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People have this idea that gun owners would stand in an empty field shooting at tanks with their handguns, and whoever won in that field battle would win the co

People have this idea that gun owners would stand in an empty field shooting at tanks with their handguns, and whoever won in that field battle would win the control of the country, which is quite silly. First, if enough gunmen rose up, the US would be ruined, and the tyranny with it. Sure, they can bomb any rebelling city, but those rebelling cities are their cashcows. Enough of those destroyed and the tyranny is less profitable than freedom; too many of those destroyed and the country as a whole is ruined. Even if the factories are not ruined, big population losses would be equally bad. Or they can do terrorism. Assassinations, sabotage of infraestructure. Tyrants live somewhere, and they send their children to school. Collaborators(which probably would be civil servants, police and the army) also need to sleep somewhere and have children and family. They could just be shot while going home, or killed by IEDs while patrolling. Infraestructure is much easier to destroy than to repair. Killing the power grid or destroying a bridge hurts the rebellion as much or more than it does the dictatorship, but I don't think they would care much. Having guns is also a great detterent to creeping tyranny(well, at least when the guns owners care enough to do something). If every overreach was met with hundreds of thousands of angry people with guns on Washington, they would stop overreaching. I agree that it is quite foolish that these people support things which actually work against them, but do not understimate what hundreds of thousands of angry gunmen could do. Even if they didn't win, they would ruin the US. And making tyranny less profitable than liberty is a good protection against it.

