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"Hobbyism" or Necessity Turned Into Political Service

By Jax ABCF

There has been a great deal said to both ABCF members who do and do not participate in the newly formed Tactical Defense Caucus (TDC). Sadly, there has likely been much more said or thought about the TDC behind closed doors or in confidence between activists and friends who know little about what it is we in the TDC do - or why we do it.
Indeed criticisms within our own organization, the ABCF, have caused us to reflect upon our activities and re-evaluate our purpose and goals. ABCF members as well as other activists and political people alike have spoken among themselves, without any input from TDC members (with few exception), questioning the political foundation the TDC is built upon. These questions and criticisms have primarily been directed at Jacksonville ABCF who started the TDC and continue to be its most active and involved participants. TDC activity takes up a fair amount of Jacksonville ABCF's activity and it is a fact that we have great hopes of developing the TDC.
Is this work political, or have we "stepped out of the political fold with [our] hobby focus with weapons" as has been said of us? When these questions were posed to us by long time associates, comrades and friends, we were forced to ask ourselves these same questions. The answers we came up with we believe are worthy of sharing and we would therefore like to take this opportunity to affirm the political nature, the political relevance, and in fact, the political necessity of our activities. This article, and indeed Condition Red Quarterly as a whole is a response to many of these questions.
A resurgence of questions about self defense training arose when Neil, formerly of NJ ABCF moved to Florida and joined Jacksonville ABCF. Just prior to the move, he had becoming increasingly more involved in TDC activity. Upon arriving in Jacksonville, he joined Justin of Jacksonville ABCF in frequent and intensified training and study of defensive measures and tactics. People began questioning again if this can be considered political activity. Even people who are or were in solidarity with the idea of the TDC shared these question.
Fair enough, but before answering this question, one we would like to pose to our critics is if anyone ever took time to consider why they believe these two individuals, Neil and Justin, are most involved in TDC and its activities? Is our involvement in TDC as simple as something like a hobby focus run wild, falsely masked as ABCF or political activity, or a dormant a-political fascination with guns we have now let flourish? Some will always believe this to be the case we suspect, and it is quite likely no amount of evidence presented them showing otherwise will change such narrow minds. Others, we hope will look for an answer that while not as easy to accept, is rooted in reality as opposed to some ill-informed speculation similar to those above and others spoken by many of our critics.
Jacksonville ABC began April 1995. When the ABCF formed one month later, Jax ABC was one of the first ABC groups to adopt the proposal to federate, and joined shortly after the May 1995 ABCF founding conference in Washington DC, which they attended. Justin is currently the only original member of Jacksonville ABC that remains. Prior to his membership in Jacksonville ABCF, he lived in NJ and was a member of NJ ABC from 1993-1995 when he moved back to Florida.

I (Justin) started an interest in firearms after moving to Jacksonville. Shortly after my 18th birthday I purchased a rifle and wanted to learn to shoot it. I felt it was part of my political duty to own a firearm and to learn to use it. Also, a member of our collective had been mugged at gunpoint. All that stood between her and being shot was a pull of the trigger. We decided that we wanted more than luck on our side.
Unfortunately I realized it was alot more to it than just owning a gun. The first time I went to the range I knew nothing, it took me 10 minutes of fumbling to get it loaded. I had no idea on how to hold, line up my sights, press the trigger. I couldn't even hit near my target. I definitely did not have a clue to what I was doing. Compared to the other seasoned shooters on the range I was green. I and the rest of our group still kept trying. We had the naive idea that the more guns we owned and the more we shot the stronger we would be. The reality was that we were reinforcing bad habits and wasting our money on crappy guns. None of us knew what we were doing, we were just showing off our cheap menacing looking weapons and making a lot of noise at the gun range.
Around the same time our local ABCF group was involved in alot of community activity that was attracting attention of the media and police. Things really escalated fast we were under constant attack by police and we were helpless. After our arrests and the court battle it personally affected everyone in our group (cutting it into a third). We could not continue the local work we were doing without coming up with some forms of both political and physical defense.
