October 22, 2021 • 40 mins
A roundtable discussion on armed community self-defense.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, your favorite podcast are also
legally the only podcaster that that people are allowed to
enjoy on the internet. Here to introduce a really exciting
episode of it could happen here. So for the last
bit of time, I've been in and out of touch
with a number of members of the Puget Sound John
Brown Club. They have provided armed self defense groups for
(00:26):
a couple of different protests in the Washington area over
the last year and change, UM, and we wanted to
sit down and talk to them about the ideas behind
community self defense, how to do it responsibly, how to
do it irresponsibly. We also had some discussions with them
about the disasters that happened at the Chop Slash Chaz
last year. They were not involved with that as an organization, UM,
(00:48):
but they have some insights on the matter. UM. That's
going to be coming at you in a separate episode
or maybe even a couple of episodes in the near future. Today,
we're just kind of talking about the concepts of armed
community solf defense. You know, what's responsible, what's irresponsible, how
people should think about it. I think you'll enjoy the
conversation here. It is a decent chunk of the folks listening,
(01:09):
especially the Portlanders, will have experience with UH and that
that Garrison and I have certainly had experienced with. It
is people at protests declaring themselves security, sometimes even wearing
shirts that say security, and picking up a variety of
weapons off in paintball guns and mace, and using them
often irresponsibly on other protesters, on on bystanders in the
(01:32):
name of of of keeping things safe. And UM, I
think we're pretty clear, and I think most reasonable people
can see that that's not community self defense, but often
those people UH certainly claim that what they're doing is
community self defense. UM. And I'm specifically wanting to start
by getting a kind of a range of definitions from
(01:53):
folks as you are, all people who have engaged in
community self defense, UM, and particularly armed communities self defense.
What do you see as the actual role of community
self defense and how should it look as opposed to,
you know, a guy with a paintball gun yelling at
kids for tagging a window. Ray You wanna you want
(02:14):
to kick us off with an answer there, I do
community defense should be part of the a broad health
and safety infrastructure set up for a protest movement or
a community being deliberately vague here, but specifically armed. Community
defense deals with mitigating lethal and egregious harm to members
(02:36):
of a community. The goal is forced and foremost prevention,
mitigation and control of those threats. In my mind, ideally
community defense would involve no one doing anything, carrying around
a bunch of really heavy ship and nothing happening, but
deterring those from harming others. In the absolute worst case,
(02:56):
it means you have to actually do something that can
get messy pretty coally. I want to circle back to
a couple of things. Actually, I do have one one
quick follow up question for you before we move on
to the next people. Ray, When you say like carrying
heavy things and whatnot, I'm wondering what do you think.
I'm interested in you and I'll probably ask other people
to follow up when it when it comes to carrying
(03:16):
and bringing a firearm to either a protest situation some
other community self defense situation, what it is going through
your head when you determine what to bring. Because I've
seen people carry a variety of different guns from like
shotguns and in one case is of mos and negat
to a r S or handguns. Um, what do you
think is kind of the the logic train. I guess
(03:37):
that you would take, like, what is the appropriate tool
to bring like in this situation? So that depends entirely
on what the anticipated threat is and how one plans
to mitigate the anticipated threat. There's no correct answer for that.
Sometimes the answer to mitigate lethal or regious bodily harm
is not a firearm at all. Indeed, firearms are applicable
(03:59):
in an extraordiny early narrow range of scenarios, but those
range of scenarios are catastrophic and need extreme measures to
be mitigated. So it depends on what if you are
considering bringing firearm, what is the firearm good at? And
then you get into the minutia of what firearm is
good for what thing, which depends on your legal context
(04:19):
and particular threat. But I think one has to start
with the question is is the thing I'm bringing able
to mitigate the type of harm I might see happen
to my community? And to get a little bit less vague,
there are people who think that bringing a shotgun is
a good way to stop a car speeding into a
crowd when it clearly isn't right. So one has to
(04:40):
make sure that the tool, whatever they have is you
is appropriate for the task at hand and the threat
you anticipate. That was great, Thank you, Ray, Um Katie
you want to you want to give us your answer next.
I agree with everything that Race said, and the only
addition that I'd make is that, UM, it's specifically are
in our cases generally doesn't mean standing between protesters and police,
(05:07):
but more guiding protesters, you know, our activists or participants
away from potential situations of harm. It's like, we can't
stand in front of police and stop cops from doing
their job. Like that just gets you arrested and uh
or worse or worse, and that's not what we're here for.
(05:28):
So yeah, that's all I wanted to, could you, because
I have chatted with a couple of your number about this,
about UM kind of the role that that an armed
contingent at a protest can play in kind of allowing
an avenue of retreat, you know, especially during confrontations with
non state actors. UM, I'm interested in kind of what
(05:50):
you um, you know, you're not You're not to kind
of as you did, kind of kind of clarify this conception.
You don't see your role as standing in front of
the protesters between them the cops and like presenting the
threat to the cops. What is the utility and kind
of an active protest situation that you've seen of of
of what y'all do. So that's a good question. And um,
(06:12):
if we're doing our job well, then most people think
we don't do anything at all. Um. A lot of
what we do is we're watching external potential threats who
might try to come in. The most common factor these
days is a car um But generally we're looking for
folks that might cause trouble and finding ensuring that we're
(06:32):
not putting ourselves in a position where we're gonna get
cornered or trapped, and and really you know, just trying
to help facilitate and work with the facilitators and organizers
to keep things, you know, progressing in a safe way.
So as far as what we're protecting against threat wise,
that that ranges from everything from like angry people who
(06:53):
are just angry and trying to go home and getting
blocked by a protest too, people who are who are
actively looking to do harm to a movement that happens
to be involved in the protests, or you know, maybe
it's something as as as specific as a person who's
looking to specifically do harm to UH organizers. So most
(07:17):
of the time it's we're focused outward and and just
making sure that our exits are are covered and that
we have ways to get people away from potential bad situations. UM,
that was great, Thank you, Katie Shannon, you want to
give your answer, it absolutely thanks. I would add there's
a really critical element to community defense that begins and
(07:40):
ends with the word community. Obviously, there's a big difference
between proclaiming yourself security and showing up someplace and being
there as an intentional community support where the community plays
a role in you being there and also has some
influence on that question of what are you carrying and
what is the response. I think it's just really important
(08:02):
that you keep the community aspect at the forefront, and
that's a huge part of our collective work is making
sure that when we're providing community defense, we're aligning ourselves
with the desires of the community group that has asked
(08:25):
us to be there, also filtering it through our judgment
as to what's safe and appropriate under the circumstances. Using
some of those filters that Ray mentioned when they were
answering and what do you see as like like, this
is something that I kind of gets to both what
(08:47):
what is an issue with me? And kind of the
folks who declare themselves a security, which is that they're
often kind of separating themselves from the rest of the movement,
specifically in a cop like way to say like, well,
it's my job to keep you save, even that that means,
or it's my job to keep things order leaven if
that means attacking some other people at this protest. One
of the things that Scott Crowe in is uh in
(09:08):
Setting Sights, which is a really good book on community
self defense, does is set out that, um, a key
aspect of community self defense, as you said, is that
you're like a member of the community. And I think,
I guess the question I have is because guns are
what they are and have the kind of cultural weight
that they have, it's you people are always people who
(09:32):
accept being armed as an aspect of their personality are
always going to be kind of fighting having that dominate
their personality. And it wouldn't. It's clearly something that a
lot of people have an issue with. The thing that
is important is to be a member of the community
who happens to be armed, as opposed to an armed
(09:53):
activist whose whose role is being armed, right, Like I
I mean, do you agree with what I'm saying or
and like I'm wondering how you think about it, because
this is something that I'm kind of going around in
my head about as well, because it's it's it's clearly
where a lot of the problems happen, right that the
gun becomes central to the identity of the people who
bring it, which is something that happens to the cops. Yes,
(10:16):
and also the mentality of separating yourself from the community
and not being part of the purpose of being there.
