8 ms·

> Serves them right, too, for giving up the last backstop on the government power: guns. Genuinely curious, do you not think the US government has better guns

> Serves them right, too, for giving up the last backstop on the government power: guns. Genuinely curious, do you not think the US government has better guns than its citizens? How exactly would this work?

logicchains 5y ago
>Genuinely curious, do you not think the US government has better guns than its citizens? How exactly would this work? How exactly did that work in Afghanistan?
- bigsisl 5y ago
  I dont think you can connect this argument with afghanistan, how do you see the connection there?
  - fragileone 5y ago
    The Afghanistan army gave up rather than fight the Taliban, despite having far superior firepower and manpower.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  True, but this is in the context of abject authoritarianism right? Under tyranny? The US in Afghanistan, for all its successes and failures was on a nation building adventure, hoping to win hearts and minds. It was following rules of engagement, not operating an outright slaughterhouse. In the context of abject authoritarianism, the government will just straight up execute you, or crush you with a tank like the PRC at Tiananmen Square. This feels like a romanticized Lone Ranger against Big Brother kind of thing. The Fantasy of the Good Guy with a Gun™. I don't think it plays out that way in real life.
  - m0zg 5y ago
    The worst the government can do in a country with 300M+ guns in circulation is "boil the frog", and hope to dear god the pot does not boil over at any point. It's not a fantasy. It's literally how the US was founded in the first place.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Well, yes, that's how it was founded in the 1700s with slaves, flintlock rifles, no suffrage, and most people had syphilis. A lot has changed since then. Like, well, tanks. A counter narrative would be the Cultural Revolution as I pointed out. China's population in 1966 at the start of the Cultural Revolution was about 750mm people. By the time Tiananmen Square happened, it was 1.1b people. I'm looking for the numbers but I believe guns were pretty common.
      - m0zg 5y ago
        I agree, a lot has changed since then. The governments have gotten a lot more abusive and intrusive, for example.
m0zg 5y ago
US citizenry is certainly much better armed than the Taliban, which has proven to be more than enough. 2nd amendment is so high on the list for this exact reason.
- logicchains 5y ago
  Are you sure? The Taliban have RPGs.
  - Neekerer 5y ago
    And Blackhawks
  - int_19h 5y ago
    Take a look at this. Every gun in the video is privately owned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eV8N0bUzA0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eV8N0bUzA0 In general, it's perfectly legal for US residents to own RPGs, artillery, tanks etc. If operational, they're classified as "destructive devices", so they have to be registered with the feds, and every transfer happens with their approval as well. It's also very expensive, obviously. But still possible.
- jstx1 5y ago
  > 2nd amendment is so high on the list for this exact reason. The order of ammendments is chronological, not one of importance.
  - m0zg 5y ago
    Chronology correlates with importance here. IIRC, however, the Bill of Rights was passed as a whole, though, not piecemeal. So it could be that it's 2nd because the Founding Fathers thought it was important. "Security of a free State" and all that. Seems pretty important to me.
    - jstx1 5y ago
      I mean that's kind of interpretrative. I could similarly say that it wasn't in the Constitution to begin with so it can't have been that important to them. Or that it came before they thought about giving basic rights to anyone who isn't a white man so maybe we shouldn't read too closely into the order or rely on someone from the 18th century to inform our priorities.
darawk 5y ago
Regular guns are sufficiently potent weapons to give the government trouble. Whatever else you might think of him and his stunt, Ammon Bundy proved that.
- fuckyouriotshit 5y ago
  The various stunts that the Bundy family has pulled off prove less about guns being > sufficiently potent weapons to give the government trouble and prove far more about how the US federal government has and continues to be reluctant to pursue anyone that has support from "small-government" right-wing groups, even if they continuously ignore or break federal laws.
  - darawk 5y ago
    You shouldn't let the politics of the situation cloud the obvious. If they didn't have guns, it would not have played out the way it did. That doesn't mean that what they did was good, or that how the government handled it was right. It just means that the availability of guns was a critical determinative factor. That also doesn't mean they were the sole factor, either. It can also be true that the government treated them with kid gloves. But it's pretty clear that they would not have done that if they weren't armed.
blix 5y ago
The USGOV has bombed it's own citizens before, but it probably wouldn't go over as well in the age of twitter as in the past.
CamperBob2 5y ago
The US government certainly has better guns than the Taliban. Let's see how that's working out for them. Oh, my...
nverno 5y ago
If the guns pose no threat to would-be tyrants, why would they need to take them away? We expect our government to protect our individual rights and allowing citizens to maintain some degree of dangerousness is a nod to that effect. Even basic arms are great equalizers allowing anyone to protect themselves fairly well in practice.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >If the guns pose no threat to would-be tyrants, why would they need to take them away? because they pose plenty of threat to each other, which was in fact one of the reasons for the biggest change in modern Australian history, the Port Arthur massacre[1] Australia, like many other nations does not have the same tolerance that the US has when it comes to violence. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...
  - nverno 5y ago
    Do the new restrictions make Aussies think someone hellbent of murdering people like this wouldn't be able to do so? I see stories of people committing mass murders by driving vans through crowded streets, for example. It is interesting that these restrictions pre-date the country's more authoritarian move. Disarming the populace occurred prior to communist takeovers, eg. Russia early 20th
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      The data indicates so, yes. I suggest you look up the numbers.
    - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
      Of course if someone wanted to inflict harm there are other ways to do it, but banning guns removes one very effective way of doing it. The claim that guns protect against the tyranny of government is dubious, since it seems to imply that civilians shooting at police or soldiers would improve an already dire situation - that seems unlikely. Gun control has broad support in Australia - in a poll, 40% of respondents think the laws are fine as they are, 45% said they should be even stronger, and 6% said they were too strong. https://essentialvision.com.au/gun-laws https://essentialvision.com.au/gun-laws
BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
Government might try to go house to house in red states. They'd encounter resistance everywhere, in innumerable forms. The government would be fighting with people defending their homes and their way of life. It would go very badly for the government.

