In light of what happened in the Rittenhouse trial, it seems like a lot of people might be thinking they can use guns with impunity against protestors. We need to change that. There needs to be more work on techniques that enable people who have normal strength and are not Tarzan or Pete’s Dragon can go after the guns of yahoos and Rittenhouse and break them, like, yesterday.
And I know that’s not easy for anyone. But what makes it harder is the near-complete lack of information on how to efficiently destroy guns that I find when I search “how to destroy a gun” in multiple iterations. And there is this thing on how to destroy it so it’s not still legally a firearm — but if you are breaking someone else’s gun as a defense, whether it is still legally a firearm or not would be of no concern to you — the real concern for a person defending themselves and others against someone else’s gun is whether it’s a functional firearm or not. If it doesn’t fire, then a person cannot use it against unarmed protestors.
I have thought of some basic ideas. One, trap it in some sort of modified net (requires invention of a technology but not undoable since net guns already exist, and would require that the gun mostly be wrestled out of the person’s hand before breaking it). Two, grab it near the trigger part and bust it with a hammer, using pliers for leverage (where the real frustrating part is that we don’t know the minimum strength needed to bust a rifle that way, which we would if society had as much interest in destroying other people’s guns as they did in owning them). Three, which I have rejected due to near-complete lack of technology (though maybe it could be available in the future), use some kind of foam that jams up the machinery, then a sufficiently strong person wrestles the gun out of a person’s hand (not likely since the one foam I saw takes an hour to dry, so useless).
I know any of those ideas (number one OR number two) would need some training — basic self-defense training at the very least, seriously advanced training at most. And maybe there are better ideas out there — those need to be thought of and worked on, like, yesterday, at least by folks who are already trained fighters if nothing else, because when someone totes an assault rifle around at a protest, if nobody is able to break their gun, it is a lot harder to stop unnecessary carnage at said protest. But if someone is able to break their gun — even once or twice — that would send a message to them about how maybe their firearms aren't the guaranteed protectors they think they are, and how maybe they should think twice about taking their guns to a protest, where there would be more likely to be people on hand who are explicitly prepared to break guns if needed (as opposed to somewhere like the grocery store, where people just want to shop).
Saturday, Nov 20, 2021 · 4:43:52 AM +00:00
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Shoelace Girl
Update: Given the feedback I’ve gotten so far, suggesting such a thing is impossible, consider this: Ever hear of the claims that a “good guy with a gun” could stop a school shooting? And the fact that somehow, mysteriously, in the real world, all these “good guys with guns”, including Navy SEALS, do not always manage to stop the shooters? The shooters aren’t immune to the psychological limitations that prevent the “good guys with guns” from being an effective deterrent, either.
And if someone learned the as-yet-undeveloped techniques that can do that (after someone else developed them, of course), and they used it, even if they too have psychological limitations, their opponent has the same limitations, and as such, they would have at least a chance of pulling it off. Especially if they trained with realistic feedback (think the cop training scenes in Zootopia, the “you’re dead” from someone who won’t hold back with the feedback) so that they know immediately when the technique would fail IRL, which would allow for refinement of said technique for greater chances of success.
And if they train that way, and succeed, especially if they practice to the point of getting it right multiple times, on someone who knows that this technique is going to be used, they have a chance of doing this IRL. Or even sending a message just by posting multiple successful implementations of such a technique on social media (ideally disguised so any shooters won’t know who might know how to do this — you don’t want the shooter to know in advance who knows such a technique after it was developed).
Saturday, Nov 20, 2021 · 6:17:30 PM +00:00
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Shoelace Girl
Update 2: Now that I actually did see people who read the actual idea and who didn’t seem to be just folks who were emotionally reacting, it looks like this isn’t a useful protest tactic. However, this thread did produce a number of useful strategies that could come in handy if we actually did enter a civil war. Ways to undermine, at any rate, unattended weapons. And little things like this do matter in war, because a number of little things like this add up and can sway the outcome of said war.