We drastically changed the work we were doing. I started buying all the books and videos I could find on the subject of self defense. I joined a martial arts school and began going to the range, practicing actual shooting techniques instead of just making noise. It really took a couple of years for me to develop just a reasonable amount of skill. I learned very slowly from books and videos. It was hard to learn with out professional guidance - which at the time was out of hand.
Some time shortly after, another member of the group was held up again at gunpoint on the job. After giving the money over, he was pistol whipped and awoke hours later in a pool of his own blood. I obtained a concealed carry permit and began carrying a gun. This became a way of life. I knew that a gun was not a magical talisman that I needed to be both mentally and physically prepared to use it should the need ever arise.
Now six years later I feel confident with my weapons and we have become the more seasoned shooters. Through local events and shooting competitions I have had a chance to compare my self to other shooters. We have competed against police, federal agents and military (unknown to them!). I am not the best but I can hold my own. I can (and have) take someone who has never even touched a gun and with two days and a couple hundred rounds teach them something that took me years to learn on my own. I think this is one of the most valuable thing the TDC has to offer. It can take an inexperienced person that may not have the years it takes to learn on there own and prepare them for the emergency situation they may face. This is valuable not only for the federation but also our political affiliates. We have been developing instructional materials for our political movement so everyone does not have to start from ground zero like we did.
I (Neil) on the other hand became involved in self defense activities much later on. While supportive of all the work Jacksonville ABCF was doing in the area of defense, I hadn't fired a gun since I was less than 7 years old. While I accepted that armed or any other form of defense was a right and supported people's right to defend themselves, I myself never seriously took any steps to learn myself. Even though the offer had been made by others who owned firearms and were willing to practice with me locally. It just wasn't something I took very urgently for myself. It was always one of those things I would make time for eventually, but just knew I didn't have enough time or money to do so then. Looking back, I really waited far too long. Not that it's ever too late, only that conditions existed even at that time which strongly warranted my becoming more conscious of my safety than I was being.
I didn't really start getting involved in learning to defend myself until 1997 or so. It wasn't until 1999 that I bought my first gun. Before then, I never had an interest in guns or defense. My only experience was when my father took me too a winter camp and I shot a .22 rifle at about age 6 or 7. About 20 years passed before I thought of shooting again or even remembered that first experience. By this time I had already helped open a bookstore that was shot at by police, had nazi's break into it in the middle of the night, been interrogated by the state police etc. etc. Still even after all of this, I didn't really start to take my own security seriously until my home was broken into. I woke to hear glass breaking and when I went to see what it was, I saw a man with his arm through my widow trying to open the door. The VERY first thing that came to mind was "what if he has a gun?" Luckily the man did not have a gun (he didn't even have his shoes!) and was a drunk who thought his cousin lived here.
At about the same time period, political associates began sharing letters they had received from other activists. In these letters, these activists were threatening to kill me, or get someone to harm me. I have since concluded that these activists who have made such threats were pretty seriously desperate people. I didn't know if this meant I should take the threats more or less serious. Having been told by friends and comrades that it is imperative to take all such threats seriously, I opted to err on the side of safety if an error was to be made at all.
I already knew about how the government had killed shot at beaten and threatened members of the Black Panthers, AIM, and more, but I had also just recently learned about how in the late 70's the klan attacked the Communist Workers Party in Greensboro, NC. It seems that only a few months after learning that, it was July of 1998 and two Anti Racist Action members were murdered by skinheads with shotguns in a Las Vegas desert. With all of this history, their deaths still came as a surprise to most.
What surprised me more - even more so than their murders - was how this could surprise me. There was sign after sign after sign that I or nearly anyone could be faced with the same type of deadly force. In fact, it appeared to me only a matter of luck that I had not already been faced with deadly force considering all that had happened and was happening.
