by William Watner
Number 116 – 1^st Quarter 2003

What is a weapon? Does it have to be big? Sharp? Powerful? Does it have to be something you can grab? Something others can destroy? What is a weapon? A weapon can be grasped, but it also can be ungraspable. Weapons are very useful when not used as weapons. A weapon is a tool. A sheath knife can be a very effective weapon in the hands of a trained user, and can also be used to clean deer. Almost all weapons have a double ‘existence’, guns particularly. Major Smith and the rest of the crew have been saying: your best survival tool is the one between your ears. I would like to add to that. Your best weapon is the one between your ears.

A weapon generally has the capability to destroy in some way. Therefore a baseball bat can be classified as a weapon. A golf club could be just as lethal. For that matter a cast iron tea kettle would be extremely effective at close range.

The Netherlands is a good example of where the seed of weapon confiscation has bloomed and blossomed, and where it ultimately leads. The Government of the Netherlands is asking for the voluntary turn-in of weapons (those that turn in guns don’t face risk of prosecution). This includes baseball bats, CO2 pistols, and alarm pistols (from the journal of the NRA, THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN, Feb. 2001, p. 73). Where will they stop? Where can they stop? They really can’t coercively confiscate all sport items, or can they?

One of the most interesting weapons, and effective at the right time, is non-violent resistance. It is a weapon, but not a violent one. It takes more guts to stand firm than to fall back on your animal instinct to fight. It means not cooperating with what you think is wrong or evil. Which brings to mind another weapon, a very valuable weapon, one which can’t be taken away without your consent:

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the minds of the oppressed. —Steven Biko, South African Activist]

It is your spirit; the flame that burns within each and every one of us. This, along with your brain, constitutes the two weapons that nobody, even if they have complete power over your physical body, can steal or put out. “But can’t they kill me?”, you say. Yes, they can. But all that does is entomb your spirit in history and eternity forever. When you are dead, your spirit is even further beyond their grasp than before. Look at Jesus as an example for a spirit never caught, a flame that will never be stamped out.

As Jungle Jim said recently, there are entities in the world that are trying to dumb down our spirits and our brains. ‘They’ are trying to make our flames burn low. Instead of trying to draw up the lowest flame to the highest (which can only be done voluntarily, not coercively), ‘they’ try to beat the highest ones down to the lowest. ‘They’ are trying to make our brains follow them, the State, unquestioningly, and not even to think about morals or right or wrong.

So what does make a weapon? To make it short and sweet, I would say it is anything that can be used in any way against your enemy.

As the last word, my advice is: Use your body—your spirit-your brain—and whatever tools you have, to your best advantage, whatever your situation.

[This article originally appeared in THE HOMESTEADER (No. 10, Spring 2002), published quarterly by Major Michael Smith. William Watner is a fifteen year-old homeschooler.]