Freedom to bear arms under Libertarian Communism?

Your questions are hard to answer without knowing what kind of Libertarian Communist/Anarchist society we're talking about. I'll try my best to give an answer for some of these questions though. For 1 whether or not firearms would be needed they would be wanted and more or less demanded. Now we are talking about a stateless free society, a society that isn't under the oppression of something/someone(s) above them in an artificial system. Firearms will probably still be used for hunting (NOT for the sport of it,) If we are talking about a commune then said commune has a need to protect itself and it's occupants whether it be from stated societies or other communes. The human race is far from being united to the point where we can stop being a self-destructive species, seemingly obsessed with killing ourselves.

The only difference between a weapon and a tool is how you use it.

Switzerland is about the most heavily armed nation on Earth yet they have negligible murder rate. Violence seems to have a lot to do with culture.

I have owned guns and I wouldn't really regard any society that tells me I can;t as libertarian.

The main problem with guns though is you can get rid of most crime, you can get rid of most violence but you can't get rid of the odd nutjob who's going to run through town with an automatic rifle trying to kill as many people as possible........ without an armed police force patrolling the place, who stops him?

Culture is important here.

To achieve communism will require nothing short of a revolution and such a revolution would require an armed working class - and as that revolutionary population would then be 'in charge' then there would be no one 'above' them to hand their weapons into.

Also, a communist revolution would only come about if a large, significantly class conscious section of the working class wanted it to and were prepared to fight for and defend it. But to ever get to that stage would take years of struggle combined with actually building a revolutionary movement. In other words, mass politicisation of our class - organisation, agitation and loads of proletarian education.

Sure, if tomorrow, everyone in Britain had a gun, it would be pure mental and I'd get the fuck out of here because there is no real class consciousness and very little solidarity to speak of. However, if we were in a situation with an armed, revolutionary and class conscious working class, then that'd be a different kettle of fish.

Fixed.

???

Yeah, as you say, 'the revolutionary population would then be 'in charge' then there would be no one 'above' them to hand their weapons into'.

The 'rev. pop.' being the Commune, of course. But no 'individuals' being 'in charge' of their own weapons, of course, without prior sanction of their Commune, of which the 'individual' wishing to 'bear arms' would be a member, have a vote, and have to apply to.

This is Libertarian Communism, not the fuckin' Wild West.

Bloody pedant.

Yep, I agree. I wouldn't like to see any post revolutionary libertarian communist society rammed full of gun-toting eejits running wild either. Accountability is everything.

If I can't run around like a gun-toting idiot, it's not my revolution.

We'll let you have a water pistol.

Err, perhaps our good comrade Birthday Pony could field this one?

Surely another difference is the motivation/mental state/aims of the 'eejit' wielding... err, the user wielding the 'tool'?

Who decides what's acceptable usage? The 'bearer' of the arm, or the society producing the arm?

Nothing is defined unilaterally. Language would be quite a clusterfuck if it could be.

As others have said, culture is key. In the US gun-culture is a mostly right-wing construction, so you've got a bunch of crazies convinced that liberals are coming to steal their bibles and abort their babies. Then there's the tactical-fetishism, where people are buying multiple ARs for badass points. Not a healthy culture for guns. The most unhealthy part of gun-culture in the US is that guns are viewed as toys that kill, depreciating its potential social value.

In some areas, however, you've got a pretty reasonable and class-conscious group of people with arms. They're not marching down the street armed, and they're not creating crazy conspiracies, but they're learning how to use a firearm as a tool while appreciate its capability as a weapon. That's a healthy gun-culture.

As it stands, what most people define as use as a tool involves survival or production. Using a hammer to frame a house or a gun to hunt in order to feed yourself pretty much qualifies as use as a tool. Using a hammer to bash someone's head in or a gun to assault someone qualifies as use as weaponry.

The pivotal moment in culture is when people view the use of arms against the state as a simultaneous function of its properties as a tool and weapon. A tool in the sense that it is necessary for successful revolt, and a weapon in the most obvious sense.

It does not take a meeting and codified law to realize what is and is not responsible use of a tool, just as it doesn't take a law to define what the definition of 'is' is. It's a construction of culture, which should be the starting point for any revolutionary moment. If the pretext of this entire discussion is that we have achieved libertarian communism, then held within that assumption is that we have a culture where the social value of tools is realized. It is a contradiction in terms to suggest that there will be gun-toting eejits just as much as it would be that there would be printing-press-toting eejits. If the means of production have been successfully socialized, then there is no need, outside of collecting for historical value, education, or just for shits, to continue producing or using value-less tools.

The question of how we achieve a cultural shift is more interesting.

I hope you don't mean Switzerland as being class conscious and well behaved with guns BP, because it's one of the least class conscious populations in the world.

No, I mean pockets in the US. They hardly make up the entire "gun-culture," but there are definitely armed radicals.

When the radical left arm gun control tends to pop up (surprise surprise).

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/8608/

Here's an interesting article about the Black Panthers being armed and the reactionary gun control laws to restrict their ability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehr_und_Wehr_Verein Here's another example of gun control laws being used to counter left militias

I'm sure that we both realise that this discussion about 'bearing arms' is only a subset of a wider issue, Birthday Pony.