And so I'll defer to my my comrades here to
go a little bit further with it, but I would
just say that there's a significant difference between armed community
(10:37):
defense and having an intentional presence of armed community defense
at an event or protest and being a person who
shows up with a gun. Those are two really different things,
and so I think that's the that's one of the
benefits of being part of an organization that does this collectively,
(11:02):
with accountability, with training, with a known role in the community,
so that there is um consistency among what we do
and why we do it, and a history of folks
understanding that if we're present somewhere, it's because we've been
(11:24):
asked to be there, and that what we're doing there
is aligned with and approved of by the people who
are organizing the event. And then I'll let somebody else
who's more eloquent than I am uh answered that further
if they feel like they can. Yeah, I think NOVA
is up now. If you wanted to give your answer
(11:45):
and kind of also comment on what we've been chatting about,
what Channon and I were just chatting about, Nova, Hi,
thank you so much. Um. I would say that folks
like Ray and Katie and of course Shannon really put
it very succinctly, very well together and answered a lot
of the things that I was gonna already provided things
that I was going to add to it. But um,
(12:05):
the specifically the part about the gun becoming the driving
factor in somebody's presence at the protest, or the gun
being a part of the personality of somebody who is
going to appoint themselves as a guardian towards bunch of people,
I would I would say that with any responsible community
(12:28):
community defense role within a protest context, that the act
of being a body in between a threat and your
community has to come first, and that the that the
firearm has to be secondary. Um. Uh, there there was
an incident on the night of protest where uh many
(12:50):
of us were at risk of being harmed by a
vehicle attack, and uh, in retrospect, a firearm would not
have mitigated that threat terribly well, But the idea of
being in between a threat such as that and somebody
else who is possibly more vulnerable than you are for
(13:11):
a lot more of a significance on that. So the
firearm being there to respond to a threat and perhaps
mitigate an active, ongoing deadly threat to your community is
one thing, But I think the primary thing is going
to be just putting yourself in harm's way so that
you can spare that responsibility from somebody possibly more vulnerable
(13:33):
than you. If that makes sense, that should be the
primary responsibility. And um, how do you avoid letting that
turn people doing that into feeling like a separate and
even elevated chunk of the community, Because that again, that's
what happens with police. You know this idea that it
starts as like well, we're here to serve and protect
(13:55):
um and that that through a variety of toxic alchemies,
turns to this idea of the thin blue line. What
is the way you push back on How do you
actually stop it from going from I'm someone who is
(14:18):
accepting personal responsibility for the well being of the people
around me UM and putting my body in between them
on harm's way if necessary, uh, to I it's my
job to protect people, to it's my job to you know,
from turning that into kind of this idea of I
think stewardship in some ways that like some people in
law enforcement have where like you're there, they they get
(14:41):
to tell you what to do because that's their responsibility
to keep you safe. Like, how do you how do
you stop that attitude from evolving? Because I've seen it
happen to people fairly quickly when they put themselves in
some of these situations sometimes and it's certainly not like
most people, but it is. It doesn't take a long
time for somebody to like especially if they're vulnerable, to
(15:04):
get in that position. So how do you, especially if
you're approaching it from an organizational standpoint, right, You're an
organization made up of people who come to do this,
how do you fight back against that? Like, what is
the active kind of counter programming? If you will? I'd
see I don't have an easy answer for that question,
(15:26):
to be completely honest with you, but I say that
the closest thing uh to an answer to that would
be that and almost you know, monastic devotion to the
task that was acts asked of you by the group
that asked you there. Um. So if somebody asked us
to be a part of a march and to simply
(15:48):
look outward for external threats and to be willing to
respond to those threats of need be again putting our
bodies in harm's way, but also be willing to respond
to legal force and kind should the worst case scenario arise. Um,
I'd say that the ultimate accountability rest with the people
(16:09):
who asked you to be there. Uh. And there's no
easy answer as to what that mechanism of accountability looks like.
But you know, in several layers, that would start with
your teammates, the people who are part of your organization
that asked you to be that is asked to be there.
So other members of of j B G C H
(16:32):
are you know definitely going to try and keep each
other accountable. But it's also the larger, the the the
the the larger contingent of the action that you're a
part of. UH, to be ultimately willing to back down
from whatever you're doing if a concern is voiced by
(16:54):
that community. And I wish I had a better way
to word that, uh, But just the the the the
constant vigilance within oneself against overstepping the boundaries that were
clearly set by people who invited you into a space. UM.
(17:14):
That's really the best answer I can give for that
at the moment without further percolating. Well, I mean, yeah,
for for one thing, I think this is the reason
we're having this conversation, and I'm getting ahead of us
a little, is because this is still very much a
developing thing on the left and and I don't think
anybody has all the answers on how to do it well,
(17:34):
although I think an increasing number of folks except the necessity. UM.
So I think that's part of the reason for the conversation,
is this like continuing exploration of how to actually do
this responsibly. UM. But I do think you hit on
something important there when you talked about the that you're
there at the invitation of a community, as opposed to
(17:57):
you are there too to police or to maintain order.
Like the idea of approaching it as if you were
to guess strikes me as a really good idea, UM,
in order to keep yourself on a certain behavioral um standpoint,
like I'm I'm I'm here at the request of this
community as their guest, as opposed to I am here
(18:19):
to protect this community. You know, absolutely, that's a that's
a That's a perfect way to summarize what I was
trying to go for with that one. I think that
the ultimately to be averse to being put in a
position of power or authority is the best way to
check against that um and to simply be a servant
(18:44):
to the community that is again inviting you into that
space and putting yourself in a servile is not the
right word. I'm looking for a different word for that,
but a a position of service, a true position like
like yes, what what what community defense should be is
(19:08):
ultimately a service and a burden rather than a reward
of responsibility and power over your fellow community members. Okay, yeah, great,
I think next was Ray again, Um, you had something
to say there. Yeah, I'll finish that thought in my
notes under the section of what happens when things go right.
