8 ms·
It's the second amendment for a reason. Modern America is a historical anomaly. And as inequality grows here in America and we slowly but surely descend back
by nickthemagicman 6y ago
It's the second amendment for a reason.
Modern America is a historical anomaly.
And as inequality grows here in America and we slowly but surely descend back to what has been the default state of humanity for thousands of years...with a few rich and powerful with their neck on the rest of society who is poor...we'll be glad the average citizen has guns to fight back at some point.
There's a saying: History repeats itself.
- nicoburns 6y agoModern America is an anomaly in a different sense: AFAIK it's the only country with a constitution that guarantees the right to bear arms.
- rancor 6y agoPer Wikipedia Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala also have constitutional protections of varying strength.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y agoThey do, but in practice they don't. Many European countries which don't have a right to bear arms still manage to have better gun laws than those three Latin American countries (and I should add, a number of American states).
- nickthemagicman 6y agoThe other countries haven't become provinces of other less Democratic countries thanks to America's protection.
- nicoburns 6y agoOther countries still have armies and soldiers without having armed civilian populations. And America could do this too if they wanted to.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoSo you want one group of people to use guns to stop another group of people from having guns. Interesting.
- nicoburns 6y agoActually, I live in the UK. Here the police are mostly not armed, and still manage to prevent other people from having guns. But yes, in principle I'm perfectly happy with the setup where one specialised group holds the power of military force
- nickthemagicman 6y agoThe UK is a bigger surveillance state than China. They have one of the worst levels of inequality in the Western World. You have ASBO's which are basically just a blank slate for people to be punished for the vague idea of 'anti-social behavior.' Also, your violent crime rate is the 3rd worst in Europe. The U.K. has a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100k while the U.S. is 5 per 100k. Meanwhile there are 400 MILLION guns in America. So your government is repressive and the citizens are violent. Few countries need guns more the U.K. I'm sorry your gov't has defanged it's citizens so much with minimal benefit and has citizens that actually fight against their best interest.
- nicoburns 6y agoSo you're saying there are 4x as many murders in the US? There are definitely lots of problems in the UK: over surveilance and inequality are two of them. But I fail to see how guns would help either of these.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoHow do you view your govt? As benevolent with good intentions?
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
- pwlb 6y agoIs there any country in history that prevented its downfall because its civilians are armed to the teeth?
- nickthemagicman 6y agoWestern democracy wouldn't exist without citizens who were armed to the teeth. Do you think the monarchys would have happily and peacefully turned over their power because of the power of love? Because someone said please sir?
- yellowapple 6y agoAnd to expand on this, there's a reason why even Karl Marx understood the necessity of an armed working class: "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary."
- nickthemagicman 6y agoThat's awesome. Did not know that about Marx. Any educated person who looks at cumulative human history can see this. History as a rule is filled with subjugation by the powerful for thousands upon thousands of years. There's the argument that policy cant reduce inequality, only plague, revolution, war, and state collapse, have ever reduced this. What we have now in modern America is an anomoly... and if one looks carefully at the growing inequality...we're moving back towards equilibrium. Wish history was taught better in schools.
- kbenson 6y agoIn the UK the Monarchy was stripped of powers by other nobles, not regular citizens. I'm not sure about other places, but I wouldn't assume it was always a popular revolution of some sort. I would guess in many cases it was slowly ceded to other parts of the government.
- _-david-_ 6y ago