146 Comments

Violent riots, cities burning, defunded and demoralized police (scapegoats for the harm caused by decades of failed liberal policies), increased violent crime, activist DAs refusing to prosecute criminals and releasing dangerous convicts, open borders bringing in more criminals, drugs and weapons.

And then the same political class responsible for all of this demands that we give up our constitutional right to protect ourselves and our families.

It appears that legalized cannabis is doing a real number on our left-brained politicos. They are figuratively shooting themselves in both of their left feet.

Expand full comment

Every week I read your articles and say to myself, this is the best one you’ve ever written! Then the next week you come along with one like this which is even better. This is a wonderful article. Hard to use that word because truth is so painful and our history makes me feel so sad.

Expand full comment

With the loss of manufacturing and the family farm, the future of anyone without substantial means is limited to the service sector and the building trades. Public schools are understaffed and underfunded unless you are in an upscale, white neighborhood.

A future with an American middle class has disappeared. The only way this imbalance can be sustained is through violence or the threat of violence. Until small scale farming and local manufacturing are rekindled, the future seems untenable. People from around the world want to be in America because this is where everything is still available, for the moment. But it won't last.

It will take a natural or economic catastrophe to bring things back in focus. Guns can't grow food, educate our children or make plowshares.

Expand full comment

Fetish is the right word. Asking a gun fetishist to voluntarily give up a gun is going to prove just as silly as asking a billionaire to give up his money. I think the pathology is the same.

Ralph Nader interviewed the great Hazel Henderson just before her recent death, and she referred to the “money meme”. But I think it’s more than that, it’s an irrational attachment to something that often leads to harmful behavior.

Some guys like to snuggle up to women’s shoes, others have more dangerous preferences. But call it a money meme or a gun fetish, it’s surely beyond the power of rational influence. And unfortunately, that usually implies force of some kind.

Expand full comment

What Chris fails to recognize it that life is vacuous for those living in gated communities and flying private jets that circumvent pedestrian portals. Amongst only themselves, they no longer feel privileged and unique. They have an innate desire to be, at least periodically, immersed in the presence of the peons in order to feel exceptional, elite, and powerful. No contrast; no image.

Some say that the current socioeconomic collapse is being orchestrated by the oligarch class. I disagree. They're just not that smart. Besides, they have the most to lose in a state of overwhelmingly gun fueled anarchy and chaos. It would be their very position of contrast that would make them the targeted bullseye.

The goal of the elites is simply to thin the herd of peons, not separate themselves entirely. The planet is a finite resource. It cannot sustain 10B homo sapiens ravenously culling its resources. Thinning of the herd is what the endless wars and experimental vaccines are haphazardly trying to achieve. Do you see the elite's kids going off to fight these battles for resources? Do you think these folks actually took the MrNA into their own bodies? You say you saw it for yourself on T.V., did you? Of course you did.

Expand full comment

I have never owned or touched a gun in my 48 years on earth. I refuse to live in such a narrow way where a gun is the answer to everything. These guys see our decay and blame minorities for everything. They never hold the powerful to account because of a deep seated, half baked patriotism & anti-rat culture. Nobody wants to be a rat.

Expand full comment
Jun 5, 2022·edited Jun 5, 2022

People own guns for various reasons. Many of them legitimate. Throughout history, the worst atrocities have been committed by governments against their own citizens. We're witnessing now a global genocide. Owning a gun is not a 'fetish'. Gun violence is the natural outcome of an entire culture losing its way. Please don't demonize people who feel threatened from all sides. Instead, work to create a society where people no longer feel a gun is the only option. Until that time, people do have a right to own a weapon. I am speaking as someone who does not and will not own a gun, but I can now relate to the people who do.

Please share and help educate…

"GUNS AND CONTROL

Turkey established gun control in 1911. Soon after, 1.5 million Armenians unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

The Soviet Union established gun control in 1929. Soon after, about 20 million dissidents unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. Soon after, 20 million political dissidents unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938. Soon after, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. Soon after, one million people unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. Soon after, 100,000 Mayan Indians unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. Soon after, 300,000 Christians unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

Australia established gun control in 1996. Right now, Australian citizens are being brutalized and terrorized by their tyrannical government.

Venezuela established Desarma La Violencia to disarm citizens in 2010. Once one of the richest countries in Latin America, Venezuela is currently free falling into violent unrest and extreme poverty.

New Zealand expanded gun control in 2019. Right now, New Zealand citizens are being brutalized and terrorized by their tyrannical government.

Canada expanded gun control in 2020. Right now, Canadian citizens are being brutalized and terrorized by their tyrannical government. "

WHO’S NEXT?

Expand full comment

Please stop linking to Amazon.

Expand full comment

No one is coming. It’s up to us.