In that wider sense as well, I disagree with your statement, above. I think that it will take conscious meetings and codified social rules to define what is, and isn't, socially responsible (and the meaning of 'is' is defined by society). Though, as you correctly say, that will all be part of a self-conscious 'construction of a Communist culture'...

There are certainly hard cases, and it's good to agree to mutual guidelines in those cases, but they are not geographically uniform. Areas with low rates of alcoholism probably won't need special meetings on dealing with alcoholism, while communities with higher rates may.

If your premise is culture, and your conclusion is the institution, then we agree. If your premise is the institution and your conclusion is culture, then you're going to have a hard time doing much.

We both agree that things are produced socially. That has never been a point of contention as far as I'm concerned.

Yup. The NRA wrote the first modern gun control law.

Militia law in the US is also slanted against leftist militias. Basically, the only legal militia is a nationalist/constitutionalist militia that must respond to a call to arms by the governor of their state and is the first in line for deputization in a state of emergency.

The right-wing in the US has done an amazing job making sure that the armed population is a predominantly nationalist force.

An interesting point that is briefly explored in the Vietnam documentary 'In The Year Of The Pig' is the almost total arming of the population of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). The point made by the American aide worker/academic doing the narrating at that point was that the entire civilian population was armed, the implication being that at any time they could forcibly overthrow 'their' government, leaders, etc. if they so desired Although the imperialist war, M-L party 'united front'/'popular front'/'NLF' etc are all part of the context, I think the examples of Hungary and Germany 1918-1919 make the same argument. Inparticular the arming of the worker's militias in Berlin by the USPD police chief and the Hungarian soldier's refusing to follow any order without it being signed off by the Budapest Soldier's Council after the establishment of the so-called 'workers government' of the SD and CP. The spontaneous establishment of Red Guards along with the Factory Committee's in Russia during the early days of the October Revolution are also relevant.

Widespread arming of the revolutionary or proto-revolutionary working-class is necessary as a measure of accountability, acutely during the transitional phase between everyday class struggle and confrontational, class conscious, armed class struggle. It's likely that it would take many years for a near total cultural change from the psychological and social shackles of capitalist society to socialism. Ideally guns would lose their connotation, cultural and militaristic, after a complete transition to socialism/communism (i.e. the withering away of all classes including the proletariat etc). But I don't see this as a near term event after a successful working-class international revolution.

That in mind, widespread arming of the working-class is probably a necessity even after a 'successful' international revolution due to the fragility of social and political consciousness. Vietnam, Germany, Hungary and Russia bearing fruit to that point as well. Its been brought up in other threads before about the risks of regression even after a successful, international working-class revolution against capitalism and nation-statehood. The risks posed by reactionary ideology, reactionary capabilities of organized religions, even in the context of worker's control of the means of production and the establishment of worker's councils, communes, etc. Maoists, Islamic/Christian/Jewish/Mormon/Sikh/etc fundamentalists, these people and ideas (and others like them) will not disappear, and will likely pose a bigger threat post-revolution than a return of the bourgeoisie. What is the working class of Nepal, Peru, Indonesia, etc to do about the Maoists who may become leaders of councils, committees and communes? What is the working-class of the American West to do about the power of the LDS who may assert influence and dominance among largely Mormon areas through the new means of political and social expression?

Unless these kinds of ideologies and dogmas are wiped away, I don't think we can call it socialism/communism. Would it be acceptable to let religious or political fundamentalism run councils, committees and communes in pockets of the world? Does the most advanced sections of the international working-class sacrifice part of its own class, the petit-bourgeoisie, declassed, peasantry, etc to these ideologies in parts of the world? Let them return to barbarism even after wage slavery and the state are abolished?

Mass arming of the working-class is, I think, the only stopgap post-revolution against letting parts of humanity slide into the worst excesses of barbarism, even if 'some' may 'democratically' choose to live under such conditions. I dunno, just my 2 cents.

If there weren't guns easily available then how would he have one in the first place?
How many crimes have been stopped by armed citizens? There have been a few cases with mass shootings where civilians have helped using their own weapons, but on the whole being armed has made little difference. Take into account the fact that you are armin the nutjobs in the first place and the risks of accidental deaths etc then it hardly seems like a good idea to have guns. I think arming the proletariat is a useful thing to do and creating workers' militias is good, but ultimately I don't think we should have easy access to guns and I don't think we reallly need it either.

How would you police not having guns then? How would you know I or anyone hasn't secretly got a gun at home?

I agree, jef, with the first half of your statement and I should think all Libertarian Communists would, but the second half depends on the definition of ‘we’.

In contrast, I do think ‘we should have easy access to guns’ and I do think ‘we really need it’.

But my ‘we’ is the collectively organised, democratically-controlled workers’ organisations, not ‘we’ as individuals. In other words, arms must be under Communist control.

Even the military today don’t have weapons constantly in the control of individuals, unless in a combat situation. Weapons are centrally stored under the care of an arms storekeeper, are centrally maintained in good order by armourers, and have to be ‘signed out’ by the individuals when required for the purposes of the organisation, not on the whims of the individual soldiers.

