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