Expand full comment

I believe the issues around gun control are more complex than the usually perspicacious pen of Chris Hedges reveals in this article. As counterpoint to his notion that guns are the last refuge of the weakened rural underclass, read this substack article by long time liberal Naomi Wolf defending the Second Amendment (https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/rethinking-the-second-amendment?s=r). Also Ole Dammegard has contributed a lot of research into the area of false flag operations (https://lightonconspiracies.com) revealing that a lot of domestic attacks are orchestrated if not perpetrated by the CIA or other government operatives who are using the violence to advance political agenda items. While no-one is arguing in favor of gun violence, and the argument that it is a "mental health" crisis, not a gun availability crisis is a weak one, the shenanigans of our government, first and foremost tricking or arm-twisting millions of Americans to inject themselves with poison does make one wonder to what extent the government is a legitimate threat for which we need to be fully prepared. Paranoid as this may sound, it didn't seem paranoid to the Founders in 1776 and we would not be here if they had failed to arm themselves. Yes, I hear you say, but this is 2022, not 1776. And, I would ask, you would then argue that history does not repeat itself?

Expand full comment

It was so hard for me to finally accept that those who perpetuate this gun culture are absolutely onboard with more kids dying. I used to think they just didn’t understand the devastation being done to children but then I realized that in fact they do. Not only do they totally understand they will use it as a marketing tool to sell even more guns in the guise of protection. It’s such a harsh reality to accept that that is exactly who they are. Your article points out every piece of propaganda they use to keep the masses in constant fear and willing to execute each other rather than address the real culprits. This is absolute madness and is speeding up our demise as a country.

Expand full comment

It is difficult for me to understand the drive to power of the Republicans (with the connivance of Democrats and their accompanying decision to abandon of the working class). It seems obvious to me that if half the population is disenfranchised, their hope destroyed, their jobs lost that they will eventually turn on the elites and the rich and the country will descend into open violence. In the process the country itself will be destroyed, carved up into fiefdoms each fighting the others. It is not possible for me to intellectually conceive of a large group of people coming together to intentionally do that while having no awareness of the repercussions (history is full of examples).

Nevertheless, I see it happening all around me and getting worse month by month by month. Like so many others, I am terribly frightened. And like so many others, I feel abandoned by my country, betrayed by the people who are supposed to govern wisely for all the people.

A major trauma for the Jews in Germany, the ones who survived anyway, was the abandonment by those to whom they had given their trust. They kept believing that normal would return but it never did. Instead, bit by bit more laws were passed, more court decisions made, and soon there was nothing left for them at all. Many of those who survived were never able to restore their trust for their government and its various departments. I see that same process playing out here. Day by day, as the Supreme Court destroys decades of protections for the weakest among us, as Republicans in Congress refuse to pass any laws to help but rather become ever more complicit in the betrayal all of us are experiencing, as Democrats actively undo the compact FDR made with America and take the things Republicans have done even further, I see hope dying, see trust in government eroding. So many people walk around now with a look in their eyes that I have only ever seen in those who have suffered extreme trauma.

It is not hard to see what the future holds for us; it is as grim as any time we have ever faced as a nation. At the founding, in the years before the civil war, during the depression . . . it is like all of those rolled into one. I see no people of the caliber of the Founders, no Washington, no Lincoln, no FDR. All I can see is systemic collapse, riots, severe economic depression, and war. I grieve for my country and what could have been.

Expand full comment

Chris closes this essay with a stark and startling truth, "We don’t matter." We are trained to believe we live in a civilized culture, and that the civilization is what makes the culture livable; but the civilization we have is based and dependent upon domination, above all else. This belief is what allowed the Europeans to view this land as a place of endless potential; perfect for seeding a new Europe. All that was needed was to dominate and eradicate the uncooperative indigenous inhabitants, who didn't matter; and then to bring in indentured servants (dominated serfs and peasants) and dominated slaves, who also didn't matter; to clear and work the lands on behalf of the feudal masters. Nothing has changed, other than that the industrial revolution created technologies that allow for much easier and more efficient domination. The bulk of the population is descended from the serfs, peasants, and slaves who were brought in to clear and work the lands. That many of us may now have college degrees means nothing. From the perspective of the ruling class, we are still here to perform tasks on their behalf. The mindset of the ruling class of this civilization is domination, domination, and domination. It has not changed, and never will. We don't matter.

Expand full comment

More kids died from side effects of the mRNA vaccine SO FAR THIS YEAR than in all the years since Columbine. If we want to save children, let's don't poison them.

Expand full comment
Jun 6, 2022·edited Jun 6, 2022

A different perspective offered by Bret Weinstein, and one that resonates with me after the last 2+ years, having seen what an initial descent into tyranny could look like. Very different to my opinions 2 years ago. https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-liberal-case-for-gun-ownership-1/

Expand full comment

Continue the good work Chris. It would seem there is a direct connection to the amoral Pentagon military budget that is supported by both the Democratic and Republican parties, the violence we see in our domestic shootings all tied together neatly by the Dave Grossman types that promote the philosophy of killology to our ever growing military police departments?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PwEYhIX4cbM

Expand full comment