Casus Belli: The meaning of "Not one more inch."

"They can jail us. They can shoot us. They can even conscript us. They can use us as cannon fodder in the Somme. But. . . But we have a weapon more powerful than any in the whole arsenal of their British Empire – and that weapon is our refusal. Our refusal to bow to any order but our own, any institution but our own." -- Liam Neeson as Michael Collins.

Folks,

A new reader has commented thusly to the earlier post, "Well, well, lookie here, boys and girls! Eric Holder must be a secret fan."

I don't think they will ever give a clear point at which you can decide to fight back. It will be extreme incrementalism--- taxes on ammunition, more sales regulations for firearms, needing ID to buy ammo which will be recorded, tracking credit cards used in gun, ammo and accessories sales, etc.

I think they're going to try and make it practically impossible to own firearms while never giving an excuse to respond.

Where is the one in the sand then?

Apologies if you've answered already, I'm a new reader.

I get this a lot. From some, like the Prags, it is calculated defeatism. They deny that anyone will resist because that is the one thing that frightens them to death. For if enough firearms owners refuse to obey the next infringement, they KNOW they will be dragged into the fight. If we do not play nice anymore, their toys will be forfeit too. They deny this in public, but they get the angriest at me when I point it out, so I assume that they indeed DO most fear it in that little inner place they refuse to look, but know is there.

From most others it is a genuine concern. This is how things have happened for at least seventy-five years, and they expect it to continue. For Three Percenters, however, incrementalism is exactly the reason we have taken our stand.

This is why we declare "not one more inch." One guy at a gun show once told me that I should have made it "not one more millimeter." I told him he was being too European. I suppose that someone on the other side, reading "not one more inch" might conclude he can get away with a half-inch or a quarter inch.

That would be a fatal mistake.

For a whole lot of people.

When Three Percenters declare that they are done with being shoved back, that includes nudges too.

What we are saying is "get the hell up out of our faces before something very bad happens."

Personal space is the region surrounding a person that effects them psychologically in terms of it being their domain or territory, or about which they feel uncomfortable if entered by another. -- Wikipedia.

Ever watch a dog crowd a cat, leading with its very vulnerable nose? The cat defines its personal space quite definitely, suddenly and in a targeted manner and the dog retreats with a bloody nose, having learned a very valuable lesson.

Here's the thing. These people have not only crowded our personal space, they've shoved us around, pushed us into a corner and picked our pockets in the bargain, making us pay for the privilege of being oppressed. They have long ago earned the right to a bloody nose. Yet they keep coming because no one HAS punched them in the nose.

Unfortunately governments, unlike dogs, do not have the good sense to back off. They just keep coming, stupidly, blindly, because governments aren't as smart as dogs. This is especially true of collectivist governments.


There is a Roman phrase, Casus belli, which is a Latin expression meaning "case of war." I am proud to say that the term was reintroduced in the modern world by a Dutchman, Hugo Grotius, in 1625, in the context of trying to explain what constituted a "just war."

Now "casus belli" is sometimes misspelled and mispronounced as "causus belli" since this resembles the English "cause." Cause, however, springs from a different Latin word, causa, meaning, well, cause.

Casus belli, as understood by the Romans, described, in the legal sense, a case of war. In other words, it was understood to be the sum total of events by an aggressor which constituted the onset of war.

This is what the Founders were getting at when they put these words in the Declaration of Independence.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future."

"A long train of abuses and usurpations." This was their case for war against the empire of King George the Third. Collectivist gradualism in their 75-year war against our liberties also "evinces a design" to reduce US under absolute Despotism.

The gradualism is, indeed, the casus belli. They have been at war with us for a long time. We have just never before elected to accept that fact, and to take steps to secure our liberty and property, our "personal space."

So, what does "not one more inch" mean?

It means, if they pass taxes on ammunition we will refuse to cooperate. We will smuggle. We will manufacture ourselves and we will dare them to enforce their will upon us. This is, in one sense, what the state firearms manufacturing freedom acts are about. And when they do, we will shoot back.

It means that if they insist on us showing ID to buy ammo, one guy will show up once a month and buy several million rounds of ammunition, and then distribute it to the rest of his anonymous "ammo co-op." And when they attack him, we will shoot back.

It means that if they ban gun shows, by fiat or stealth, we will hold our own illegal gun shows in defiance of them. And when they try to enforce their will, we shoot back.

"Not one more inch" means shooting back.

Our refusal to cooperate in our own further enslavement will not be tolerated by our "betters." They will hire somebody to enforce their will (for they never risk their own hides). When they do, we will first defend ourselves, and then we will seek out the people who sent the killers and we will wreak justice upon the war makers, not just the war fighters.

That is what "not one more inch" means.

This is called, in the over-technical parlance of the day, "fourth-generation warfare." I call it justice.

If it starts, I don't expect to live to see the end of it, but it will be justice nonetheless.

Now I would a whole lot rather not go down this road. That is why, like the rattlesnake on the flag, I'm trying to get across the point to the collectivists who think that it is business as usual that they'd better not take another step lest they be bitten.

However there is also the very likely prospect, given the existence of a stupid, steroidal, out-of-control agency like the ATF, that conflict could start simply on the basis of some federal idiot's miscalculation.

But whether the ball opens because somebody thinks wrongly that they can have another free Waco, or because somebody thinks they can nudge us back some more without what they think of as an "overt act," we will REFUSE TO COOPERATE in our own further oppression.

"Not one more inch" is a statement of that refusal.

It may lead to civil war by design on their part, or by miscalculation, but the line is drawn, not in the sand, but etched in granite -- in the determined heart of every Three Percenter.

NOT. ONE. MORE. INCH.

Gradualism will not suffice them this time.

From here on out, they must decide if their tyrannical appetites are worth dying for.

Not one more inch.

Mike
III