What If Occupy Protesters Were Armed?

By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News

23 April 14

he school bully will always pick on the scrawny 90-pound kid with no muscles, not the biggest linebacker on the football team. Bullies will only beat up the ones they know won’t fight back. Similarly, police will never hesitate to use an insane amount of force to break up an allegedly illegal encampment of nonviolent protesters, but the entire federal government will back down when faced with just a few hundred heavily-armed right-wing protesters. Should guns at political demonstrations be monopolized by conservatives, or would it benefit left-wing movements to arm themselves, too?

The Significance of Armed Self-Defense

When Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and other conservative activists used Twitter to organize a quick response to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) blockade, it quickly became an armed standoff between federal agents and private citizens. Fervent private property rights activists came heavily armed, with AR-15 rifles, plenty of ammunition, and even bullet-proof vests, ready and willing to pull the trigger on the BLM agents if push came to shove. After pressure from state and federal government officials, the BLM backed down and allowed Bundy’s cattle to graze on public land for Bundy’s own private profit.

While many were hearkening back to the federal raid on David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, 21 years ago, there was a lot of speculation that if government agents had killed the few hundred gathered there – many of whom brought their wives and children – it could have started a nationwide right-wing uprising. The federal government would indeed be widely loathed and discredited, just as it was when national guardsmen killed antiwar protesters at Kent State University during the Vietnam War, changing national sentiment about the war effort. And should such an armed uprising take place, there’s no telling how far it would lead. It may even start a new Civil War. Regardless of how anyone feels about Bundy’s cause, there’s no denying that armed protesters made the difference in Bundy’s victory.

All that being said, one could ask why right-wing militia members didn’t vehemently defend First Amendment rights during the crackdown on the Occupy movement? One could also ask why Occupy protesters didn’t invoke the right to bear arms in defense of free speech?

If Occupy Protesters Were Armed

I was sickened, along with many others, at the militant response to the extremely peaceful Occupy UC Davis protest. Rather than merely arresting students and escorting them from the scene, Lt. John Pike, under the orders of police chief Annette Spicuzza, gassed nonviolent, seated protesters with military-grade pepper spray, as riot police wearing full body armor and face shields stood at the ready. Spicuzza disgustingly defended her police department’s actions, saying the students’ action of linking arms while sitting constituted a violent action, prompting a violent response.

It was equally sickening to watch the treatment of Army veteran Scott Olsen during the crackdown on Occupy Oakland. Riot police used tear gas and flash-bang grenades on groups of unarmed protesters, and sent Olsen to the hospital in critical condition after shooting him in the face with a tear gas canister. Olsen has since developed a speech impediment, and the police officer responsible for the attack on Olsen was just recently promoted to Assistant Police Chief, which made him second in command of Oakland’s police force.

The NYPD’s response to Occupy Wall Street’s protests was notoriously heavy-handed – unarmed female protesters who were already kettled into a corner were violently pepper-sprayed by Lt. Anthony Bologna (known by Occupy activists as Tony Baloney). Several hundred protesters were mass-arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge after police told them they were allowed to take the street. During the eviction of Zuccotti Park, the NYPD carelessly threw books from the People’s Library into trash bins, violently arrested people using batons and pepper spray for simply linking arms, and arrested credentialed journalists documenting the NYPD’s clearly unconstitutional behavior.

But one particularly viral video from the height of the Occupy movement’s encampment phase is of Sgt. Shamar Thomas, a marine veteran who served 14 months in Iraq, shouting at an entire crowd of NYPD officers about how there was no honor in arresting unarmed civilians. As Thomas’s shouting became more animated, more police gathered to hear him speak. All of them looked ashamed as Sgt. Thomas screamed reminders at them that there were no bullets flying, that nobody was trying to hurt them, and that he fought for the rights of his fellow Americans to not be bullied by police while exercising their rights.

After Sgt. Thomas’s outburst went viral, a group called Occupy Marines was born, full of grizzled war veterans who swore to uphold their oath to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. They only allowed former service members to join, since active duty marines are forbidden to participate in political demonstrations. They insisted that anyone who wore their uniforms to demonstrations refrain from actually protesting. There was also a strict dress code for veterans who wanted to participate.

Now imagine if a hundred veterans like Sgt. Thomas, along with veterans like those who threw their war medals away at the NATO protests in Chicago during the Summer of 2012, formed armed perimeters around Occupy encampments when police threatened to evict protesters. Police would have had to take an entirely different approach when dealing with heavily-armed military veterans who were unafraid to pull the trigger in defense of constitutional freedoms. Police likely would have backed down. Perhaps the encampments would still be around today, evolving into self-sustaining spaces that provide a safe haven for the homeless, free education with access to people’s libraries, access to basic healthcare, and centralized locations for grassroots organizers to strategize. If enough protesters were armed, it would force the police to respect First Amendment rights, just as armed protesters at the Bundy Ranch forced the federal government to respect private property rights.

The Problem with Armed Protests

In many movement circles, the mere presence of guns rightfully makes lots of activists feel unsafe. During the height of Occupy Houston, I remember several general assembly meetings in the early stages during which debates became fiercely heated when the question arose of allowing guns into the camp. It was ultimately decided that protesters with guns would not be allowed inside unless they left their weapons at home, under the reasoning that guns would give Houston police all the reason they need to justify a heavy-handed use of force.

If enough people felt unsafe in the presence of so many guns, it would have deterred so many people from participating that the Occupy encampments would have been limited to just those with guns and those comfortable around guns. The media would’ve jumped on the chance to demonize the Occupy movement as a dangerous group of radicals. It would’ve legitimized the FBI’s otherwise ludicrous classification of Occupy protesters as domestic terrorists who were plotting the violent overthrow of the government. The movement may have crumbled under pressure from both the activist community and mainstream America to disperse or to put their weapons away.

The catch-22 is obvious. If a revolutionary movement is armed and takes power, it becomes no better than the regime it attempted to oust, as the coup against Mohammed Morsi in Egypt shows. If a revolutionary movement is armed and fails in an attempt to seize power, then a needless number of lives are lost in vain and a regime becomes even more tyrannical as a result. And if an explicitly nonviolent movement arises, the state will use all the means it can to crush it if it feels threatened by its power. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Guns or No Guns?

Our nation was indeed founded upon a violent uprising against a tyrannical government. But it must also be taken into account that the government that replaced the crown established a strict hierarchy of white landowners as the only ones who could vote, subjugating women and minorities as second-class citizens. The Constitution that came out of that uprising had to be amended 27 times. Even today, organizations on both sides of the political spectrum are working to amend the Constitution for their own ends.

Thomas Jefferson said the tree of liberty sometimes had to be watered with the blood of tyrants, and was ashamed at the idea of a government that went for longer than one generation without a revolution. But rather than a bloody revolt, we must work for change both on the outside level, with on-the-ground organizing for social justice, and on the inside, by running our own candidates for office. Any strategy leaning too heavily on one or the other is bound to fail.

Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.

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