Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that Obama would love to establish himself as a dictator, although he would probably rationalize it as for the nation’s good but I also have no doubt there have been other Presidents who have secretly harbored this desire. Roosevelt came the closest to succeeding but we fixed that flaw with a constitutional amendment.

There is a very simple way to counter Obama.

It doesn’t involve the impractical romanticism of stock-piling ammo and weapons for God knows what.

It doesn’t involve worrying about hypothetical events of which there are plenty of strong, well thought out institutional safeguards to prevent.

It doesn’t involve blaming others for our failure to act.

It is this mundane plan: In the next campaign and election get behind whoever is the Republican nominee and enthusiastically campaign for that person and their running mate – even if that candidate is “wishy-washy” and not deemed by you as an ideal representative of your particular brand of conservatism.

Even if Ann Coulter says not to vote for them.

Even if Limbaugh bad-mouths them.

Even if Michelle Malkin has a fit(BTW she IS cute).

Even if Laura Ingraham makes snide remarks about them.

And poof! No more Obama.

It would also be nice if we could get some more Republicans into Congress in 2010 to hold the fort until the rascal can be kicked out of the Whitehouse.

All this hinges of course on the hope that the Republicans and others who dislike and oppose Obama can quit the self-destructive behavior of the post-Reagan years epitomized by the poor showing in the last election.

Our system is finely tuned and ruthlessly self-maintaining. It forces individuals and organizations to make choices, adapt and sometimes compromise.

Sooner or later, sometimes brutally, it discards those who continue to demonstrate they do not have these capacities, who become side-tracked, cannot face reality or keep holding on to comforting or exciting illusions.

It happened to Jimmy Carter. It happened to Gerald Ford. It happened to the elder Bush. It happened to Newt Gingrich. It happened to McGovern and McCarthy. It happened to the Whigs. It happened to the South. It happened to many in our history and if the Republican Party is not careful it will happen to it.

I am arguing that Obama & Co.—if unchecked—will try to establish a regime totally different in “kind” i.e. if they “come for you” that won’t worry too much if they rough you up pretty bad or put you in the hospital, and if they kill you–no big deal–and as for your lawyer—look in the cell next to you.

Yeah, me too. But I need some believable evidence before I start barricading the doors.

Answer to question #2: I campaigned for McCain. Not real enthusiastically.

Too bad about the lack of enthusiasm. Going to react the same in the next Presidential election if your favored Republican doesn’t win the nomination?

My concern for on-line ammo purchases has nothing to do with disdain for the quality of the product, which I don’t doubt is very high. It has to do with potential monitoring of electronic transactions. Gun show ammo is sealed, manufacturer-packaged, trade-marked, high-quality brand-name merchandise. In case you didn’t know. Check it out sometime.

In the past I’ve seen a LOT of home-bagged ammo at the gun shows. Usually in mesh bags, it’s seemed to have been plentiful at every gun show(dozens?) I’ve ever attended. I will have to admit, though, that I haven’t really shopped for ammo at gun shows for years so a gun show ammo shortage could easily have escaped my notice.

There’s also been some ammo that LOOKS like sealed, manufacturer-packaged, trade-marked, high-quality brand-name merchandise and most, even all of it, is probably good stuff but I can go to flea markets(a gun show is really just a specialized flea market – at least the ones in my area) and buy handbags that LOOK like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. and other merchandise that LOOKS authentic but is actually made in Mexico, or Guatemala, etc. I guess my paranoia takes a different turn than yours, Betsy.

I used to buy the mesh bags but someone pointed out that home reloaded ammo wasn’t always reliable. I switched to Sports Authority-bought ammo first and later mostly to online sources and indeed I do get better results on the range. Less stovepipes, misfires and tighter groupings. It could be the gun-owner version of the placebo effect but there it is.

I find your “electronic transactions” aversion interesting. Care to elaborate?

Lastly, let’s look at the big picture for a moment. This tango between gun owners and gun outlawers has been going on since before Obama was born and will probably continue with constant variation long after we have all gone to meet our reward.

You say the latest dance means Obama is acting like a potential dictator – to me it’s just the usual Liberal campaign against the 2nd Amendment. What would be unusual is if a Democrat Whitehouse and Democrat Congress DIDN’T try some sort of gun control shenanigans.

This line of debate began because a commentor put “government intrusion in private gun ownership” on a list. But gun laws have trended toward the freer end of the spectrum in recent years. That’s a fact. As for the ammo shortage, which I’m not denying – 2 things:

It’s a good thing I’m not intending to fight a war and don’t need huge amounts of ammo. I have guns as a hobby and for self defense against naughty civilians – not to hold off the Marines.

The corollary: If the government ever does decide to come after me a room full of ammo probably isn’t going to help me. I’ll come out with my hands up and get a lawyer after they book me.

I believe that if Obama wants to go after guns he will try an indirect approach, similar to what was tried in the first few weeks of his administration, when a change in an arcane DOD procurement rule would have required that used military brass be melted down and sold for scrap rather than sold to companies who recycled this brass into ammo for the police and civilian markets. At the time several major ammunition manufacturers said that if the change went into effect they would immediately be put out of business, with the effect that ammunition would be much more hard to find and much more expensive.

I suspect that this indirect approach is the kind of thing Obma & Co. might try again in the future.

Answer to question #1: I’m always at least concerned. Eternal vigilance and all that.

Answer to question #2: I campaigned for McCain. Not real enthusiastically.