(19:29):
I think one thing that can go right is normalizing
that firearms are just a thing that can be around
and they don't have to be your entire ass personality,
nor do they have to be a differentiating factor. Indeed,
I think one of the successes there are not many,
but of community defense in the Chop was normalizing the
(19:50):
idea that people can have firearms and they're not an
inherent threat. Um. Thinking of people who are armed often
and we're pointed out routinely, and I was like, Nah,
he's He's a cool dude, you know, just a guy
just like the thing. It's like, you know, do you
really think the black guy is going to shoot up
the chop? I don't know that. He's totally fine. I
(20:11):
know him. His jokes are great. Um. Again, an overhearing
of these kind of conversations, it helps you know, firearms
become like part of the tapestry of life, not this
differentiating factor, not a beauty item, not something to write
your personality around. It's just like they're there and that
they can be good, bad, right, wrong, or in different
and I think that normalizing effect is one of the
(20:31):
successes community defense can have. And I'm happy to talk
about other things that community defense can normalize, but I
wanted to emphasize the you just have a firearm. You're
not talking about it, you're not touching it, you're not
thinking about it. You know people have that. It's just
around and it became pretty chill. And there is kind
of the Chop specifically, there's an area where firearms just
kind of were around and nothing happened really and that
(20:54):
was kind of wonderful in my mind. So from my
experience with UH, with the club, UH, it's basically the
even though we're the John Brown Gun Club, the guns
are like the last thing that we even consider, like, UH,
it would technically if we were to actually rename the club,
(21:16):
it would be the John Brown de Escalation Club. UM.
We would like most of the time any um any
anything that's gone on. Even when I did visit the
Chop and there were some weird stuff going on, like
Brother Matthew being Brother Matthew. People were um using their
skills to um to to d escalate situation, to calm
(21:39):
calm out, calm down, individuals to make sure that that
whatever hostility they have would be abated through just verbal
verbal communications. Talked about that in a little more detail
because I don't know who. I mean, I was at
the Chazz briefly, but I don't know who brother Matthew was,
or like what incident you're talking about. Something is a
(21:59):
guy who shows up up here all around the Seattle
area and also I think he's even said up in
Portland as well. Um got preacher guy gets in everybody's faces,
usually not liked by everybody, super afraid of snakes, thanks Jerry. Um.
But yeah, he like like he's he's a person who
(22:20):
drives off of confrontation and uses the Bible as as
his mode of of operation. But um, I remember distinctly
at at the chop Um he was getting it, getting
into it with people. But everybody who was around tried
to talk him down. They tried to chill make him
(22:42):
chill out, even though he was continually screaming for attention
and just being weird. But um but in the end, um,
like that's just like that happens more often with protests
situations or more situations or direct action situations where we're
(23:03):
asked to be a part of it by the organizers
and and as um Ray had mentioned and Nova had mentioned, UM,
we like we're asked to be there and we're not
just asking and then we suddenly show up, like we
get involved with the people who are organizing, any of
the partners that they that they that they get that
(23:25):
they bring into it. We try to learn as much
about what's going on with them, who are the threats, where,
where the event is, how the event is um going
to be thought of. We ask a lot of questions
about it, Like we plan and plan and plan and
plan to make sure that everything is super safe or
as safe as possible based on all known variables and UH,
(23:48):
and then the stuff that's unknown, we do our best
to mitigate that somehow. Yes we are armed, but that's
like the last thing that we ever even think of,
and that's even in our planning. We say flat out
de escalate first, um. If things start to ratch it up,
respond in kind. So like if someone you know, like
(24:09):
tries to like I don't know, like starts to fistfight,
We're not going to pull out a gun on someone
who wants to box somebody on the street. We're going
to do our best to stop so stop them through
other means, like whether if it's just to block a
punch or whatever. But the first things and foremost is
(24:32):
de escalation. Calm, calm that person down and tell them
to go away or just to chill out or whatever
the whatever is necessary. I mean de escalation. All of
the best community self defense that I've personally watched has
been de escalation. Um, you know, they're They're not the
only situations I've seen. I've seen force used a couple
(24:54):
of times in situations that were necessary, but by far,
de escalation is the thing I've seen, um actually protect
people in dicey situations the most, um, And generally that's
that's going to be the case. Yeah. I know for myself,
Like my attitude is we all go home. Everybody who
shows up there goes home, not to the hospital, not
(25:19):
to jail, or not to the morgue. We all go home. Yeah,
I think that's definitely seems like the best way to
look at it. So into the specific question of how
not to become a cop in this position and become
(25:42):
the gun, the only way I've been able to do
anything in that regard has been to not have that
be my primary thing that I fulfilled. I'm part of
a community, and I'm a mechanical person this community. I
try to have my mission and be not that other
skill set or that other access to being of an
(26:04):
aid to a community, be my actual purpose in the community.
If that makes any sense. M. Yeah, that makes complete sense.
Um and yeah, I think is the healthiest way to
to deal with it. So, something I've been wondering about
as so I'm like not armed at all, So I
(26:29):
guess I'm on like the other the other side of defense,
of the sort of community self defense. I think that
people show up to protests. Um. And So something I
was wondering about is is the relationship between this stuff
and you know, between the sort of com mentality development
and the difficulty of sort of integrating the community, of
(26:50):
having organizations that are basically independent security groups and not
for example, like taking like I don't know, take like
a historical examled like there was a thing in China
you'd see a lot in like the nine hundreds were
you know, you'd have armed pickets, right, and so you
you have an armed force there, but the armed force
is like you know, this is this is like a
(27:11):
branch of the union, right, And that's that's how they
sort of like like that that was the sort of
solution to how do you stop cops syndrome? Is that
you know, they're they're they're basically like a part of
another community organization. And so I'm curious what you all
think about what the sort of I guess that the
(27:32):
strengths and weaknesses of being an independent or having having
sort of independent security organizations versus having I guess, subsections
of other organizations that are armed. Yeah, I feel like
I can offer a unique perspective here as someone who's
been privy to multiple angles of this, including separate organizations,
(27:56):
ones integrated with others, and ones that are sort of
just parts of the community. I don't think there's any
like inherent sort of best answer here. I do think
being part of a separate organization makes it harder to
be in the community versus of the community, meaning you
came from the community and now you're sort of kind
(28:18):
of separate but not really UM like JB in particular
has a perpetual problem with people saying, oh, you know,
John Brown will do X. And this is something that
has been discussed and often this is to people's immense fire.
I don't want to speak for everyone here, but it
does seem to be that so seldom does one wish
to be said, oh, hello, It's kind of like saying, oh,
(28:41):
the union will solve this, and it's like, turns out
you're the union buddy, um right, and never referred to
being in the first person. So I do think being
embedded into other groups or being sort of this loose
diffuse group can make it easier to be part of
the community because of the structural forces that make that, um,
it is easier to get there. A separate organization can
(29:03):
help focus and codify certain procedures training, you know, make
sure that people have some sort of unified goals and values,
at the expense of making it a bit harder to
integrate into one's community. I think given the era we're in,
I'm not surprised we see many many approaches to community
defense with varying effectiveness at different times, including JBS perspective. Yeah,
(29:31):
and um, I guess I'm interested as we are as
we move on here, and like, one of the one
of the questions I see is how do you the
difficulty and kind of you don't want to have a
situation where there's absolutely no where the community self defense
contention is anyone who shows up with a gun, because
(29:53):
then anyone can show up with a gun, and you
as someone else who's showing up with a weapinar potentially
like if that person and uh makes a bad decision,
that's going to I mean as it as it has
in the past, that has significant repercussions on everybody else.