logicchains 5y ago

>Genuinely curious, do you not think the US government has better guns than its citizens? How exactly would this work? How exactly did that work in Afghanistan?

bigsisl 5y ago
I dont think you can connect this argument with afghanistan, how do you see the connection there?
- fragileone 5y ago
  The Afghanistan army gave up rather than fight the Taliban, despite having far superior firepower and manpower.
arcticbull 5y ago
True, but this is in the context of abject authoritarianism right? Under tyranny? The US in Afghanistan, for all its successes and failures was on a nation building adventure, hoping to win hearts and minds. It was following rules of engagement, not operating an outright slaughterhouse. In the context of abject authoritarianism, the government will just straight up execute you, or crush you with a tank like the PRC at Tiananmen Square. This feels like a romanticized Lone Ranger against Big Brother kind of thing. The Fantasy of the Good Guy with a Gun™. I don't think it plays out that way in real life.
- m0zg 5y ago
  The worst the government can do in a country with 300M+ guns in circulation is "boil the frog", and hope to dear god the pot does not boil over at any point. It's not a fantasy. It's literally how the US was founded in the first place.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Well, yes, that's how it was founded in the 1700s with slaves, flintlock rifles, no suffrage, and most people had syphilis. A lot has changed since then. Like, well, tanks. A counter narrative would be the Cultural Revolution as I pointed out. China's population in 1966 at the start of the Cultural Revolution was about 750mm people. By the time Tiananmen Square happened, it was 1.1b people. I'm looking for the numbers but I believe guns were pretty common.
    - m0zg 5y ago
      I agree, a lot has changed since then. The governments have gotten a lot more abusive and intrusive, for example.

m0zg 5y ago

US citizenry is certainly much better armed than the Taliban, which has proven to be more than enough. 2nd amendment is so high on the list for this exact reason.