Justin came up to visit his family in NJ and gave me my first lesson late in 1997, by summer 1998 we arranged so that the ABCF annual conference would be in Jacksonville and that Jax ABCF would give a course on handguns and shotguns at the conclusion of the ABCF conference. Not long after participating in that I went through all the hoops one has to go through to purchase a handgun in NJ. With the help of Justin I picked out my own gun. This was late 1998, early 1999. I was glad to have someone like Justin that I knew and trusted to talk to about buying a handgun. He went over all the different kinds of handguns and their advantages and disadvantages. Without someone knowledgeable like him, I would have been very uncomfortable asking strangers these questions and would have bought a firearms that was not right for me.
I followed up with a trip back to Jacksonville for more training shortly after that and continued with taking classes on my own and competing in defensive firearm competitions back in the NJ area until 2000 when I moved to Jacksonville. By that time I had become more involved in learning to defend myself than I though I would ever have time for. However I am not through learning. Things are no better for any of us, myself included. In the time it has taken to put this article together, two more letters written by two more people with specific threats on my life have passed my desk. I have seen and heard of no less than a half dozen threats, I think it likely that there are at least as many that I have not heard of.

We can't stop anyone from wanting to kill us, hurt our political associates, attack the organization we have spent years participating in, or anyone involved in it. All we can do is the best we can to stop them in their tracks should they decide to follow up on these thoughts. We certainly hope these thoughts and threats remain idle. We'd rather there were no such threats whatsoever, but we will not cease our activities. And if it is this that causes people to think of causing us harm, we don't think we had much of a choice but to learn to deal with being confronted with the deadly force so many have been so bold as to speak of.
All of this is merely to say that when we look at the ABCF and its history, which has shaped what it has become today, you ought not be surprised when you see something like the TDC. When you look at who is most involved, you ought not be surprised to see who you do all things considered.
Is what we're doing politically relevant, or even political at all? We believe it is. The reasons we believe so lie not so much in some perceived, mystical, inherent connection between revolution and arms. It lies in what we have done and what we are doing with what we have learned.
Starting the TDC at all was very risky. It has cost the ABCF a great deal of support. The phone doesn't ring as often as it used to with offers to table at events. Emails and letters have stopped coming as frequently requesting us to speak about the ABCF and PP/POW's. We strongly believe the TDC has scared a good many people away. We have not helped matters much either. About whenever we in Jacksonville do table, or speak, or show up for that matter, in addition to our vast and growing selection of PP/POW oriented merchandise, we bring along a TDC display and material dealing with learning to defend ourselves, our organizations and why.
It is not a very popular subject, one most people would rather not think about. It is surely something most people do not want to be confronted with. Most people we run into feel secure about themselves and their groups. Few think that they might share the fate of Lynn and Spit of Las Vegas ARA who were killed by nazis in July 1998. Few people feel that other activists who affiliate themselves with politics that sound similar to their own might dislike them and what they do so intensely as to entertain thoughts of killing them. Maybe we didn't want to know this either, but we found out.
We feel strongly enough about stopping these types of threats and murders that we talk about it, though most don't like to hear it. We can ignore the problem, we can talk about it among ourselves, some might even secretly go to the range now and again. Others still might take professional courses to secure their own safety. This still leaves others in the dark. Others who may want or need these skills as much or more than ourselves.
If you believe as we do, that necessity is the mother of invention, we hope by now you believe that learning to defend ourselves was at least necessary. We suppose we could have followed a course of action that was not as public as the one we chose. We could have learned all that we have learned without really talking about it or making it an issue. It is safe to say that many more people would feel a lot less apprehensive about the ABCF as a whole had we followed that less conspicuous course. This includes a number of PP/POWs we work with. Things generally would have been a lot easier. However we chose to integrate this work into our political activity because we saw the need not only for us to defend ourselves, and in turn the ABCF, but other organizations and activists as well. We all can come under attack. Some of you have already, and still others will. Waiting until then to learn is far, far too late. Had we went ahead and learned to defend ourselves privately, we would have been more prepared to deal with a threat ourselves. But maybe it wouldn't have been us who eventually needed this knowledge. We would have been more prepared, but maybe it would have been our friend in Lancaster ABCF, or maybe some anarchist we didn't even know somewhere who comes under attack. While we were busy learning to save ourselves, other friends or political associates could have been attacked, weakening the overall morale of the entire anarchist community. We were and always have been interested in strengthening the anarchist community. It is for this reason, among others, that we became so public.