And I that is one of the thorny or points
because I I do one of the things I see
(30:15):
is valuable. Someone mentioned earlier, like the nice thing about
it just in not being firearms being normalized, not as
a like gun culture thing, but as this is just
a thing that is present in the community. And I
saw that a lot in Rojabo, right, that everybody was
armed m or at least the significant chunk of the
populace had access to arms, but nobody was showing off
(30:36):
with them. They were not like anybody's like like piece
of identity. They were just one of the tools like
a like a like a spade or a shovel that
were present in the community. Um okay, I think I've
skipped over a couple of people. I wanted to give
thud a chance to talk. That's actually very much should
have in line with But the point I was going
to make, which is, for me, a huge part of
(30:59):
community defend is making sure that the aspect that is
defending the community is not alienated from the community because
it isn't concentrated in just a few people. Because I
think one of the other things that we emphasize the
lots with outside of direct protest actions is you try
(31:20):
to teach people how to safely operate firearms, but also
to give firearms the respect that they deserve. That firearms
are not there so that you are badass. Firearms are
not there because you know you're going to get into
a gunfight. And it's well, the first rule, I mean,
one of the one of the things that we stress
sort of beyond the basic four rules of gun safety
(31:42):
is the first rule of gunpipe is don't get into
a gunpipe. That it's you know, you want to exhaust
every possible option that you have. And when the community
at large is engaged and like prey with saying that
it's sort of it comes from wized that oh, we're
not relying on these several people to keep us safe,
(32:05):
but that in fact, as an entire collective we are
keeping a safe and that gives recognition the fact that
some people it's not it's not the right choice for
them to carry again for one reason or another, and
the at the same time, the power that is present
(32:25):
in that particular tool is dispersed to the point where
it doesn't you know, you don't have people getting self
aggrandizing thoughts because of the fact that they're possessing firearms.
And I think that's something that we, you know, work
(32:46):
really hard to instill in evil in a variety of context,
and I think is really critical to this question. So
the question that trying to summarize, UM, what the question
was earlier, What the strengths and weaknesses of having an
organized armed response are UM. One of the things that
that I wanted to bring up is the historical context
(33:10):
of armed response, specifically community armed response in Seattle. UM.
I did some digging and found in a book called
History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time,
Volume two, which I started pouring through and found that
there was in eighteen seventy four there was a group
(33:32):
called the Seattle Amateur Rifle Association, which least Land for
a range on current present day Capitol Hill. Um like
right where the train station is if you're familiar with
the area, so like right where protests always happened these days.
Later on, there's record record in eight seventy seven of
the Seattle Rifle Team organizing and shooting contests, and then
(33:55):
later on in six which is a number that probably
rings a bell the China. These riots, as they called
them at the time, happened which was sort of the
start of the labor movement where everyone decided that Chinese
immigrants were the cause of all of our woes, that
the low wages being paid to Chinese immigrants were because
of Chinese immigrants and not racism. So they decided to
(34:18):
run every person who looked Chinese out of town. Literally.
They referred to this as the Tacoma method, and that's
what they did in Takemma exactly. It started there and
there was a February seven, this massive, angry racist mob
tried to push all of the Chinese folks out of
(34:40):
Seattle or anyone they thought might look like Chinese, and
they tried to push them onto a steamboat, but there
weren't there wasn't enough room for them all there um
cops got involved, a bunch of other stuff happened. They
decided no, give them time in court. But in the
process uh of making this decision, you know, the racist
(35:03):
got a mob together and we're basically just going to
try and put a stop to this before the legal
proceedings could to go forward. So they reached out to
local allies and arms. They had the Home Guards, which
I'm not exactly sure exactly what the Home Guards were,
but I assume there's something related to National Guard later on,
(35:24):
or maybe just an extension of military. But the Home
Guards and the Seattle Rifles as well as the University Cadets,
which I'm assuming are of course soldiers in training, and
pulled them all out and made a community self defense
group out of them. They didn't put a rifle line
and held the mob back and enabled those folks to
(35:48):
get you know, safely, to have their day in court, um,
and then to protect them for a while afterward. They
actually organized a sort of a watch because they didn't
have enough police to to manage the mob. They use
books from the Seattle Rifles and these other groups to
uh to sort of bolster the police forces and keep
(36:10):
peace in the town. So the sort of thing that
we do is a long standing historical presence. But I
think there's a lot of things you can look at
the history of and sort of take lessons from so
um as as very mentioned, a unified response is of
course a huge benefit of having a huge strength of
(36:31):
having an organized armed group. Uh. And it's it's literally
if someone reaches out and says we need help, help
is available. Um. But there are a lot of weaknesses.
Businesses and clubs can be held liable legally, and this
is an endemic problem within gun laws. It stands the
laws are written such that they effectively there that it
(36:51):
comes down to situational context to determine how a gun
law should be enforced. And the law will never be
on the side of a group trying to abolish parts
of the law. So you have to be very careful
about how you how especially an organized or formally organized
armed group has to be very cheerful about how they
(37:13):
But there there worked in play with that in mind. Yeah,
that was great, And I was unaware, actually I was
aware of the of the riots. I was unaware of
that part of the history, which is fascinating, UM and
I think very important. Yeah, Ray did you want to
explain the threat onion? Yeah, the integrated threat onion. So
(37:37):
this is kind of a well known meme in certain
circles slash actual thing, and it's designed to help you
understand how to like mitigate threat and sorry, integrated survivability
onion mitigate threats. Right. So the teel deer is, you know,
do you want to try to preserve life by having
(37:58):
body armor and hoping a bullet it's you in the
body armor, or do you want to preserve life by
I don't know, not showing the funk up to something
where you might get shot. And the idea is it's
it's a meme because so often, you know, people are like, oh,
they want to get in there and get and get
engaged with conflict and be the hero. And the answer is,
you know, you could just like not go there, right,
and it would probably be a lot easier to do that.
(38:20):
But there's some real weight to the survivability onion, which
is like, there are many many ways to mitigate threats
to yourself in your community, and very often the most
boring and mundane answer is probably the one that's going
to actually result in the biggest impact. And the heroic
answer is probably the absolute worst answer and only what
(38:40):
you rely on if everything else has gone to hell.
