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It's not that "laws don't work", although that is somewhat true. It's that any attempt to forcibly disarm the populace of the United States will (and philosoph

It's not that "laws don't work", although that is somewhat true. It's that any attempt to forcibly disarm the populace of the United States will (and philosophically probably should) trigger a civil war/revolution. The literal purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to ensure that the populace is armed against a tyrannical government, forcible disarmament is pretty tyrannical. Side note: About 1/3rd of the US population owns a firearm.

flukus 9y ago
> trigger a civil war/revolution You act like that's a bad thing. A good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded. A good chunk of their fear of government likely extend from the last time they tried. All to often the argument against things like gun control or universal healthcare is "the US is far too big and diverse" and yet no one wants to consider getting smaller and less diverse.
- tristor 9y ago
  It's basically a tautology to say that things would look different today if things had gone differently in the past. I don't think it's true that a "good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded". Three US states together make up over a quarter (30.92%) of the total national GDP, one of those states is in the South. It's not a simple matter to simply say that the US should break up into smaller countries. Whether that's a desirable outcome or not is something I'm not even really going to touch.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  "You act like that's a bad thing." It would be a very bad thing. I suspect that you don't have the faintest idea how bad it could be. The previous U.S. Civil War was the war with the highest U.S. body count, by far, with somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million Americans dead (counting both military and civilians). "A good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded. " Wait: so you expect the side without any guns to win a civil war? How does that work?
  - flukus 9y ago
    Secession doesn't have to mean war. They declare independence, every one else says "that's ok let's negotiate terms", no war required. The whole civil war was avoidable.
    - Turing_Machine 9y ago
      > Secession doesn't have to mean war. Perhaps, but historically that's not the way to bet. I can think of maybe two or three cases of peaceful secession, and dozens of cases where it resulted in a bloody civil war.

flukus 9y ago

> trigger a civil war/revolution You act like that's a bad thing. A good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded. A good chunk of their fear of government likely extend from the last time they tried. All to often the argument against things like gun control or universal healthcare is "the US is far too big and diverse" and yet no one wants to consider getting smaller and less diverse.

tristor 9y ago
It's basically a tautology to say that things would look different today if things had gone differently in the past. I don't think it's true that a "good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded". Three US states together make up over a quarter (30.92%) of the total national GDP, one of those states is in the South. It's not a simple matter to simply say that the US should break up into smaller countries. Whether that's a desirable outcome or not is something I'm not even really going to touch.
Turing_Machine 9y ago
"You act like that's a bad thing." It would be a very bad thing. I suspect that you don't have the faintest idea how bad it could be. The previous U.S. Civil War was the war with the highest U.S. body count, by far, with somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million Americans dead (counting both military and civilians). "A good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded. " Wait: so you expect the side without any guns to win a civil war? How does that work?
- flukus 9y ago
  Secession doesn't have to mean war. They declare independence, every one else says "that's ok let's negotiate terms", no war required. The whole civil war was avoidable.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    > Secession doesn't have to mean war. Perhaps, but historically that's not the way to bet. I can think of maybe two or three cases of peaceful secession, and dozens of cases where it resulted in a bloody civil war.