My concern for on-line ammo purchases has nothing to do with disdain for the quality of the product, which I don’t doubt is very high. It has to do with potential monitoring of electronic transactions.

Gun show ammo is sealed, manufacturer-packaged, trade-marked, high-quality brand-name merchandise. In case you didn’t know. Check it out sometime.

Of course if the government decides to go after gun ownership(or any other behavior) there are various obvious methods that the government could use. But that said, isn’t this another case of elevating the obvious to a position of undeserved significance?

The battle between us gun-owners and the Progressives will no doubt continue for many years. That’s why I’m a member of the NRA, which is great organization that looks out for the 2nd Amendment.

The commentor prefers to buy her ammo off the tables of gun shows, where ammo is apparently in short supply, disdaining reputable on-line sources where there seems to be no significant shortage, which a quick search of Cabela’s confirms. That’s her right, of course.

For me the problem with buying off the tables at gun shows is that you can never be sure how old the ammo is or who manufactured the ammo, which could have been put together in the seller’s basement.

But my original point was in response to a commentor including “government intrusion in private gun ownership” on a list the purpose of which the commentator never got around to revealing but was apparently intended to illustrate the commentor’s feeling that Obama is about to institute a dictatorship upon the USA. In response I had to point out that the trend in recent years is toward FREER gun laws. I don’t see that trend reversing anytime soon but time will tell.

But I want to ask the worriers: If John McCain were President would you be worrying about a dictatorship at this moment?

Next question: Did you campaign enthusiastically for McCain after he won the nomination?

and i do think that to some i now am understandable to whom i wasnt before.

note that i dont advocate any solution, just trying to describe the problem.

oh and that we are this time on the inside where all other analysis we are used to is from the outside.

i do not advocate weapons (especially those who are not versed in their usage), or extreme negative acts. they tend to be counter productive in most cases.

i have no idea how the end will play out, sometimes it works, sometimes it dont, and usually whatever does it is not something sitting there easy to see like a log in the road.

and as close as i can get to describing the real situation, it doesnt really carry more answers than the other musings. it would take one heck of a whipsaw to get such a values change. and to have that and not have that end up in more negative forms of the same thing would be suprising.

one thing i CAN say is that the ball is in play. otherwise our willingness to talk and write letters and participate and even discuss things that are only relevent (ammo purchases) in a tiny way, as if it gets to that, the outcome would no longer matter since it would facilitate the burning of the cultural ships. it would take a sea change to how we view other people to facilitate such behavior.

we shall see folks, one way or another, we shall see.

No, a well-stocked citizen such as you obviously are has no need to put anyone on.

However, in our neighborhood the recent shows and, especially, the firearms shops have been very low lately. As you may or may not know, in March, the DOD temporarily ceased the sale of used military brass, which adversely affected the supply of certain calibers. It may have been nothing significant, or it may have been a trial balloon. The point is that you don’t need to ban firearms to upset usage patterns and restrict availability.

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/NRA_ammo_shortages/2009/03/19/193903.html

Stockpiling has also been a factor in documented shortages, there’s no doubt about that.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/04/ammo.shortage/index.html

http://www.wtov9.com/news/19561011/detail.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-29-ammo-shortage_N.htm

We’d be in a fair bit of a mess if the trade were to be driven underground.

Locally, we’ve had a good deal of trouble both at shows and shops finding numerous popular rounds, and talks with friends confirm the situation.

I, myself, am not quite comfortable with buying on-line, although there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with doing so.

My point of course is that, should the feds try to elide local and state carry and shall-issue laws, there are ways for them to do so, and the current shortages (and yes, there have been such shortages, whatever your personal arsenal may be) illustrate that. They can always try to approach a supply other than the actual firearms. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others have proposed, over some time, ceasing attempts to control firearms and focusing on high ammo taxes.

It’s a little like the not-entirely crazy notion that the Fairness Doctrine is not the only way to muzzle talk radio. Administration members have quite openly contemplated using diversity regulations and local-content rules as a different approach:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2009/08/06/new-fcc-chief-diversity-officer-co-wrote-liberal-groups-structural-imb

The contemplation of such novel routes for gaining control of multiple areas of commerce suggests some degree of determination, wouldn’t you agree?

You seem to think that the notion of a coup is ridiculous on its face. I think otherwise, and, in the current situation, we should not be prepared to ignore any possibility. As I’ve suggested several times, we’d be foolish to rule out ANYTHING from the people now in charge. I think you might agree that it’s not as though there are no warning signs.

I’m well stocked at the moment although I will may need some 9mm Luger FMJ in 2 or 3 months. A quick Google of my usual online suppliers shows Cabela’s, Able’s and MidwayUSA all having a variety of brands in stock. I was at a gun show 2 months ago and saw tables full of ammo of all types for sale but I usually buy ammo online – or at sporting goods stores – I’ve found it to be a more reliable product than gun show offerings. I almost bought a used Taurus Model 1911ss .45 ACP pistol at the gun show. I’ve never owned a 1911 and the Taurus is a beautiful weapon. But … never more than one gun per year and I purchased a NEF pump 12 gauge only a few months ago.

Does anyone here imagine that, if Obama’s approval numbers drop into the basement (where they appear to be headed) and he doesn’t get his legislative agenda passed on the first or second go-rounds, he is going to pick up his marbles, pack up his tents, and go home?

Well, I don’t know … try a third go-round? What does the commentor think Obama would do? Pull a coup?

Thank-you betsybounds, “commenter” Grackle is (obviously) putting us on…

Naw. I wouldn’t do that.