watwut 7y ago
Basically, terrorism for freedom? I have hard time to find situation where it actually worked that way in the past. If it would be that easy, ISIS would do it long time ago.
- godelski 7y ago
  > I have hard time to find situation where it actually worked that way in the past. US?
  - watwut 7y ago
    When? Civil war involved armies and so did war for independence. Natives lost.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    That was armed insurrection, not terrorism. The difference is more than just "the winners write the history books". The methodology was different. The patriots/rebels/insurgents weren't setting off truck bombs in city centers in the hope of making people not oppose them, and not just because they didn't have truck bombs. They weren't trying to assassinate the governor. It was fundamentally a war, not terrorism.
  - cafard 7y ago
    The minute companies of Massachusetts did constitute a well-armed militia, I would argue in the sense intended by the 2nd Amendment. They were not just gun owners, they were men trained and drilled, often with the leadership of locals who had served in two previous wars.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    The US wrested control of territory from a massively over-extended empire across the Atlantic. American Civil War 2 would be totally different.
- dmix 7y ago
  It's more about power projection, a last resort protection level that significantly increases the bar for total subjugation, than it is a tangible strategy towards bettering the world. Besides a lot of military and police support legal gun ownership as well and I highly doubt all of them would be choosing the totalitarian side if it came down to it so it's not entirely just civilians with pop guns vs a well-armed military.
  - watwut 7y ago
    Huh, what makes you think army or cops would not support totalitarian side? Typically, in turn toward more totalitarian, army and cops are first target for recruitment.
    - dmix 7y ago
      Targeted for recruitment = all will support the cause?
- ohazi 7y ago
  More like terrorism as a crude form of mutually assured destruction. It doesn't have to work, there just needs to be a credible threat of a really unpleasant amount of damage.
- jascii 7y ago
  ISIS does not fight for freedom. It's a doomsday suicide cult.
- georgeecollins 7y ago
  ISIS was incredibly successful at beating an organized (although not great quality) military with small arms and improvised weapons. A lot of the military equipment they got was stolen. They really may have been able to take over Iraq if a number of foreign powers did not intervene against them. I am certainly not an advocate of terrorism. But I think recent events show that it doesn't take a lot of arms for a motivated group to overcome a well armed unmotivated group. It makes me wonder what Hong Kong would be like now if 1 in 10 people owned a rifle or hand gun. Probably in the long run the situation would be much worse, but also maybe less hopeless.
  - watwut 7y ago
    They have done that with army and army like structures, not just with terrorist tactic. ISIS in USA is limited to terrorist tactic and did not achieved all that much. The argument I reacted to was about terrorist tactic being used to create deterrent against tyranny. Like, it talked about killing children on their way to school. Because answer to terrorism would be more freedom or something.
godelski 7y ago
tldr: Guerrilla fighters have a long history of being successful. Also to add, the US military is sworn to protect the constitution and not members of the political elite. So were this extremely unlikely scenario of revolution to arise, you would definitely see a division of factions even within the military (some pro gov, others pro people). I believe there has been sufficient evidence to believe this. American soldiers would have a hard time killing other Americans.
- pstuart 7y ago
  The sitting president of the US has declared that war crimes are ok as long as they serve him personally.
  - godelski 7y ago
    Because no US general has ever defied the president...
    - pstuart 7y ago
      Huh? This is completely different. He's prepping his supporters to rise up in armed revolt once he is truly cornered. I know this risks an admonishment by dang, but this needs to be said.
      - godelski 7y ago
        Wait, you think Trump is trying to start an armed revolt on the basis of him getting impeached? His favorability isn't that high... He has below a 42% approval rating. 1% of that actually rising up seems pretty unlikely. Do people not watching Fox news live in this kind of fear?
        pstuart 7y ago
        Yes I am. I'm not alone in that assessment. The soundness of such a tactic is moot when one considers the subject(s) at hand.
jascii 7y ago
I would argue that all of these things can, and have been done using improvised weapons. Organising any of these things without some form of secure communication seems utterly impossible. Contrary to popular believe, many totalitarian government do not shy away from arming their citizenry. History is rife with paramilitary death squads. What we do see in virtually all totalitarian governments is efforts to control the means of communication. I think this should tell us something.
- alwillis 7y ago
  >Organising any of these things without some form of secure communication seems utterly impossible. The secure communication isn't the problem; it's having the commitment, discipline and the organizational operational security to use it.
alwillis 7y ago
>Having guns is also a great detterent to creeping tyranny(well, at least when the guns owners care enough to do something). If every overreach was met with hundreds of thousands of angry people with guns on Washington, they would stop overreaching. I find this to be quite ironic since we now have a country run by a lawless president, who was elected with the help of a foreign, adversary and who gave a massive tax cut to billionaires and has done nothing tangible for those gun owners who voted for him. A federal judge had to include in her ruling that presidents are not kings, which makes you think just what country are we living in when this has to be stated: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/mcgahn-testify-subpoena-absolute-immunity-ruling https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/mcgahn-testify-subpo... Sure, it's not unusual for people to vote against their own interest; but what the people you described haven't realized is they are on the same side as the tyrant. It's slightly delusional to think a few thousand gunmen in a country of over 300 million and an economy of nearly 20 trillion dollars could do what's required to "ruin the US".
alwillis 7y ago
Also, keep in mind the typical urban police force has battlefield weapons the old “protect and serve” police departments of the '60s and the '70s couldn't have imagined.

watwut 7y ago

Basically, terrorism for freedom? I have hard time to find situation where it actually worked that way in the past. If it would be that easy, ISIS would do it long time ago.

