Has It Started?

Are we looking at the opening rounds of the next civil war?  The second revolution?  It started when that stupid newspaper published the exact locations of every pistol permit holder in a two county area of New York.  Christopher Fountain at For What It's Worth retaliated by publishing information on the staff of the newspaper: home addresses, Facebook pages and other information.  This is not really the same level in my mind, because this information is publicly available, although it needed to be found and correlated, while the list of license holders was probably illegal to acquire and publish (saw that stated somewhere, but can't find the link now).  A map of the locations of where the newspaper staff lives was eventually published at Talk of the Sound, a local web site. 

In what appears to be a blatant counter strike, Gannett newspapers has apparently declared war on the gun owners of New York and plans to publish the personal information on every pistol permit holder in the state.  (H/T to Sebastian).  

I don't live anywhere near New York, and I'm sure most people don't, but this affects all law-abiding gun owners.  This nothing less than intimidation, trying attach a social stigma to gun ownership.  Personally, I think it will backfire and if anyone has to worry, it's not the gun owners but the folks whose "Gun Free Zone" homes have just been identified.  Yeah, they may want to rob the gun owners, but only if they're not home to defend their possessions; the people next door who aren't armed are more likely to get the visit from the bad guys who know they'll be unopposed.

We can strike back against Gannett by cutting our business ties with them.  Drop subscriptions to Gannett newspapers or Comcast Cable, owned by Gannett.  As WRSA says "Resist" - by all means necessary.

The larger question is whether this is part of a coordinated attack that will spread nationwide.  The press, as you all know, is very strongly left leaning, and in support of the Obama agenda are nothing short of Pravda. The press could be doing the softening up aspect of the attack that is going to go really hot in January.  Sort of the equivalent of high altitude bombing to soften up the target.

Today, I found no less than four bloggers commenting on the fact that a civil war appears to be breaking out.  I think they are worth your time to read.  The first I read was Brock at Free North Carolina who says,

Americans are preparing to dig-in.  In other words they are preparing for a fight.  They are preparing for the day when the words run out, as they surely will.  They will then have no other alternative than to turn—as their forefathers have done since the country was founded—to the gun.

I bounced from there to Angry White Dude who posted a piece "Hey Senator Feinstein, You Say You Want a Revolution?"  He writes:

While showing her ignorance of the Second Amendment by believing the right to bear arms has to do with hunting, her bill proves exactly why the Second Amendment was included in the Constitution.  We have the right to own firearms to protect our liberties from tyrannists who would seize them.  Just as the chorus of leftists are currently doing. Any politicians who calls for such gun control legislation must realize they are standing at the precipice of the second American revolution. Americans will NEVER allow their guns to be taken by a federal government we do not trust.

From there, I ended up at The Middle of the Right, who posts "Siddown, Pour Yourself a Cuppa Joe", and posts some ideas on what could be coming,

This issue could well break this country. Could lead to armed revolt against our government. Lead to deaths and destruction.  Lead to a second revolution. Lead to the death of the US as we know it. Not all those who cleaned out the inventory of "assault rifles" and ammunition and pistols were first timers or investors... Many were just stocking up. Many were planning ahead. Many were looking at the same thing I am right now. 

 and includes the Solzhenitsyn quote we've all read so many times.

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? ...”

Finally, I ended up at Bob Owens' "What You'll See in the Revolution".

If we’re lucky, the United States of America, or whatever amalgam results, will again try to rebuild. If we’re very lucky, the victors will reinstate the Constitution as the law of the land. Just as likely though, we’ll face fractious civil wars fought over issues we’ve not begun to fathom, and a much diminished state or states will result, perhaps guided by foreign interests.

It will not be pretty. There will be no “winners,” and perhaps hundreds of thousands to millions of dead.

All of it is worth reading.  Consider that this newspaper skirmish may be the 2012 version of "the shot heard (read) 'round the world"

Me, I went to the local gun show today, not really looking for anything, just to see if the nationwide skyrocketing demand has hit my little city.  Has it ever.  The show is here every 4 to 6 weeks; the average show gets around 3000 attendees.  They had over 5000 on Saturday afternoon, with a line to get in that lasted until 3PM (show opened at 9AM).  A friend reported seeing amazing amounts of ammo going out the doors.  It was packed today, impassable in some rows at some times.  Two or more deep at tables.

I can't say there were no ARs available for sale, but supply and demand being as inexorable as it is, guns that might have gone for $900 at the last show in November were going for $1600 today. Prices were really up. I have a habit of picking up a brick of 500 .22LR whenever I see it under $20 - today it was $30, up 50%. I saw a guy asking $900 for a case of a thousand rounds of .223. Whether he sold it or not, I couldn't say. 30 round magazines were tagged at $30 each - or more. The handgun vendors were low on stock.  Few Glocks, few XDs, few M&Ps.  Some had nothing but the low end guns, like High Points, Jimenez, Sccy and such (not that they couldn't be useful).

I always like to watch and listen to the crowd. Every size, shape, color, age, and ethnicity (as far as I can tell by looking/listening) was represented. Older couples who would look in place in a retirement community, younger 20-somethings that look like they're from Puerto Rico, plenty of "the girl next door" types, too - you name it.  And everything in between.

I think the feeling that something really bad might be coming has reached into a large section of the population.

I know that the argument isn't really going to be settled on the basis of facts when our side argues with facts, reason and logic, and they argue on emotion (and penis jokes), but you'll have a hard time coming up with a better set of facts than this article in PJ Media.