You have to be willing to accept your narrative or the popular narrative might be wrong, but not very many are willing or able to do that.

Over the weekend, social media was buzzing about a veteran named Alex Booth in New York being red flagged over possession of a 30 round magazine. He was all over Instagram drinking his coffee, showing off his empty mag pouches, gaining 150,000 followers while held up in an attic.

Everyone was finally ready to get some use out of all the gear they’ve been buying up since Obama was elected. Supposedly, people were showing up, getting arrested, flooding the police department with calls, crashing their system.

Poor Putnam County Sheriff’s Office in Florida was even inundated, leaving them to post, “When none of the keyboard warriors checks your location before commenting to realize this is Putnam County, Fla., not New York. Might be having an identity crisis.”

Booth said his internet and phone service was about to be cut.

And then, nothing.

Next there’s a press release from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office stating he surrendered peacefully, and he was charged with a felony and a slew of misdemeanors that had nothing to do with 30rd mags, but a felony warrant relating to a prior “domestic incident”.

History happens in seconds, and whoever controls the narrative controls the history and lesson learned or not learned. But what’s the truth? What’s the context? And what can we learn from this, either way?

As Dimitri Karras of Firearms Unknown so eloquently stated:

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So two things have become apparent to me due to yesterday’s kerfuffle:

1. I don’t have the foggiest clue about what happened in NY or why. There’s so much conflicting info that it’s impossible to tell what the truth is from across the country.

2. There’s a LOT of people willing to get in a shootout with cops who try to enforce unconstitutional gun laws. People were literally mobilizing because they thought cops were trying to red flag a vet.

If I was a cop, I would spend some time soul searching. People seem to be at the absolute brink with this, and the excuse of just doing Muh job isn’t going to clean your soul. You’re going to have to pick a side, probably sooner than you think.

—/

While incidences themselves may not fit the narrative, in the fog of war they can spark off an already existing and simmering explosive narrative that when in context makes perfect sense.

This dude may end up being the Jussie Smollett of gun rights, I don’t know. Shame on him if he is, riling us all up over his personal issues. But it might not matter, because what this is exposing is the narrative and the context. There would be no underlying desire to boogaloo if the state wasn’t violating our rights. It also exposes the belief, or fact, that the thin blue line will obey orders to molon your labe.

But what will be the popular narrative taken away from this? How will history look back on this and describe what happened (if it does at all)? Who will be the one(s) to shape and spread that narrative? Who will believe it?

I always considered myself a student of history. I took it to heart, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, but when being a student means repeating what somebody else wanted me to know about it, I’m not a student; I’m just being indoctrinated. What I’ve come to learn is most of modern history is an indoctrination, a very one sided historical narrative

History is a race to whoever can control the narrative. Think back to recent events, whether it’s Bundy Ranch and the Oregon stand off, “Hands up don’t shoot” in Ferguson, Charlottesville, Trayvon Martin... what version of those events is the popular narrative versus what your or others’ views of them are? What versions will future generations be taught when the popular narrative isn’t the true or full story?

That’s history, times infinity. What you think you know about history, if you were taught it in school, saw it in a movie, or just knew through social osmosis, is worse than knowing nothing at all, because you’ll first have to unlearn false or one sided historical narratives before you can dig into opposing narratives and contexts.

There comes a point when fake news becomes fake history. You’ve probably heard and repeated the quote, “If you tell a lie loud enough and long enough, it becomes the truth”, largely attributed to Joseph Goebbels. Historical knowledge and perspective begins when you realize he said it as an accusation.

Those who learn from fake history won’t ever learn the true lessons if the facts or contexts are omitted. It becomes impossible to learn from history that isn’t taught.

You have to be willing to accept your narrative or the popular narrative might be wrong, but not very many are willing or able to do that.

And we wonder why there’s nothing new under the sun.