Machine gun transfer to Taliban

[grayfox]

The cause is bloodthirsty hoodlums, a huge violent marxist-political-dictatorial gang as it were. Masquerading as "religious".
That is the cloak that they use to lead otherwise hideous lives.
But this drifts away from the essence of the thread, so I'll stop there.

[montana]

Montana,

On the rare earth point I do agree with you. It remains to be seen but it does look like China is maneuvering to take advantage of their lithium deposits. I doubt China's experience will be any better than any other empire that has sought to subjugate that lot. For sure, they will crank up the opium production again, because they are not exporting anything else. In the meantime they have to feed their people and keep control.

As for Afghanistan being a safe haven, that mission was sorted two decades ago, and there are plenty of other havens around the world that the US finds more difficult to deal with. Iran recently flew a drone into a UK registered ship in the Gulf, and the 9/11 attackers were all Saudi's. Pakistan has been harboring terrorists in the tribal lands for years. Plenty of other places to launch an attack from. And like you say, a lot of western countries have let in a lot of questionable asylum seekers in recent years.

The chaos of a barely planned exit should not be conflated with the strategic value of that moonscape, or with your own gun laws. My thoughts are that local politics should be removed from the strategic geopolitical picture. Regardless of who is the President what are you going to do and where is the existential threat?

GF
As for bringing religion into it ('spiritual revival') - that is the cause of this problem.

Klem, the point of this post was to show the hypocrisy of this administrations attack on our 2ndA rights, under the guise of public safety, punishing Russia, etc as biden nonshalontly leaves billions of dollars of arms to murdering terrorist and allowing our borders to be open to un-vetted aliens coming from the very same terrorist nations. The point was to show it is corrupt, political power and not public safety, Russia punishment, etc, for the motivation of biden and the lefts constant attack on our Constitutional rights.. Watching the Taliban confiscate personal arms," claiming there is no need for them since they are there to protect the public" while they murder people in the streets they determine undesirables. sounds exactly like the political left and every other tyrants excuse for erasing personal freedoms and rights.. The geopolitical picture has everything to do with the purpose of our 2ndA and Constitutional rights..As far as religion goes, leftist atheist used their spiritual revival of state worship to create the worst mass murders in world history..Not to quote biden but, "come on man" you may not politically agree, but I know you are smarter than this and understand exactly what we are talking about....

[Bjorn]

The current exit chaos will be quickly forgotten. Replaced by famine, unrest, herding goats and eating dates.

The exit chaos will not be quickly forgotten in the US, especially if 10,000 plus US citizens are left in Afghanistan after August 31st. This is perhaps the most embarrassing US foreign policy failure ever.

[StoneHendge]

The exit chaos will not be quickly forgotten in the US, especially if 10,000 plus US citizens are left in Afghanistan after August 31st. This is perhaps the most embarrassing US foreign policy failure ever.

I fear for what will happen to anyone left after 8/31 on 9/11/21.

[Klem]

Montana,

Mate, I get you and others here are intensely passionate about gun rights and politics, but for me guns are just tools - like cars. We can all appreciate certain types of cars but conflating guns with rights, freedom, religion, international geopolitics and local politics is a recipe for frustration and unrest. Yes, politicians are ignorant to a lot of things; from banning Russian ammo to encouraging bleach as a Covid cure. And they all lie and selfishly manipulate with no shame - I get that.

Yes, it's a shame the ANA gave their machine guns to the Taliban without a fight. Yes, this was all predictable if leaders had only listened to the troops on the ground. But they don't. My take, and this is convenient with hindsight is that a more careful withdrawal would have mitigated some chaos but you have to admit, the Taliban moved quicker than expected and the locals gave up quicker than expected. Biden is a typical politician and putting a positive spin on it but 'you cannot polish a turd'. Trump has sensed an opportunity and has gone for the throat. And no senior person is going to be held accountable. If they could blame the troops they would but this is clearly hasty command decision.

Yes of course athiests have caused mayhem in history but religion is a big part of this one, and religion will not fix it.

[grayfox]

Montana,

Mate, I get you and others here are intensely passionate about gun rights and politics, but for me guns are just tools - like cars. We can all appreciate certain types of cars but conflating guns with rights, freedom, religion, international geopolitics and local politics is a recipe for frustration and unrest. Yes, politicians are ignorant to a lot of things; from banning Russian ammo to encouraging bleach as a Covid cure. And they all lie and selfishly manipulate with no shame - I get that.
.

Klem,
It's an American thing. The right to keep and bear arms is our right, protected FROM the government by the Constitution just like the right to not quarter foreign troops (or any troops) in our homes, right to not testify against ourselves, right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure..., all put there because some redcoats tried to convince us otherwise, ie that Big govt always knows best, etc, etc and when those "tools" as you say are not convenient to the King (in DC, in this case)... well they can take them away. Driving a car is a privilege, regulated by the government for our use. These two are most assuredly NOT the same.
But you're not from around here so not understanding this, is understandable. I'm willing to allow your constitution to work for you guys; you need to do the same.