logicchains 5y ago
Are you sure? The Taliban have RPGs.
- Neekerer 5y ago
  And Blackhawks
- int_19h 5y ago
  Take a look at this. Every gun in the video is privately owned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eV8N0bUzA0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eV8N0bUzA0 In general, it's perfectly legal for US residents to own RPGs, artillery, tanks etc. If operational, they're classified as "destructive devices", so they have to be registered with the feds, and every transfer happens with their approval as well. It's also very expensive, obviously. But still possible.
jstx1 5y ago
> 2nd amendment is so high on the list for this exact reason. The order of ammendments is chronological, not one of importance.
- m0zg 5y ago
  Chronology correlates with importance here. IIRC, however, the Bill of Rights was passed as a whole, though, not piecemeal. So it could be that it's 2nd because the Founding Fathers thought it was important. "Security of a free State" and all that. Seems pretty important to me.
  - jstx1 5y ago
    I mean that's kind of interpretrative. I could similarly say that it wasn't in the Constitution to begin with so it can't have been that important to them. Or that it came before they thought about giving basic rights to anyone who isn't a white man so maybe we shouldn't read too closely into the order or rely on someone from the 18th century to inform our priorities.

darawk 5y ago

Regular guns are sufficiently potent weapons to give the government trouble. Whatever else you might think of him and his stunt, Ammon Bundy proved that.

fuckyouriotshit 5y ago
The various stunts that the Bundy family has pulled off prove less about guns being > sufficiently potent weapons to give the government trouble and prove far more about how the US federal government has and continues to be reluctant to pursue anyone that has support from "small-government" right-wing groups, even if they continuously ignore or break federal laws.
- darawk 5y ago
  You shouldn't let the politics of the situation cloud the obvious. If they didn't have guns, it would not have played out the way it did. That doesn't mean that what they did was good, or that how the government handled it was right. It just means that the availability of guns was a critical determinative factor. That also doesn't mean they were the sole factor, either. It can also be true that the government treated them with kid gloves. But it's pretty clear that they would not have done that if they weren't armed.

blix 5y ago

The USGOV has bombed it's own citizens before, but it probably wouldn't go over as well in the age of twitter as in the past.

CamperBob2 5y ago

The US government certainly has better guns than the Taliban. Let's see how that's working out for them. Oh, my...

nverno 5y ago

If the guns pose no threat to would-be tyrants, why would they need to take them away? We expect our government to protect our individual rights and allowing citizens to maintain some degree of dangerousness is a nod to that effect. Even basic arms are great equalizers allowing anyone to protect themselves fairly well in practice.

Barrin92 5y ago
>If the guns pose no threat to would-be tyrants, why would they need to take them away? because they pose plenty of threat to each other, which was in fact one of the reasons for the biggest change in modern Australian history, the Port Arthur massacre[1] Australia, like many other nations does not have the same tolerance that the US has when it comes to violence. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...
- nverno 5y ago
  Do the new restrictions make Aussies think someone hellbent of murdering people like this wouldn't be able to do so? I see stories of people committing mass murders by driving vans through crowded streets, for example. It is interesting that these restrictions pre-date the country's more authoritarian move. Disarming the populace occurred prior to communist takeovers, eg. Russia early 20th
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    The data indicates so, yes. I suggest you look up the numbers.
  - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
    Of course if someone wanted to inflict harm there are other ways to do it, but banning guns removes one very effective way of doing it. The claim that guns protect against the tyranny of government is dubious, since it seems to imply that civilians shooting at police or soldiers would improve an already dire situation - that seems unlikely. Gun control has broad support in Australia - in a poll, 40% of respondents think the laws are fine as they are, 45% said they should be even stronger, and 6% said they were too strong. https://essentialvision.com.au/gun-laws https://essentialvision.com.au/gun-laws

BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago

Government might try to go house to house in red states. They'd encounter resistance everywhere, in innumerable forms. The government would be fighting with people defending their homes and their way of life. It would go very badly for the government.