployment benefits. No economic mobility. No risk taking. No growth. Angry voters. Import less demanding replacement voters.

  14. Cobb says there are 32,000 gun deaths, most of which are suicides, which suggest a mental heath problem, more than a gun problem. I agree 100% we have a mental health problem. What I do not agree with is that all suicides are because of a mental health problem. Many of these folks take their own lives because they cannot handle the physical pain associated with terminal cancer and other diseases. I had a personal long time friend who ended his life because of this reason.

    • I would also point out that suicide does not point out a mental health issue but rather a cultural issue. When someone has had almost everything taken from them or they have been shunned by society I can hardly blame them for taking their life. The fact is that people don’t out of the blue go nuts very often. It’s usually years of being pushed aside by the “justice” system or by peers that are programmed to hate or by family members that have little time to sit down and talk. Sometimes people just need another person to talk with and our society rewards laziness in every spectrum. Why would our laziness stop when some lost soul could really use our help? We are like dogs. As a whole we do things for reward and don’t do things for fear of punishment. Change what gets rewarded and redefine what will get you punished or the nature of the punishment in general and you change our behavior on a base level.

      • I have to agree, what with suicide being the national pastime of a gun free paradise like Japan its hard to take gun blamers seriously.

  15. Egads, anything that starts off with poor, innocent baby Travon just wanted some candy and tea, blah, blah, blah, stand your ground, blah blah, blah, everyone’s a racist, blah blah, blah. I stopped reading. The author is obviously is in his own little world and I refuse to enter it. I’m tired of this garbage.

  16. Daily dose of wash post agitprop, there must be a better way to discuss gun rights than constantly pushing this propaganda. Again, TTAG, what is your motive?

  18. Quick! What’s totally, utterly inaccurate and race-inflaming about Prof. Cobb’s thesis?

    “I will not elaborate on the Martin killing here, but his death is a handy starting point for any discussion about gun rights. Bluntly speaking, the manner in which stand your ground was used and defended in this case seems fueled by prejudice.”

    If you said, “SYG played no part in the legal proceedings of the Zimmerman case,” give yerself a Gold Star!

    *This* is how liberal lies become de facto “truth.”

  19. Mr. Cobb apparently never considered what it would be like to live near a place where the local law enforcement is infested with “white nationalists”. It’s a straw man to say “oh i’m not worried about the federal government” and totally miss the much more probable “small tyranny” that will kill you just as dead, and with far less fanfare and advance warning.

  20. Barry Soetero is a good example of a fledgling dictator. Look for the Kenyan king to legalize oh pretty much all illegal aliens and ban more than Russian guns by “executive order”. Cobb gets a few points right…poor baby Trayvon wasn’t one of them. 6’1″ ain’t no child. The young gangster wannabe would be alive today if hadn’t bashed the white Hispanic( he looked mexican to me) head on the pavement. Or not. I also share the authors concerns about my sons looking black. And ThomasR don’t think you can speak for all black folks. There are more white people than anything on welfare. Your stormfront is showing.

    • Id have to see some kind of stats to actually support a % of welfare claim either way.

      Im really tickled that you also keep referencing Stormfront, I truly enjoy the diversity and randomness of the TTAG comments section, and referencing Stormfront is ALMOST breaking Godwins Law haha

      Then again Id say for race relations were EASILY back to the Civil Rights period but now it seems as if the roles have been reversed.

      • Oh yeah a very quick google search confirms the majority of welfare people are white. And I don’t care. Get what you can before this whole thing collapses I live in one of the worst run states in America-Illinois. We can’t print worthless federal reserve notes here.

  21. “although there are individuals inside government who probably would like to do so.”

    Thats funny because Im pretty sure you just named one!

    • I love the implied difference between “the government” and “individuals in the government” The government IS the individuals and those that would like to disarm the people among other things ARE a threat because hey ARE the government.

      That is why we need a clear understanding of the constitution and the law and the ability to prosecute or eject from power those who oppose or break them.

  22. Doing his master’s work, he will be highly compensated when they do decide to take privately owned firearms. Mouthpieces like this guy are essential in the government’s misinformation campaign.

  23. What taylor? Stormfront, Stormfront ,Stormfront. Tough. From the evil old white man married to a beautiful black woman. Deal with it clueless one.

    • Why are you so angry fella? I dont care who youre married to, man, woman, robot, no fucks given. Congrats on marrying your wife and many years of marriage, I hope you dont think that serves as an excuse to call people names and be a troll 🙂

      I totally dont get the evil old white man thing, ironically enough I pretty much agreed with everything in your post until you began to attack other commentors/rant. Hope your day gets better.

      • The evil old white man is sarcasm clueless one. I didn’t give a rat’s a## if you thought I was attacking the other guy for assuming ALL black people are sucking on the american teat. I’m sure Dirk might have something to say about that. Or not. At least you found something to amuse you…

  26. I don’t know anything about the history of that article’s author. That being said, he looks EXACTLY like a professor I had in college at Kettering. Turns out the dude had forged all of his diplomas and was fired on the spot…he was a really weird and creepy dude….