When the ABCF started, it was among other things, an attempt to take things we had learned as separate groups, and put them together. Thus, providing a space where people who have yet to learn can share our collective experiences, and a place where those with similar experiences and hopes could contribute. This lead to a great many changes in the way many people both inside the ABCF and out viewed their work with prisoners in general, and PP/POWs in particular. For the most part we are collectivists who believe in getting together and sharing what we know, what we have, and what we think. All in order to better the whole. While there is much we need to work on, the idea itself is political and in our view correct. It was also necessary.
Groups would, and still do, sell merchandise with PP/POWs featured without sharing proceeds of the merchandise with that PP/POW. Work would and still does get done on behalf of PP/POWs without their even knowing about it. If they're lucky, they'll find out about a program held on their behalf sometime after the fact. These are but two examples, there are many more. Members of NJ ABC from 1992 to 1995 changed the way we worked with PP/POWs after learning of these incorrect practices. But we did so silently and this did little to change the mistakes that were being made by others. Contributing in starting the ABCF was an attempt to end this. This poor political practice continues today, however we believe on a smaller scale than before the ABCF because of the very visible, public and advertised examples we have helped to set.
There were other activities we could have been doing that were either equally or more political than helping PP/POWs. But this was a way that we saw to contribute to the over all anarchist community.
Again we find ourselves in a situation where our experience can help strengthen not only the ABCF, but the anarchist and left community in general. There is so little being done in the way of armed self defense training. Meanwhile, those who are potential threats to our health have been busy for years training with arms. There is more going on among the left now than before, but still far too little. We think we helped contribute to this small growth by publicizing our work. This was one of the goals we had always held. By taking what we have learned and offering this knowledge, both good and bad, to the larger political community, we feel we are offering a service to those who want and accept it.
This work is very time consuming, to do it thoroughly it is extremely expensive and it comes with a great deal of risk, especially when done with a political objective. If we were not political, and our involvement with defensive arms was a mere hobby or fascination as has been charged, why do we maintain our political affiliations and share this with other political people? How much less at risk would we be if we went along our merry way and satisfied our "gun fascination" as John, Joe or Jane Doe? Not unlike so many people do across the country. Who is putting themselves more at risk, John and Jane Doe who has a hidden arsenal in their closets and garages, or Jacksonville ABCF who chooses to share what we learn about defending ourselves with other political individuals and groups? Why are we taking these political risks if we have "stepped from the political fold?" These are questions we have not found answers to and yet hear them asked of us more and more frequently.
In a July 8, 9 letter to us, while questioning the political nature of our work, anarchist POW Ojore Lutalo wrote; "It has long been my position that the gun is an extension of the guerrilla's politics because the struggle is political/military in it's applications. I am saying this to say if I was out there in the whirlwind doing what Jacksonville is doing, my defense to such a critique/criticism would be that as an urban guerrilla who see the need for such weapon training and the dire need to build up the armed front of the struggle - the gun is an extension of the guerrilla's politics. Can Jacksonville make this claim of the gun being an extension of their politics?"
No one in the ABCF or any part of it, including members of Jacksonville ABCF are guerrillas. Nor can we claim to be building up the armed front which is direly needed. What we can claim however, is that we are helping not only the ABCF, but other anarchist and political formations learn to defend themselves from aggressive and deadly attack. We would further argue that having above ground activists who participate in legal political formations, such as the ABCF, also direly need to learn to defend themselves. Some, like us, will go to the main stream gun culture to receive training. Why? Because at the moment it is sadly no where else to be found. We would conclude this article by saying that if we take what is learned, turn it around, and offers it to other like minded people, a service is indeed being given to the political community. And it is indeed a valuable skill needed in the political community. We hope you will agree, we know some will never.

One Bullet and eight shells recovered from the bookstore shooting