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Gun ownership still makes sense.
by robohoe 7y ago
Gun ownership still makes sense.
- curiousgal 7y agoIt makes sense to form an armed militia in order to fight the government?
- artificial 7y agoHow’s it going in Hong Kong?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 7y agoHow do you think it would be going if Hong Kong has gun ownership at the level of the US?
- mc32 7y agoOr Venezuela. As part of consolidating power, often authoritarian governments implement an arms buyback or confiscation program to minimize armed uprising later on.
- artificial 7y agoI like the Orwellian term “buy back” as if you purchased arms from them in the first place, and secondly they’re using your money to deprive you. For the small arms nay sayers (against a well equipped military) case in point is Afghanistan, guerrillas wore down the Soviets.
- cheeseomlit 7y agoIt certainly did in 1765. Do you really think the government should have a monopoly on force? Might = power, you disarm the population and they are rendered powerless. I just don't understand putting that much trust in the government
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoHistorical and logistical context aside, 1765 vs modern weaponry and war waging abilities, are you joking? The ability for militias with small arms to fight our own military has been a joke for several decades.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoCan you explain to me then why Vietnam is a communist country? As I recall, they were able to cause quite a lot of trouble for the US military and its modern weaponry and war waging abilities with pretty much nothing but small arms.
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoAgain, a completely different historical and logistical context, keep up the straw men!
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoWay to do some explaining there. How is it different?
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoThis is not a conducive medium to either of us swaying each other on any small point nevermind the larger argument so I'm leaving it here.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>modern weaponry and war waging abilities, are you joking? The Taliban aren't joking. You are grossly under-estimating what it takes to fight an insurgency. A military fighting in the same country on which it depends is vulnerable to attacks and sabotage on all its support infrastructure. You can't just carpet bomb areas of resistance because that creates more resistance elsewhere or destroy the country you're trying to control. It's a hard problem and on some level you have to get people on "your side" to win in any sort of long term sense.
- Grakel 7y agoAbsolutely, it's a highly effective tactic that has resulted in success across continents and centuries. It's nice that peace is so taken for granted in developed countries, but it is an outlier in the human experience. And to the commenter who said modern militaries could never be stopped by small militias, you have only to look seriously at our adventures in Afghanistan and the fact that we're still there. The AK 47 is a less accurate, high-recoil stamped out piece of garbage compared to the AR 15, and it's all you need to stop a modern military in its tracks for decades.
- jsperson 7y agoWeapons, including small arms, are best viewed as a deterrence. Evidence 1: Many videos of rabidly anti-gun folks who refuse to put a "This home is proudly gun free" sign in their front yard. Evidence 2: The US has thought twice (definitely still not enough) before invading other countries after Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Small and improvised arms have been a real headache. Evidence 3: Hong Kong. Someone asked below if the situation in Hong Kong would be better if there were lots of guns available. That's not really a relevant question. The situation would be entirely different. The government would have been much more limited in its response. Evidence 4: Historically one of the first things a want-to-be totalitarian government does is confiscate weapons held by the populace.
- jamesb93 7y agoAll it does is raise the stakes. Thats why police forces in America are heavily militarised. I can guarantee that if Hong Kong citizens had guns the police would have a disproportionate answer that included more deadly weaponry than they already do.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago> Thats why police forces in America are heavily militarised. Police forces are heavily militarized because of the bonkers amount of money thrown at them in the name of the "War on Drugs" and more recent "War on Terror". Note the connection between "war" and an increasingly militarized police force.
- ssully 7y agoHow do you reconcile the amount of deaths by firearms and the rise of mass shootings? Talking historically and hypothetical's about where guns come in handy is really simple. It get's really difficult when you wake up to news of another mass shooting - sometimes it is the second or third one to occur that month (or week).
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoAdmittedly that is a problem. Interestingly, it's a relatively recent one. Believe it or not there was a time in US history when you could mail-order full auto weapons.
- sharpneli 7y agoArmed militia will not win the fight in raw power terms, but it changes the governments position completely. Unarmed riot can be dispersed using tear gas etc, no need to kill the civilians. Armed riot requires actually killing the opposition. While government will almost certainly succeed in killing the militia the international opinion is wholly different in that case. 10000 person protesters dispersed vs 10000 killed.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoNot the fight government part, but Switzerland actually has an armed militia unlike America. Their gun laws are a lot saner than the states to boot. Any pro gunner will tell you that the 2nd amendment is sacred, except it’s first clause, that’s meaningless.
- TheRealSteel 7y agoIt absolutely does not.
- jimktrains2 7y agoHow does gun ownership not make sense to farmers, hunters, and most people living in truly rural areas, e.g. Appalachia? Look, I'm all for stricter gun laws, but at the same time not everyone lives in a (sub)(ex)urban area and a blanket ban simply will not work.
- Grakel 7y agoAnyone who believes that the US Government is committing terrible acts, but also wants them to take away firearms is in a really indefensible rational position.
- minikites 7y agoDo you think successful armed rebellion with small arms is realistic these days? How well did that work out for the people at Waco or the Cliven Bundy standoff?
- Grakel 7y agoIt worked great for Bundy, I doubt the government would have backed down without the threat of violence. It works great in Afghanistan, and it worked great in Vietnam. It didn't work out great in Waco.
- microcolonel 7y agoCue the barrage of comments from people who live in condos and apartment buildings surrounded by competent police forces a couple minutes away.
- krisroadruck 7y agoThe rebuttal for this argument is so often used that it's been turned into a nice bite-sized repeatable phrase: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away"
- homonculus1 7y agoI think you and the person you responded to (and me too) are in agreement.
- berbec 7y agoCue the barrage of comments from people protecting their children from 30-50 feral hogs.