In a prior post, I offered the case for compliance with Biden's proposed gun laws. But what of the case for non-compliance?

Below we will survey the surface-layer justification for non-compliance in terms of three strategies and then go a little deeper by considering non-compliance to be an attempt at constituting a new class/group.

1 Delaying the Inevitable -- Since the government does not seem likely to "come and take them," owners may be able to keep possession and make limited use of (e.g., "innawoods") of them. This involves some risks, but if the law is not strongly enforced (e.g., you live in a red state, you are in a sanctuary county), it may be possible to "get away with it."

In time, restricted weapons will still go extinct (e.g., transfer involves risks, do you want to give your grand kid with a gun that will make her a felon"), but you, for now, may enjoy them. This is defeatist, but still mildly subversive and allows for some use/enjoyment of their property.

2 Hedging Bets -- More ambitious than merely delaying is the notion of "hedging." Hidden caches of illegal weapons hiding behind an invisible sign that says, "In case of Fire." If things get to be too bad, then you've "got yours" and you're good to go so that you don't "get clapped."

But when do you break the glass? This is ambiguous. Nevertheless, the present owner can take minimal risks (e.g., not engaging in armed insurrection today) while still maintaining an option for SHTF/WROL/Zombie Apocalypse/Whatever. The hedging strategy involves the same risk as the delay strategy, but offers the chance to act if things get bad. And, of course, one can invest in both strategies simultaneously, so these are two compatible reasons that can be held at once.

Odds are, you will never use them. Odds are, they will slowly fade away. But you're keeping your options open.

Basically, 1 & 2 are variations on the same theme.

3 Armed Insurrection -- If you're already mad as hell, and you aren't going to take it anymore, of course, you can simply start shooting when new legislation is passed (and it appears to be coming soon). But if only a handful of people revolt, it will be a shot rebellion.

Non-Compliance as a Constitutive Act

Non-compliers are in a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma. If everyone were to not comply, this would put considerable pressure on the government. You cannot just throw tens of millions of citizens in prison overnight and our government does not appear to be prepared to kill hundreds of thousands or millions (old Soviet style) to force compliance. If, however, NOT enough people comply, then you lose this prisoner's dilemma.

Thus non-compliance is as much a rhetorical strategy as it is a personal one. It is a call to fellow citizens to share the burden of risk, so as to distribute that risk, making it possible to "hold the line." It is an attempt to constitute a new class of gun-owning citizens -- the peaceful non-complier.

In game theoretic terms, your best bet might be to claim that you shall not comply, or to get as many of your fellow citizens to not comply, when, in fact, you are privately complying with the law. This is an old problem known as "free riders."

Those who are talking about non-compliance aren't just telling you what they will do (it is a bad idea to state that you will be breaking the law), but attempting to persuade others to join them in non-compliance.

The best case for non-compliance is NOT the existential fact of the guns you have hidden in some hidey-hole (you matter very little in terms of policy and change, individually), but that the act of mass non-compliance might put pressure of agencies to back off and to send a united message to gun control advocates who will not be happy until they've gotten rid of all guns and then moved on knives (about which they will be decidedly unhappy about the epidemic of knife violence).

The question is. Can you get enough people to do it? How do you do it? Can you, at least, get enough people to message that they will do it? How do you do that? If successful, what's the worst thing that could happen (e.g., backlash and escalation)?

At bottom, the case for non-compliance is not that of a quiet private act (e.g., all those people bragging in the other thread about how they've buried guns that no one knows about), but rather a public declaration of non-cooperation, an attempt to create a new demographic of civil disobedience. An identity.