In the same way, I would imagine a workers’ militia would hold weapons under their democratic control. Obviously, under the ‘combat conditions’ of the class struggle, weapons would be largely under the control of the worker wielding them. But as the class struggle recedes and peaceful Communist conditions emerge, then I would expect all weaponry to be kept under democratic, communal control. ‘Individual’ usage would then be under the sanction of the Commune.

But as Birthday Pony has outlined, ‘culture’ would play a big part in what’s considered by any Commune to be a ‘justifiable’ reason for an individual to be armed.

"Freedom." "Control." "Police." "Justifiable." There sure are a lot of curious words in this thread.

I don't know what flavor of authoritarianism this is, but you're certainly not putting on a very convincing lib/anarcho act. Do you buy into the statist argument that humans cannot be trusted without an outside force to control them? Are you truly so hypocritical?

You can have my weapon over my dead body.

No, I buy into the Communist argument that all societies have an outside force beyond the individual, and I want to collectively and democratically control that social force, the Commune. I'm not an 'individualist anarchist' who buries their head in the sand about this fundamental human fact: we're social animals, not bourgeois constructs.

Are you truly so uneducated about history, philosophy, anthropology...

...and nature, time and biology?

We'll arrange for the undying Commune to collect it, then, eh? Cheers.

I consider my self as a communist yet I don't find C's argument there individualist at all. There's something about firearms that makes people think something special about them.

First of all, many tools can be used as weapons. It is easy to construct weapons and even firearms given access to the industrial complex. In a communist world I would imagine if one would like to build something like a firearm, it won't be so hard, as it doesn't need a lot of resources. In fact, even today, if you'd like to, you can build one for yourself with a lathe and some pieces of metal. I can imagine, that in a world where the productive power of the people doesn't depend on employment, people would mostly free to pursue their own interest, including some who are interested in firearms, or weaponry in general.

A communistic society relies on the autonomy of the individuals as much as their collective power. For that end, people should be taught to defend themselves by hand, and use the most effective tools in combat situations too. And to adjust to any weapon, you need to be familiar with it as much as possible. It doesn't make much difference from this point of view that whether it is knife, sword, catapult, bow, an assault rifle or a hunting weapon.

Jeff, I think your suggestion of "democratic control" over weapons is really dangerous path. I don't get started on the "democratic control" in itself at this time, but I have serious trouble with that too. But even if I ignore my theoretical objections to democratism, there are worrying issues with picture of the militia you painted above, especially your analogy taken from the current armed forces. The reason why soldiers aren't allowed to carry their guns at all time is due to the nature of these armed forces. These are specialised forces, with limited rights compared to other citizens. For example, they aren't allowed to go wherever they want, and they have to take regular, intensive exercises with their weapons. Now, in a communistic society where the social division of labour is abolished, or in a movement that is prefigures these new social relations I can't imagine that you would like to build militias on the same principles. Worker's militias aren't separated organisation, it is the same organisation that also deal with social experimentation, production, and so on; thus they can not be limited in a similar fashion as soldiers. In this scenario there's no practical reason to cut off the individuals from their familiar weaponry, and it makes more sense to keep it in the possession of the individual, as these communes/militias aren't there for limiting their participants from joining to other collectives, and so on. Of course, it doesn't mean that everyone is allowed to bear weapons at any time. But in a commune where everything is done involving the rest of the commune, enforcing rules like strip someone from his weaponry while drinking or other drugs doesn't require "democratic control", only a handful sober member of the collective (who are also armed anyway, so if one goes nuts, they can intervene by force if necessary).

the Communist argument that all societies have an outside force beyond the individual

fucking clueless...

Can you explain a bit more?

Most of the history of humankind is stateless and its THE bourgeois argument par excellence that all societies have states, not the communist. first because its a lie and second because its not an argument but a simple statement of necessity WITHOUT ARGUMENT. LBird's actual argument is this: "Are you truly so uneducated about history, philosophy, anthropology..." authority arguments are no arguments. the bourgeois argument of state necessity for humankind is always directed at hiding the REASON for authority (that is social relations and their purpose) and masks it as a nature's necessity per se and there is no argument for that and thats why people making that "argument" have to come up with foul play like LBird above.

To be fair I don't think LBird is arguing for a state, he didn't use the word. He said Commune, which I take to be the people you grow up amongst, live with, and share "local conditions" with. Surely people who share local conditions should have some kind of say in what those conditions are - as a group. So if your commune wants weaponry locked away then I suppose that's what should happen, but you'd be free to make the case for not doing so. How persuasive are you?*

Personally I think "my" commune would have sufficient social cohesion to ensure that (a) guns were treated with respect and (b) nutters were detected (surely this is possible!) before they went on a spree. So I wouldn't see a particular need to lock all the guns away.

* and how do we stop Communism becoming a dictatorship of the persuasive? Off topic I know. There should be a separate box in the Edit Comment page for tangentially related topics like this which may or may not trigger discussion; if some number of replies are received to the tangentially related topic, a new thread could be automatically created. This would allow natural progression of discussion while keeping individual threads focused.