So that's someone I think it was thund spoken to
alluded to the threat onion and ways to mitigate harm
to oneself and one's community, and I had to repeat
it because it's this, this meme that's been coming up forever. Yeah,
and it is like the basic idea of the thread
(39:02):
onion is that you have like this again you if
you think of it in layers. That's why they call
it an onion um of like things that protect you,
and the things that provide the most protection are stuff
like not being seen or present when somebody wants to
harm you, um, not or being behind cover when somebody
wants to harm you. And the thing that offers the
least protection is having body armor. You know. It's this
(39:25):
the idea that like um, the things that people buy
and and focus on because they look cool, UM are
all things that offer less protection than situational awareness and
good judgment. UM is kind of the actual like lesson
I think to take out of the threat onion, that
would be my opinion on the matter. This has been
it could happen here, that's all for this week. Find
(39:47):
us at happen here pot on Instagram and Twitter, and
find the rest of her shows at cool Zone Media
in the same places. It could Happen Here is a
production of cool zone me Media. For more podcasts from
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
(40:09):
find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at
cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, your favorite podcast are also
legally the only podcaster that that people are allowed to
enjoy on the internet. Here to introduce a really exciting
episode of it could happen here. So for the last
bit of time, I've been in and out of touch
with a number of members of the Puget Sound John
Brown Club. They have provided armed self defense groups for
(00:26):
a couple of different protests in the Washington area over
the last year and change, UM, and we wanted to
sit down and talk to them about the ideas behind
community self defense, how to do it responsibly, how to
do it irresponsibly. We also had some discussions with them
about the disasters that happened at the Chop Slash Chaz
last year. They were not involved with that as an organization, UM,
(00:48):
but they have some insights on the matter. UM. That's
going to be coming at you in a separate episode
or maybe even a couple of episodes in the near future. Today,
we're just kind of talking about the concepts of armed
community solf defense. You know, what's responsible, what's irresponsible, how
people should think about it. I think you'll enjoy the
conversation here. It is a decent chunk of the folks listening,
(01:09):
especially the Portlanders, will have experience with UH and that
that Garrison and I have certainly had experienced with. It
is people at protests declaring themselves security, sometimes even wearing
shirts that say security, and picking up a variety of
weapons off in paintball guns and mace, and using them
often irresponsibly on other protesters, on on bystanders in the
(01:32):
name of of of keeping things safe. And UM, I
think we're pretty clear, and I think most reasonable people
can see that that's not community self defense, but often
those people UH certainly claim that what they're doing is
community self defense. UM. And I'm specifically wanting to start
by getting a kind of a range of definitions from
(01:53):
folks as you are, all people who have engaged in
community self defense, UM, and particularly armed communities self defense.
What do you see as the actual role of community
self defense and how should it look as opposed to,
you know, a guy with a paintball gun yelling at
kids for tagging a window. Ray You wanna you want
(02:14):
to kick us off with an answer there, I do
community defense should be part of the a broad health
and safety infrastructure set up for a protest movement or
a community being deliberately vague here, but specifically armed. Community
defense deals with mitigating lethal and egregious harm to members
(02:36):
of a community. The goal is forced and foremost prevention,
mitigation and control of those threats. In my mind, ideally
community defense would involve no one doing anything, carrying around
a bunch of really heavy ship and nothing happening, but
deterring those from harming others. In the absolute worst case,
(02:56):
it means you have to actually do something that can
get messy pretty coally. I want to circle back to
a couple of things. Actually, I do have one one
quick follow up question for you before we move on
to the next people. Ray, When you say like carrying
heavy things and whatnot, I'm wondering what do you think.
I'm interested in you and I'll probably ask other people
to follow up when it when it comes to carrying
(03:16):
and bringing a firearm to either a protest situation some
other community self defense situation, what it is going through
your head when you determine what to bring. Because I've
seen people carry a variety of different guns from like
shotguns and in one case is of mos and negat
to a r S or handguns. Um, what do you
think is kind of the the logic train. I guess
(03:37):
that you would take, like, what is the appropriate tool
to bring like in this situation? So that depends entirely
on what the anticipated threat is and how one plans
to mitigate the anticipated threat. There's no correct answer for that.
Sometimes the answer to mitigate lethal or regious bodily harm
is not a firearm at all. Indeed, firearms are applicable
(03:59):
in an extraordiny early narrow range of scenarios, but those
range of scenarios are catastrophic and need extreme measures to
be mitigated. So it depends on what if you are
considering bringing firearm, what is the firearm good at? And
then you get into the minutia of what firearm is
good for what thing, which depends on your legal context
(04:19):
and particular threat. But I think one has to start
with the question is is the thing I'm bringing able
to mitigate the type of harm I might see happen
to my community? And to get a little bit less vague,
there are people who think that bringing a shotgun is
a good way to stop a car speeding into a
crowd when it clearly isn't right. So one has to
(04:40):
make sure that the tool, whatever they have is you
is appropriate for the task at hand and the threat
you anticipate. That was great, Thank you, Ray, Um Katie
you want to you want to give us your answer next.
I agree with everything that Race said, and the only
addition that I'd make is that, UM, it's specifically are
in our cases generally doesn't mean standing between protesters and police,
(05:07):
but more guiding protesters, you know, our activists or participants
away from potential situations of harm. It's like, we can't
stand in front of police and stop cops from doing
their job. Like that just gets you arrested and uh
or worse or worse, and that's not what we're here for.
(05:28):
So yeah, that's all I wanted to, could you, because
I have chatted with a couple of your number about this,
about UM kind of the role that that an armed
contingent at a protest can play in kind of allowing
an avenue of retreat, you know, especially during confrontations with
non state actors. UM, I'm interested in kind of what
(05:50):
you um, you know, you're not You're not to kind
of as you did, kind of kind of clarify this conception.
You don't see your role as standing in front of
the protesters between them the cops and like presenting the
threat to the cops. What is the utility and kind
of an active protest situation that you've seen of of
of what y'all do. So that's a good question. And um,
(06:12):
if we're doing our job well, then most people think
we don't do anything at all. Um. A lot of
what we do is we're watching external potential threats who
might try to come in. The most common factor these
days is a car um But generally we're looking for
folks that might cause trouble and finding ensuring that we're
(06:32):
not putting ourselves in a position where we're gonna get
cornered or trapped, and and really you know, just trying
to help facilitate and work with the facilitators and organizers
to keep things, you know, progressing in a safe way.
So as far as what we're protecting against threat wise,
that that ranges from everything from like angry people who
(06:53):
are just angry and trying to go home and getting
blocked by a protest too, people who are who are
actively looking to do harm to a movement that happens
to be involved in the protests, or you know, maybe
it's something as as as specific as a person who's
looking to specifically do harm to UH organizers. So most
(07:17):
of the time it's we're focused outward and and just
making sure that our exits are are covered and that
we have ways to get people away from potential bad situations. UM,
that was great, Thank you, Katie Shannon, you want to
give your answer, it absolutely thanks. I would add there's
a really critical element to community defense that begins and
(07:40):
ends with the word community. Obviously, there's a big difference
between proclaiming yourself security and showing up someplace and being
there as an intentional community support where the community plays
a role in you being there and also has some
influence on that question of what are you carrying and
what is the response. I think it's just really important
(08:02):
that you keep the community aspect at the forefront, and
that's a huge part of our collective work is making
sure that when we're providing community defense, we're aligning ourselves
with the desires of the community group that has asked
(08:25):
us to be there, also filtering it through our judgment
as to what's safe and appropriate under the circumstances. Using
some of those filters that Ray mentioned when they were
answering and what do you see as like like, this
is something that I kind of gets to both what
(08:47):
what is an issue with me? And kind of the
folks who declare themselves a security, which is that they're
often kind of separating themselves from the rest of the movement,
specifically in a cop like way to say like, well,
it's my job to keep you save, even that that means,
or it's my job to keep things order leaven if
that means attacking some other people at this protest. One
of the things that Scott Crowe in is uh in
(09:08):
Setting Sights, which is a really good book on community
self defense, does is set out that, um, a key
aspect of community self defense, as you said, is that
you're like a member of the community. And I think,
I guess the question I have is because guns are
what they are and have the kind of cultural weight
that they have, it's you people are always people who
(09:32):
accept being armed as an aspect of their personality are
always going to be kind of fighting having that dominate
their personality. And it wouldn't. It's clearly something that a
lot of people have an issue with. The thing that
is important is to be a member of the community
who happens to be armed, as opposed to an armed
(09:53):
activist whose whose role is being armed, right, Like I
I mean, do you agree with what I'm saying or
and like I'm wondering how you think about it, because
this is something that I'm kind of going around in
my head about as well, because it's it's it's clearly
where a lot of the problems happen, right that the
gun becomes central to the identity of the people who
bring it, which is something that happens to the cops. Yes,
(10:16):
and also the mentality of separating yourself from the community
and not being part of the purpose of being there.
