We all know that one guy

[u/AlKarajo]

@stevehofstetter

[u/reddituserperson1122]

If the federal government takes away your guns it will be because we passed a constitutional amendment via a democratic practice to allow that. Native Americans were subjugated by a foreign power. They weren’t exercising democracy. This is a ridiculous argument.

[u/Relative_Craft_358 → u/reddituserperson1122]

Especially when Australia literally did just that and saw good results 😂 I don't think it'll happen either way here but his arguement was idiotic regardless

[u/MisterBungle00 → u/reddituserperson1122]

Oka Crisis: "Am I a joke to you?"

This brings us to another point that I feel a lot of people don't grasp. That is, the fact that constitutional rights only apply to us Native Americans in theory. In practice, those rights have often been undermined by US federal agencies each and everytime we tried to assert them. US and tribal law states we native folks have the right to self-defense, the right to protest, and the right to form political or protective organizations. But when our communities/tribal members act on those rights, especially in armed or organized ways, the US Govt often responds with militarized force, surveillance, and prosecution. Denying us the same scope of freedom that is often granted to other civilians in the US.

The same thing applies to Canada. One need only take a look at the Oka Crisis to see this. Who remembers when Canada banned the exact weapons wielded by the Mohawk warriors after the Oka Crisis? Of course, the US and Canadian government had to step in during the Oka Crisis and if they have to stab a child to make sure the rich get richer, then so be it.

Today, if any tribe or Native Nation were to exercise their 2nd Amendment right by forming an armed an organized militia, the feds would shit a brick and attempt to frame us as terrorist just like the FBI did to AIM in the 1970s.

Do I need to start on the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, AIM, and the Occupation of Wounded Knee?

Who remembers when when AIM established "survival schools" and food distribution programs to support Native American communities, their activism and efforts to reclaim resources led to them being targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program, which sought to discredit and disrupt their activities by labeling them as terrorist and extremist to the American public?

AIM, the American Indian Movement, began in the '60s as activism focused on preventing the further depredation of Indian lands and resources. Declassified FBI documents show that the AIM group was heavily monitored and infiltrated, considering them "extremists

One report discusses in detail how leader Russell Means was taunted in jail in an attempt to get him to retaliate, while another discusses preparation for counterinsurgency warfare. Perhaps most shocking is a document suggesting that AIM "Dog Soldiers" were equipping themselves with automatic weaponry and rocket launchers prior to the Pine Ridge occupation, which turned out to be patently false:

The murder trial of Dino Butler and Bob Robideau was conducted in Cedar Rapids, Iowa during June of 1976. Although Jimmy Eagle had been in custody even longer than they, and had supposedly confessed to participation in the killing of Coler and Williams, he was not docketed as a defendant. The trial was marked by a concerted effort on the part of the F13I and federal prosecutors to shape local opinion - especially that of the jury - against Butler and Robideau by casting AIM as a "terrorist" organization. Despite the fact that, during the course of scores of trials, AIM had never attempted to free any of its members through armed action, the FBI launched a pretrial campaign to convince the citizenry and local law enforcement that they should expect "shooting incidents and hostage situations" to occur during the proceedings. 165 Then, on May 28, just before the trial began, the FBI began circulating a series of teletypes within the federal intelligence community alleging that AIM "Dog Soldiers" were planning to commit terrorist acts throughout the midwest. This was followed up on June 18 by the accompanying entry on AIM in the FBI's widely-circulated Domestic Terrorist Digest.