> Yep, the thing that's going to scare the United States government out of killing its citizens is them armed with arsenals of M-16's against their… F-22s, B-52

> Yep, the thing that's going to scare the United States government out of killing its citizens is them armed with arsenals of M-16's against their… F-22s, B-52s, carrier groups, and tanks. That's a red-herring though because it doesn't describe an ethnic cleansing. In an ethnic cleansing police move house to house, dragging the unwanted people into the street. In that scenario, small arms are effective in slowing or stopping the problem, at least long enough to receive foreign aid, etc. > The only thing guns do is make one less afraid of one's government if one fails to comprehend the absolutely beastly military power that it can bring to bear against one were it to decide to do so. They probably won't be bombing many cities because they see themselves as ruling that area. (Even in Syria, the dictator isn't using building-levelling bombs very much because he wants to take the city back.) The situation for those in Aleppo is horrible but if they weren't fighting back they'd all be dead in a ditch already. > Gun control, by the way, is tangential to the question of how absurd this particular argument is. Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's a bad idea, but it's certainly not a bad idea because the government is afraid of folks with guns. No, that's not what history shows. Gun control (a lack thereof) wouldn't have changed the course of our wars, but would have changed the genocides. Scapegoats are only valuable if they're weak.