And so I'll defer to my my comrades here to
go a little bit further with it, but I would
just say that there's a significant difference between armed community
(10:37):
defense and having an intentional presence of armed community defense
at an event or protest and being a person who
shows up with a gun. Those are two really different things,
and so I think that's the that's one of the
benefits of being part of an organization that does this collectively,
(11:02):
with accountability, with training, with a known role in the community,
so that there is um consistency among what we do
and why we do it, and a history of folks
understanding that if we're present somewhere, it's because we've been
(11:24):
asked to be there, and that what we're doing there
is aligned with and approved of by the people who
are organizing the event. And then I'll let somebody else
who's more eloquent than I am uh answered that further
if they feel like they can. Yeah, I think NOVA
is up now. If you wanted to give your answer
(11:45):
and kind of also comment on what we've been chatting about,
what Channon and I were just chatting about, Nova, Hi,
thank you so much. Um. I would say that folks
like Ray and Katie and of course Shannon really put
it very succinctly, very well together and answered a lot
of the things that I was gonna already provided things
that I was going to add to it. But um,
(12:05):
the specifically the part about the gun becoming the driving
factor in somebody's presence at the protest, or the gun
being a part of the personality of somebody who is
going to appoint themselves as a guardian towards bunch of people,
I would I would say that with any responsible community
(12:28):
community defense role within a protest context, that the act
of being a body in between a threat and your
community has to come first, and that the that the
firearm has to be secondary. Um. Uh, there there was
an incident on the night of protest where uh many
(12:50):
of us were at risk of being harmed by a
vehicle attack, and uh, in retrospect, a firearm would not
have mitigated that threat terribly well, But the idea of
being in between a threat such as that and somebody
else who is possibly more vulnerable than you are for
(13:11):
a lot more of a significance on that. So the
firearm being there to respond to a threat and perhaps
mitigate an active, ongoing deadly threat to your community is
one thing, But I think the primary thing is going
to be just putting yourself in harm's way so that
you can spare that responsibility from somebody possibly more vulnerable
(13:33):
than you. If that makes sense, that should be the
primary responsibility. And um, how do you avoid letting that
turn people doing that into feeling like a separate and
even elevated chunk of the community, Because that again, that's
what happens with police. You know this idea that it
starts as like well, we're here to serve and protect
(13:55):
um and that that through a variety of toxic alchemies,
turns to this idea of the thin blue line. What
is the way you push back on How do you
actually stop it from going from I'm someone who is
(14:18):
accepting personal responsibility for the well being of the people
around me UM and putting my body in between them
on harm's way if necessary, uh, to I it's my
job to protect people, to it's my job to you know,
from turning that into kind of this idea of I
think stewardship in some ways that like some people in
law enforcement have where like you're there, they they get
(14:41):
to tell you what to do because that's their responsibility
to keep you safe. Like, how do you how do
you stop that attitude from evolving? Because I've seen it
happen to people fairly quickly when they put themselves in
some of these situations sometimes and it's certainly not like
most people, but it is. It doesn't take a long
time for somebody to like especially if they're vulnerable, to
(15:04):
get in that position. So how do you, especially if
you're approaching it from an organizational standpoint, right, You're an
organization made up of people who come to do this,
how do you fight back against that? Like, what is
the active kind of counter programming? If you will? I'd
see I don't have an easy answer for that question,
(15:26):
to be completely honest with you, but I say that
the closest thing uh to an answer to that would
be that and almost you know, monastic devotion to the
task that was acts asked of you by the group
that asked you there. Um. So if somebody asked us
to be a part of a march and to simply
(15:48):
look outward for external threats and to be willing to
respond to those threats of need be again putting our
bodies in harm's way, but also be willing to respond
to legal force and kind should the worst case scenario arise. Um,
I'd say that the ultimate accountability rest with the people
(16:09):
who asked you to be there. Uh. And there's no
easy answer as to what that mechanism of accountability looks like.
But you know, in several layers, that would start with
your teammates, the people who are part of your organization
that asked you to be that is asked to be there.
So other members of of j B G C H
(16:32):
are you know definitely going to try and keep each
other accountable. But it's also the larger, the the the
the the larger contingent of the action that you're a
part of. UH, to be ultimately willing to back down
from whatever you're doing if a concern is voiced by
(16:54):
that community. And I wish I had a better way
to word that, uh, But just the the the the
constant vigilance within oneself against overstepping the boundaries that were
clearly set by people who invited you into a space. UM.
(17:14):
That's really the best answer I can give for that
at the moment without further percolating. Well, I mean, yeah,
for for one thing, I think this is the reason
we're having this conversation, and I'm getting ahead of us
a little, is because this is still very much a
developing thing on the left and and I don't think
anybody has all the answers on how to do it well,
(17:34):
although I think an increasing number of folks except the necessity. UM.
So I think that's part of the reason for the conversation,
is this like continuing exploration of how to actually do
this responsibly. UM. But I do think you hit on
something important there when you talked about the that you're
there at the invitation of a community, as opposed to
(17:57):
you are there too to police or to maintain order.
Like the idea of approaching it as if you were
to guess strikes me as a really good idea, UM,
in order to keep yourself on a certain behavioral um standpoint,
like I'm I'm I'm here at the request of this
community as their guest, as opposed to I am here
(18:19):
to protect this community. You know, absolutely, that's a that's
a That's a perfect way to summarize what I was
trying to go for with that one. I think that
the ultimately to be averse to being put in a
position of power or authority is the best way to
check against that um and to simply be a servant
(18:44):
to the community that is again inviting you into that
space and putting yourself in a servile is not the
right word. I'm looking for a different word for that,
but a a position of service, a true position like
like yes, what what what community defense should be is
(19:08):
ultimately a service and a burden rather than a reward
of responsibility and power over your fellow community members. Okay, yeah, great,
I think next was Ray again, Um, you had something
to say there. Yeah, I'll finish that thought in my
notes under the section of what happens when things go right.
