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Look at it this way: if you're going to lead an illegal insurrection to overthrow what you think is a tyranical government, why do you care what the gun laws ar

Look at it this way: if you're going to lead an illegal insurrection to overthrow what you think is a tyranical government, why do you care what the gun laws are?

modest_sarcasm 8y ago
Exactly, one can always rely on the general population to illegally stockpile guns and ammunition, just in case. That tyrant won't stand a chance!
- krapp 8y ago
  >Exactly, one can always rely on the general population to illegally stockpile guns and ammunition, just in case. I probably shouldn't reply to an obvious troll account but... yes. That is exactly how revolutions happen throughout the world - with weapons procured through the black market or otherwise illegal means. It's only the US which insists that a right to revolution be legally defined and protected by the very government its people theoretically intends to revolt against... and yet even with the Second Amendment, domestic terrorism and revolt against the government is still illegal in the US.
  - modest_sarcasm 8y ago
    Of course, I forgot that stricter gun control will create a thriving market for illegal firearms. I guess everything's fine then!
    - krapp 8y ago
      I mean, snark all you want modest_sarcasm, but facts are facts. The right of revolution doesn't depend on legal access to firearms, and the evidence of that is... literally every revolution since the advent of firearms. And Americans have started enough such revolutions around the world that they should have figured this out by now.
rayiner 8y ago
You need to have guns to begin with to start the insurrection. In 1971, Pakistan started to massacre Bangladeshis as a result of an election in what was then east Pakistan. Civilians started an insurrection, using among other things stolen guns. This is where an already-armed populace would have come in handy.
nicolashahn 8y ago
A necessary precondition for a tyrannical government is a power imbalance between the people and the government. Allowing citizens to own arms that are in the same league as what the government uses prevents this.
- pariahHN 8y ago
  So, civilians owning tanks? Predator drones? Attack helicopters? Cruise missiles? Fighter jets? Biological or chemical weapons? We don't live in a world where the people and the government can reasonably expect to have symmetrical physical warfare capabilities. This argument is irrelevant today. The only area where the exists any form of symmetry would be cyber weapons, not physical. Defending against other individuals is still a viable argument, and is the only reason I think we need to be careful about how far we go with regards to gun control, but that has some tight limits and I think we can find more effective solutions than guns if we put some effort into it and take it seriously.
  - nicolashahn 8y ago
    > So, civilians owning tanks? Predator drones? Attack helicopters? Cruise missiles? Fighter jets? Biological or chemical weapons? We don't need any of that stuff to keep the balance. Iraq, Afganistan, and Vietnam are proof of this. Insurgencies are extremely effective against our military. The only real requirement for them to exist is a sufficient quantity of small arms, and maybe some improvised explosives. The argument is still very much relevant. What's happening in Venezuela right now would not be possible without having first disarmed the populace.

Look at it this way: if you're going to lead an illegal insurrection to overthrow what you think is a tyranical government, why do you care what the gun laws are?

modest_sarcasm 8y ago

Exactly, one can always rely on the general population to illegally stockpile guns and ammunition, just in case. That tyrant won't stand a chance!

krapp 8y ago
>Exactly, one can always rely on the general population to illegally stockpile guns and ammunition, just in case. I probably shouldn't reply to an obvious troll account but... yes. That is exactly how revolutions happen throughout the world - with weapons procured through the black market or otherwise illegal means. It's only the US which insists that a right to revolution be legally defined and protected by the very government its people theoretically intends to revolt against... and yet even with the Second Amendment, domestic terrorism and revolt against the government is still illegal in the US.
- modest_sarcasm 8y ago
  Of course, I forgot that stricter gun control will create a thriving market for illegal firearms. I guess everything's fine then!
  - krapp 8y ago
    I mean, snark all you want modest_sarcasm, but facts are facts. The right of revolution doesn't depend on legal access to firearms, and the evidence of that is... literally every revolution since the advent of firearms. And Americans have started enough such revolutions around the world that they should have figured this out by now.

rayiner 8y ago

You need to have guns to begin with to start the insurrection. In 1971, Pakistan started to massacre Bangladeshis as a result of an election in what was then east Pakistan. Civilians started an insurrection, using among other things stolen guns. This is where an already-armed populace would have come in handy.

nicolashahn 8y ago

A necessary precondition for a tyrannical government is a power imbalance between the people and the government. Allowing citizens to own arms that are in the same league as what the government uses prevents this.

pariahHN 8y ago
So, civilians owning tanks? Predator drones? Attack helicopters? Cruise missiles? Fighter jets? Biological or chemical weapons? We don't live in a world where the people and the government can reasonably expect to have symmetrical physical warfare capabilities. This argument is irrelevant today. The only area where the exists any form of symmetry would be cyber weapons, not physical. Defending against other individuals is still a viable argument, and is the only reason I think we need to be careful about how far we go with regards to gun control, but that has some tight limits and I think we can find more effective solutions than guns if we put some effort into it and take it seriously.
- nicolashahn 8y ago
  > So, civilians owning tanks? Predator drones? Attack helicopters? Cruise missiles? Fighter jets? Biological or chemical weapons? We don't need any of that stuff to keep the balance. Iraq, Afganistan, and Vietnam are proof of this. Insurgencies are extremely effective against our military. The only real requirement for them to exist is a sufficient quantity of small arms, and maybe some improvised explosives. The argument is still very much relevant. What's happening in Venezuela right now would not be possible without having first disarmed the populace.