godelski 7y ago
> I have hard time to find situation where it actually worked that way in the past. US?
- watwut 7y ago
  When? Civil war involved armies and so did war for independence. Natives lost.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  That was armed insurrection, not terrorism. The difference is more than just "the winners write the history books". The methodology was different. The patriots/rebels/insurgents weren't setting off truck bombs in city centers in the hope of making people not oppose them, and not just because they didn't have truck bombs. They weren't trying to assassinate the governor. It was fundamentally a war, not terrorism.
- cafard 7y ago
  The minute companies of Massachusetts did constitute a well-armed militia, I would argue in the sense intended by the 2nd Amendment. They were not just gun owners, they were men trained and drilled, often with the leadership of locals who had served in two previous wars.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  The US wrested control of territory from a massively over-extended empire across the Atlantic. American Civil War 2 would be totally different.
dmix 7y ago
It's more about power projection, a last resort protection level that significantly increases the bar for total subjugation, than it is a tangible strategy towards bettering the world. Besides a lot of military and police support legal gun ownership as well and I highly doubt all of them would be choosing the totalitarian side if it came down to it so it's not entirely just civilians with pop guns vs a well-armed military.
- watwut 7y ago
  Huh, what makes you think army or cops would not support totalitarian side? Typically, in turn toward more totalitarian, army and cops are first target for recruitment.
  - dmix 7y ago
    Targeted for recruitment = all will support the cause?
ohazi 7y ago
More like terrorism as a crude form of mutually assured destruction. It doesn't have to work, there just needs to be a credible threat of a really unpleasant amount of damage.
jascii 7y ago
ISIS does not fight for freedom. It's a doomsday suicide cult.
georgeecollins 7y ago
ISIS was incredibly successful at beating an organized (although not great quality) military with small arms and improvised weapons. A lot of the military equipment they got was stolen. They really may have been able to take over Iraq if a number of foreign powers did not intervene against them. I am certainly not an advocate of terrorism. But I think recent events show that it doesn't take a lot of arms for a motivated group to overcome a well armed unmotivated group. It makes me wonder what Hong Kong would be like now if 1 in 10 people owned a rifle or hand gun. Probably in the long run the situation would be much worse, but also maybe less hopeless.
- watwut 7y ago
  They have done that with army and army like structures, not just with terrorist tactic. ISIS in USA is limited to terrorist tactic and did not achieved all that much. The argument I reacted to was about terrorist tactic being used to create deterrent against tyranny. Like, it talked about killing children on their way to school. Because answer to terrorism would be more freedom or something.

godelski 7y ago

tldr: Guerrilla fighters have a long history of being successful. Also to add, the US military is sworn to protect the constitution and not members of the political elite. So were this extremely unlikely scenario of revolution to arise, you would definitely see a division of factions even within the military (some pro gov, others pro people). I believe there has been sufficient evidence to believe this. American soldiers would have a hard time killing other Americans.

pstuart 7y ago
The sitting president of the US has declared that war crimes are ok as long as they serve him personally.
- godelski 7y ago
  Because no US general has ever defied the president...
  - pstuart 7y ago
    Huh? This is completely different. He's prepping his supporters to rise up in armed revolt once he is truly cornered. I know this risks an admonishment by dang, but this needs to be said.
    - godelski 7y ago
      Wait, you think Trump is trying to start an armed revolt on the basis of him getting impeached? His favorability isn't that high... He has below a 42% approval rating. 1% of that actually rising up seems pretty unlikely. Do people not watching Fox news live in this kind of fear?
      - pstuart 7y ago
        Yes I am. I'm not alone in that assessment. The soundness of such a tactic is moot when one considers the subject(s) at hand.

jascii 7y ago

I would argue that all of these things can, and have been done using improvised weapons. Organising any of these things without some form of secure communication seems utterly impossible. Contrary to popular believe, many totalitarian government do not shy away from arming their citizenry. History is rife with paramilitary death squads. What we do see in virtually all totalitarian governments is efforts to control the means of communication. I think this should tell us something.

alwillis 7y ago
>Organising any of these things without some form of secure communication seems utterly impossible. The secure communication isn't the problem; it's having the commitment, discipline and the organizational operational security to use it.

alwillis 7y ago

>Having guns is also a great detterent to creeping tyranny(well, at least when the guns owners care enough to do something). If every overreach was met with hundreds of thousands of angry people with guns on Washington, they would stop overreaching. I find this to be quite ironic since we now have a country run by a lawless president, who was elected with the help of a foreign, adversary and who gave a massive tax cut to billionaires and has done nothing tangible for those gun owners who voted for him. A federal judge had to include in her ruling that presidents are not kings, which makes you think just what country are we living in when this has to be stated: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/mcgahn-testify-subpoena-absolute-immunity-ruling https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/mcgahn-testify-subpo... Sure, it's not unusual for people to vote against their own interest; but what the people you described haven't realized is they are on the same side as the tyrant. It's slightly delusional to think a few thousand gunmen in a country of over 300 million and an economy of nearly 20 trillion dollars could do what's required to "ruin the US".

alwillis 7y ago

Also, keep in mind the typical urban police force has battlefield weapons the old “protect and serve” police departments of the '60s and the '70s couldn't have imagined.