[montana]

Montana,

Mate, I get you and others here are intensely passionate about gun rights and politics, but for me guns are just tools - like cars. We can all appreciate certain types of cars but conflating guns with rights, freedom, religion, international geopolitics and local politics is a recipe for frustration and unrest. Yes, politicians are ignorant to a lot of things; from banning Russian ammo to encouraging bleach as a Covid cure. And they all lie and selfishly manipulate with no shame - I get that.

Yes, it's a shame the ANA gave their machine guns to the Taliban without a fight. Yes, this was all predictable if leaders had only listened to the troops on the ground. But they don't. My take, and this is convenient with hindsight is that a more careful withdrawal would have mitigated some chaos but you have to admit, the Taliban moved quicker than expected and the locals gave up quicker than expected. Biden is a typical politician and putting a positive spin on it but 'you cannot polish a turd'. Trump has sensed an opportunity and has gone for the throat. And no senior person is going to be held accountable. If they could blame the troops they would but this is clearly hasty command decision.

Yes of course athiests have caused mayhem in history but religion is a big part of this one, and religion will not fix it.

The old saying power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is proven true over and over.. Guns are power and the 2ndA is about division of power, no more, no less. I do conflate international geopolitics with our gun rights. It is a living reminder of what happens when one group of people controls the means of force over others... Conflating guns with rights, freedom, religion, international geopolitics and local politics is a recipe for frustration and unrest with would be tyrants, hence their incessant focus on eliminating that right 24-7 lol. By the way Klem, all beliefs are religious base, including atheism..We have already discussed this topic before...

[Klem]

By the way Klem, all beliefs are religious base, including atheism...

What a load of rubbish - I expected more from you Montana.

Machine guns are in Taliban hands because the ANA gave up and switched sides. You can wend 2A, religion, politics and a lack of trust in your own government into it for convenience but it really does boil down to the ANA letting you down - plain and simple. The centralised [corrupt] government model was never going to work in a segmented tribal country. What should have happened was a division of the country into cantons (Switzerland) or emirates (UAE). And if there was never any will to wage total war on the population then we should have got out a long time ago.

I'm out of this thread.

[montana]

What a load of rubbish - I expected more from you Montana.

Machine guns are in Taliban hands because the ANA gave up and switched sides. You can wend 2A, religion, politics and a lack of trust in your own government into it for convenience but it really does boil down to the ANA letting you down - plain and simple. The centralised [corrupt] government model was never going to work in a segmented tribal country. What should have happened was a division of the country into cantons (Switzerland) or emirates (UAE). And if there was never any will to wage total war on the population then we should have got out a long time ago.

I'm out of this thread.

Wow Klem I never expected our discussion to trigger you and get you so angry. Apparently you have a limited capacity for dissenting views. I'm not wending anything and tried to explain the purpose of our 2ndA rights and how it's purpose correlates to world events and political power..You keep using the the narrative of no one knew the collapse could have occurred so fast and I call BS on this belief. The vegetable in chief and his administration allowed this to happen for political reasons, hence their lack of concern for putting billions of dollars of weapons into terrorist hands. You never got an argument from me on how this war was executed poorly, but that is not the focus of this discussion. For Americans, firearms are not like cars or any other hobbyist objects, they are our birthright for division of power. I believe I explained that thoroughly.. I'm sorry you fail or refuse to understand this.. Apparently the failure of our government to back their obligations to the Afghanistan people, "let alone our own" went right over your head. Then you respond as if my distrust of government is something to question?? You were the one who brought religion into the conversation, not me. The point of this thread once again was to show the hypocrisy of our governments excuse for pushing unconstitutional gun laws under false premises, when their actions prove otherwise..I never expected you to agree, but I was trying to explain our position on the 2ndA. Calling my opinion and reply's rubbish reveals more about you than I thought possible. Have a good day Klem..

[LR1955]

Interesting the twists and turns of this one.

Nope -- won't lock it.

LR55

[Lemonaid]

Here is a copy of part of an article about who can own a machine-gun:

"Even without an FFL, a private citizen can still lawfully own a true machine gun if certain conditions are met. However, machine guns for non-FFLs are EXTREMELY expensive as the available supply is limited.

As an FFL, you can buy a brand new machine gun for less than $2,000 and have it transferred to you in a few days.

As a private citizen (without an FFL) you can only buy an old machine gun (over 35 years old), it’ll likely cost north of $15,000, and you’ll have to wait around a year for the transfer via an ATF Form 4.

For example, a private citizen can lawfully own a machine gun only if:

the possessor isn’t a “prohibited person,”
the full-auto machine gun was made before 1986, and
their relevant state law does not ban that the firearm (whether banning machine guns outright or any firearm with certain features)."

I am SURE (Extreme sarcasm) that all these conditions were met by whoever the government transferred all that ordinance to. In other words, they trust the mercenaries, foreign fighters much much more that the law abiding tax paying gun owners who PAID for those weapons. Madness!
Even our own American armed forces can't own these arms (It might be possible but very difficult and expensive). But they just GIVE them away to questionable people in other countries!