    His pic here http://www.kettering.edu/sites/default/files/Singer_J_4.jpg

    It would be epic if it was the same dude pulling the same stunt a second time…

  27. It does not matter if the current government is tyrannical or not. The second amendment was built as a protection against tyranny, in case it comes back.
    We don’t ship fire extinguishers to a burning building after it catches fire, do we?

  28. How far on the liberty/tyranny spectrum must we move before our government qualifies as sufficiently “tyrannical?” Putin’s Russia is not Stalin’s Russia, but they are both tyrannical.

    Blacks in the south (and really everywhere) lived under extreme tyranny, while whites enjoyed a much freer existence. The point is that people can experience their government differently. A favored class often overlooks tyranny of others until it begins to affect them. Principles are important. We need to stick them.

    “First they came for the automatics, then they came for the “assault weapons,” then they came for the handguns, and when they came form my single shot 20 gauge, there was no one left to defend my liberty.” – Future U.S. Citizen

  29. The Democratic Party has become less like a political organization and more like the Cult of Obama. And Cobb is nothing more than an acolyte.

  30. The writer tosses out a few well known facts, such as the preponderance of suicides among so-called “gun deaths”, and a couple of obvious observations, such as the failure of black leadership. He plays those two get-out-of-being-dismissed-as-a-proponent-of-left-wing-views cards, then proceeds with his ridiculous racist, apologist rant proposing left wing views. Teaching his kids the dangers of “driving while black”, seriously? The slightly built Martin was just standing his ground? It’s not “the government”, just some individuals who want to confiscate our guns? Please.

    From such gross deviations of from reason in assessing the present, this liberal ideologue follows up with revisionist speculation of the past. He calls out LImbaugh for arguing that John Lewis wouldn’t have been assaulted by police in Selma if only he’d been armed, countering that Lewis would have simply been shot and decades later Limbaugh would label him a terrorist. Well.

    That belies the actual experience of armed blacks who faced down armed police and those wielding fire hoses. In 1965, the very same year as Mr. Lewis’ skull fracturing encounter with Alabama state troopers, a a group of black were picketing a high school. Police and fire hoses, typical of the day, were at the ready, when a group called the Deacons for Defense and Justice showed up.

    A carload of Deacons arrived, exited their vehicle and prepared their self-defense shotguns for all to see. They didn’t threaten anyone, just stood their ground (in the real SYG sense, not as in a drugged out burglar circling around and ambushing the neighborhood community watch guy). The police responded by removing the fire hoses and allowed the peaceful picketing to continue.

    There are other examples and I would encourage people to read up on the role of armed self-defense within the “non-violent” civil rights movement. The point is, this man Cobb’s expedient worldview doesn’t even stand up to reason, let alone the actual historical record.

    • You do realize that Cobb is blogging on the VC in support of his book, This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, which is about how important armed self defense was to the Southern Freedom movement, right? That he’s spent considerable time pointing out how heavily armed MLK and other civil rights leaders of the era were, and what role that played in their success?

  31. When the ruler of a country has the power to arbitrarily imprison, torture, or kill that country’s citizens on a whim, that’s pretty much the definition of tyranny and that ruler certainly is a dictator.

  33. It starts out with soft tyranny. I’ve been audited the last three years. Strange that. When asking why, the nice IRS lady told me that I give too much money to Christian charities and that I trip some kind of limit in the computer system. (She seemed glad about it as if something was being protected.) If that is true, it would seems to me that the limit in the computer system is in itself a tyranny (besides being unconstitutional).

  35. Mr Cobb is getting there. He is flogging his book and has to be seen as reasonable, after all as a black journalist guest blogging at WAPO, in order for the white elite know it all customer base there in DC to even consider the truth about guns he points out, I.e. the need for guns by blacks for self defense in the civil rights movement.

    So, great post, Dan. More diverse voices, will keep attracting same to TTAG to the middle ground, of all sexes, colors, political views, that share a belief in individual freedom from state tyrrany.

    I think Mr Cobb is whistling past the graveyard at best, in his assertion that “the government” doesnt want to take your guns… cognitive dissonance, to be generous, to such an experienced journalist, IMHO.
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

    Here is a counterpoint from another journalist, from a progressive background, also named Charles, who has since made the connection;
    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375360/smart-guns-are-dumb-charles-c-w-cooke

  36. Mr. Cobb says the Martin-Zimmerman case involved Stand Your Ground, but SYG was not used as a defense of Zimmerman in that case.

  37. ” And there is no indication that government wants or is attempting to seize guns in the hands of private citizens, although there are individuals inside government who probably would like to do so.”

    At this very minute, as I am typing this, and as you are reading it, the governments of NY, CT and CA are actively confiscating firearms from people that are on their “lists”. People that legally purchased and own a LEGAL firearm with legal paper work, until some new law was passed declaring it suddenly illegal. People that purchased and own a legal firearm with legal paper work, until some official decided that a restraining order, a 25 year old misdemeanor conviction or an unhappy neighbor reported them as dangerous. Someone needs to tell this guy it’s already happening..

  38. “Tyranny Seeks Not To Induce A Drought Of Information, But Drown You In A Sea Of Irrelevance”

    -Myself

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