(19:29):
I think one thing that can go right is normalizing
that firearms are just a thing that can be around
and they don't have to be your entire ass personality,
nor do they have to be a differentiating factor. Indeed,
I think one of the successes there are not many,
but of community defense in the Chop was normalizing the
(19:50):
idea that people can have firearms and they're not an
inherent threat. Um. Thinking of people who are armed often
and we're pointed out routinely, and I was like, Nah,
he's He's a cool dude, you know, just a guy
just like the thing. It's like, you know, do you
really think the black guy is going to shoot up
the chop? I don't know that. He's totally fine. I
(20:11):
know him. His jokes are great. Um. Again, an overhearing
of these kind of conversations, it helps you know, firearms
become like part of the tapestry of life, not this
differentiating factor, not a beauty item, not something to write
your personality around. It's just like they're there and that
they can be good, bad, right, wrong, or in different
and I think that normalizing effect is one of the
(20:31):
successes community defense can have. And I'm happy to talk
about other things that community defense can normalize, but I
wanted to emphasize the you just have a firearm. You're
not talking about it, you're not touching it, you're not
thinking about it. You know people have that. It's just
around and it became pretty chill. And there is kind
of the Chop specifically, there's an area where firearms just
kind of were around and nothing happened really and that
(20:54):
was kind of wonderful in my mind. So from my
experience with UH, with the club, UH, it's basically the
even though we're the John Brown Gun Club, the guns
are like the last thing that we even consider, like, UH,
it would technically if we were to actually rename the club,
(21:16):
it would be the John Brown de Escalation Club. UM.
We would like most of the time any um any
anything that's gone on. Even when I did visit the
Chop and there were some weird stuff going on, like
Brother Matthew being Brother Matthew. People were um using their
skills to um to to d escalate situation, to calm
(21:39):
calm out, calm down, individuals to make sure that that
whatever hostility they have would be abated through just verbal
verbal communications. Talked about that in a little more detail
because I don't know who. I mean, I was at
the Chazz briefly, but I don't know who brother Matthew was,
or like what incident you're talking about. Something is a
(21:59):
guy who shows up up here all around the Seattle
area and also I think he's even said up in
Portland as well. Um got preacher guy gets in everybody's faces,
usually not liked by everybody, super afraid of snakes, thanks Jerry. Um.
But yeah, he like like he's he's a person who
(22:20):
drives off of confrontation and uses the Bible as as
his mode of of operation. But um, I remember distinctly
at at the chop Um he was getting it, getting
into it with people. But everybody who was around tried
to talk him down. They tried to chill make him
(22:42):
chill out, even though he was continually screaming for attention
and just being weird. But um but in the end, um,
like that's just like that happens more often with protests
situations or more situations or direct action situations where we're
(23:03):
asked to be a part of it by the organizers
and and as um Ray had mentioned and Nova had mentioned, UM,
we like we're asked to be there and we're not
just asking and then we suddenly show up, like we
get involved with the people who are organizing, any of
the partners that they that they that they get that
(23:25):
they bring into it. We try to learn as much
about what's going on with them, who are the threats, where,
where the event is, how the event is um going
to be thought of. We ask a lot of questions
about it, Like we plan and plan and plan and
plan to make sure that everything is super safe or
as safe as possible based on all known variables and UH,
(23:48):
and then the stuff that's unknown, we do our best
to mitigate that somehow. Yes we are armed, but that's
like the last thing that we ever even think of,
and that's even in our planning. We say flat out
de escalate first, um. If things start to ratch it up,
respond in kind. So like if someone you know, like
(24:09):
tries to like I don't know, like starts to fistfight,
We're not going to pull out a gun on someone
who wants to box somebody on the street. We're going
to do our best to stop so stop them through
other means, like whether if it's just to block a
punch or whatever. But the first things and foremost is
(24:32):
de escalation. Calm, calm that person down and tell them
to go away or just to chill out or whatever
the whatever is necessary. I mean de escalation. All of
the best community self defense that I've personally watched has
been de escalation. Um, you know, they're They're not the
only situations I've seen. I've seen force used a couple
(24:54):
of times in situations that were necessary, but by far,
de escalation is the thing I've seen, um actually protect
people in dicey situations the most, um, And generally that's
that's going to be the case. Yeah. I know for myself,
Like my attitude is we all go home. Everybody who
shows up there goes home, not to the hospital, not
(25:19):
to jail, or not to the morgue. We all go home. Yeah,
I think that's definitely seems like the best way to
look at it. So into the specific question of how
not to become a cop in this position and become
(25:42):
the gun, the only way I've been able to do
anything in that regard has been to not have that
be my primary thing that I fulfilled. I'm part of
a community, and I'm a mechanical person this community. I
try to have my mission and be not that other
skill set or that other access to being of an
(26:04):
aid to a community, be my actual purpose in the community.
If that makes any sense. M. Yeah, that makes complete sense.
Um and yeah, I think is the healthiest way to
to deal with it. So, something I've been wondering about
as so I'm like not armed at all, So I
(26:29):
guess I'm on like the other the other side of defense,
of the sort of community self defense. I think that
people show up to protests. Um. And So something I
was wondering about is is the relationship between this stuff
and you know, between the sort of com mentality development
and the difficulty of sort of integrating the community, of
(26:50):
having organizations that are basically independent security groups and not
for example, like taking like I don't know, take like
a historical examled like there was a thing in China
you'd see a lot in like the nine hundreds were
you know, you'd have armed pickets, right, and so you
you have an armed force there, but the armed force
is like you know, this is this is like a
(27:11):
branch of the union, right, And that's that's how they
sort of like like that that was the sort of
solution to how do you stop cops syndrome? Is that
you know, they're they're they're basically like a part of
another community organization. And so I'm curious what you all
think about what the sort of I guess that the
(27:32):
strengths and weaknesses of being an independent or having having
sort of independent security organizations versus having I guess, subsections
of other organizations that are armed. Yeah, I feel like
I can offer a unique perspective here as someone who's
been privy to multiple angles of this, including separate organizations,
(27:56):
ones integrated with others, and ones that are sort of
just parts of the community. I don't think there's any
like inherent sort of best answer here. I do think
being part of a separate organization makes it harder to
be in the community versus of the community, meaning you
came from the community and now you're sort of kind
(28:18):
of separate but not really UM like JB in particular
has a perpetual problem with people saying, oh, you know,
John Brown will do X. And this is something that
has been discussed and often this is to people's immense fire.
I don't want to speak for everyone here, but it
does seem to be that so seldom does one wish
to be said, oh, hello, It's kind of like saying, oh,
(28:41):
the union will solve this, and it's like, turns out
you're the union buddy, um right, and never referred to
being in the first person. So I do think being
embedded into other groups or being sort of this loose
diffuse group can make it easier to be part of
the community because of the structural forces that make that, um,
it is easier to get there. A separate organization can
(29:03):
help focus and codify certain procedures training, you know, make
sure that people have some sort of unified goals and values,
at the expense of making it a bit harder to
integrate into one's community. I think given the era we're in,
I'm not surprised we see many many approaches to community
defense with varying effectiveness at different times, including JBS perspective. Yeah,
(29:31):
and um, I guess I'm interested as we are as
we move on here, and like, one of the one
of the questions I see is how do you the
difficulty and kind of you don't want to have a
situation where there's absolutely no where the community self defense
contention is anyone who shows up with a gun, because
(29:53):
then anyone can show up with a gun, and you
as someone else who's showing up with a weapinar potentially
like if that person and uh makes a bad decision,
that's going to I mean as it as it has
in the past, that has significant repercussions on everybody else.
And I that is one of the thorny or points
because I I do one of the things I see
(30:15):
is valuable. Someone mentioned earlier, like the nice thing about
it just in not being firearms being normalized, not as
a like gun culture thing, but as this is just
a thing that is present in the community. And I
saw that a lot in Rojabo, right, that everybody was
armed m or at least the significant chunk of the
populace had access to arms, but nobody was showing off
(30:36):
with them. They were not like anybody's like like piece
of identity. They were just one of the tools like
a like a like a spade or a shovel that
were present in the community. Um okay, I think I've
skipped over a couple of people. I wanted to give
thud a chance to talk. That's actually very much should
have in line with But the point I was going
to make, which is, for me, a huge part of
(30:59):
community defend is making sure that the aspect that is
defending the community is not alienated from the community because
it isn't concentrated in just a few people. Because I
think one of the other things that we emphasize the
lots with outside of direct protest actions is you try
(31:20):
to teach people how to safely operate firearms, but also
to give firearms the respect that they deserve. That firearms
are not there so that you are badass. Firearms are
not there because you know you're going to get into
a gunfight. And it's well, the first rule, I mean,
one of the one of the things that we stress
sort of beyond the basic four rules of gun safety
(31:42):
is the first rule of gunpipe is don't get into
a gunpipe. That it's you know, you want to exhaust
every possible option that you have. And when the community
at large is engaged and like prey with saying that
it's sort of it comes from wized that oh, we're
not relying on these several people to keep us safe,
(32:05):
but that in fact, as an entire collective we are
keeping a safe and that gives recognition the fact that
some people it's not it's not the right choice for
them to carry again for one reason or another, and
the at the same time, the power that is present
(32:25):
in that particular tool is dispersed to the point where
it doesn't you know, you don't have people getting self
aggrandizing thoughts because of the fact that they're possessing firearms.
And I think that's something that we, you know, work
(32:46):
really hard to instill in evil in a variety of context,
and I think is really critical to this question. So
the question that trying to summarize, UM, what the question
was earlier, What the strengths and weaknesses of having an
organized armed response are UM. One of the things that
that I wanted to bring up is the historical context
(33:10):
of armed response, specifically community armed response in Seattle. UM.
I did some digging and found in a book called
History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time,
Volume two, which I started pouring through and found that
there was in eighteen seventy four there was a group
(33:32):
called the Seattle Amateur Rifle Association, which least Land for
a range on current present day Capitol Hill. Um like
right where the train station is if you're familiar with
the area, so like right where protests always happened these days.
Later on, there's record record in eight seventy seven of
the Seattle Rifle Team organizing and shooting contests, and then
(33:55):
later on in six which is a number that probably
rings a bell the China. These riots, as they called
them at the time, happened which was sort of the
start of the labor movement where everyone decided that Chinese
immigrants were the cause of all of our woes, that
the low wages being paid to Chinese immigrants were because
of Chinese immigrants and not racism. So they decided to
(34:18):
run every person who looked Chinese out of town. Literally.
They referred to this as the Tacoma method, and that's
what they did in Takemma exactly. It started there and
there was a February seven, this massive, angry racist mob
tried to push all of the Chinese folks out of
(34:40):
Seattle or anyone they thought might look like Chinese, and
they tried to push them onto a steamboat, but there
weren't there wasn't enough room for them all there um
cops got involved, a bunch of other stuff happened. They
decided no, give them time in court. But in the
process uh of making this decision, you know, the racist
(35:03):
got a mob together and we're basically just going to
try and put a stop to this before the legal
proceedings could to go forward. So they reached out to
local allies and arms. They had the Home Guards, which
I'm not exactly sure exactly what the Home Guards were,
but I assume there's something related to National Guard later on,
(35:24):
or maybe just an extension of military. But the Home
Guards and the Seattle Rifles as well as the University Cadets,
which I'm assuming are of course soldiers in training, and
pulled them all out and made a community self defense
group out of them. They didn't put a rifle line
and held the mob back and enabled those folks to
(35:48):
get you know, safely, to have their day in court, um,
and then to protect them for a while afterward. They
actually organized a sort of a watch because they didn't
have enough police to to manage the mob. They use
books from the Seattle Rifles and these other groups to
uh to sort of bolster the police forces and keep
(36:10):
peace in the town. So the sort of thing that
we do is a long standing historical presence. But I
think there's a lot of things you can look at
the history of and sort of take lessons from so
um as as very mentioned, a unified response is of
course a huge benefit of having a huge strength of
(36:31):
having an organized armed group. Uh. And it's it's literally
if someone reaches out and says we need help, help
is available. Um. But there are a lot of weaknesses.
Businesses and clubs can be held liable legally, and this
is an endemic problem within gun laws. It stands the
laws are written such that they effectively there that it
(36:51):
comes down to situational context to determine how a gun
law should be enforced. And the law will never be
on the side of a group trying to abolish parts
of the law. So you have to be very careful
about how you how especially an organized or formally organized
armed group has to be very cheerful about how they
(37:13):
But there there worked in play with that in mind. Yeah,
that was great, And I was unaware, actually I was
aware of the of the riots. I was unaware of
that part of the history, which is fascinating, UM and
I think very important. Yeah, Ray did you want to
explain the threat onion? Yeah, the integrated threat onion. So
(37:37):
this is kind of a well known meme in certain
circles slash actual thing, and it's designed to help you
understand how to like mitigate threat and sorry, integrated survivability
onion mitigate threats. Right. So the teel deer is, you know,
do you want to try to preserve life by having
(37:58):
body armor and hoping a bullet it's you in the
body armor, or do you want to preserve life by
I don't know, not showing the funk up to something
where you might get shot. And the idea is it's
it's a meme because so often, you know, people are like, oh,
they want to get in there and get and get
engaged with conflict and be the hero. And the answer is,
you know, you could just like not go there, right,
and it would probably be a lot easier to do that.
(38:20):
But there's some real weight to the survivability onion, which
is like, there are many many ways to mitigate threats
to yourself in your community, and very often the most
boring and mundane answer is probably the one that's going
to actually result in the biggest impact. And the heroic
answer is probably the absolute worst answer and only what
(38:40):
you rely on if everything else has gone to hell.
So that's someone I think it was thund spoken to
alluded to the threat onion and ways to mitigate harm
to oneself and one's community, and I had to repeat
it because it's this, this meme that's been coming up forever. Yeah,
and it is like the basic idea of the thread
(39:02):
onion is that you have like this again you if
you think of it in layers. That's why they call
it an onion um of like things that protect you,
and the things that provide the most protection are stuff
like not being seen or present when somebody wants to
harm you, um, not or being behind cover when somebody
wants to harm you. And the thing that offers the
least protection is having body armor. You know. It's this
(39:25):
the idea that like um, the things that people buy
and and focus on because they look cool, UM are
all things that offer less protection than situational awareness and
good judgment. UM is kind of the actual like lesson
I think to take out of the threat onion, that
would be my opinion on the matter. This has been
it could happen here, that's all for this week. Find
(39:47):
us at happen here pot on Instagram and Twitter, and
find the rest of her shows at cool Zone Media
in the same places. It could Happen Here is a
production of cool zone me Media. For more podcasts from
cool zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
(40:09):
find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at
cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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