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You'd have a stronger case if Americans were opening fire on people in the government or military that were violating their rights instead of schoolchildren, th

You'd have a stronger case if Americans were opening fire on people in the government or military that were violating their rights instead of schoolchildren, the LGBT community, and minorities.

HaroldBolt78 3y ago
[dead]
smcl 3y ago
I am 100% in support of what you've said, but there is one case where someone surprisingly got away with armed resistance against the government: Cliven Bundy[0]. The guy just stopped paying the government to graze his cattle on common ground, the feds came to sieze his cattle as a form of payment and were confronted with hundreds of armed guys he managed to rally to his cause. They backed down and left. It's not quite the story of the little guy standing up for what's right against a tyrannical government though, just suggests that in some parts of the US if you show up with enough guns and outnumber someone you can intimidate them and get away with it. [0] - no that is not a typo, his name is "Cliven"
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  You mean that guy that wanted free grazing and used public (our) land without permission? or paying? Used those same guns to keep others off the ground? That selfish money-grubbing demagogue? Yeah that was a high point in US history for sure.
  - smcl 3y ago
    Yep that's the one, doesn't seem like a very nice guy as evidenced by his Wikipedia page having a special "Racist Comments" section. Reading that page a bit more suggests that he's actually pretty lucky to not be in prison after his confrontations with the government. Turns out the prosecution were inept and his trial got thrown out: > On January 8, 2018, Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial and dismissed the charges because the federal government had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence
    - jtbayly 3y ago
      I haven’t read about it, but that quote doesn’t make it sound like the fed was inept but rather corrupt, which is where we started talking about why people want guns.
      - smcl 3y ago
        He got into this situation because they were waving their guns around, and got out of it through the courts. You're suggesting there should have been a threat of gun violence against the prosecutor and that this somehow would've helped his situation?
        jtbayly 3y ago
        No. I’m suggesting that government corruption is a major reason people want guns.
- techdmn 3y ago
  White right-wing extremist escapes consequences for violent action, news at 11!
dontlaugh 3y ago
And when the black panthers did arm themselves legally to defend their communities from the police, gun control laws were quickly introduced. Individual gun rights are just a culture war topic. It’s collective gun rights for workers as a class that could actually make a difference.
- scintill76 3y ago
  Honest question: What would a law (or other manifestation) of collective rights look like, and how does it differ from individual rights?
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    In the context of the Founding Fathers, state militias armed well enough to stand-up to an overbearing federal government. In the context of the parent comment? No idea.
  - dontlaugh 3y ago
    Trade unions and revolutionary parties have kept weaponry, trained members and organised resistance to state repression (for example against strikes). This tends to build into worker's councils (in some languages called soviets) under revolutionary conditions. Of course, it's unlikely the capitalist ruling class would willingly allow legalising such practices.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  There was also the MOVE bombing in '85. And that wasn't even the army - the city PD dropped a bomb from a helicopter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing [Note: MOVE had more than a few criminal members; I'm making no claim about the righteousness of their actions before or during the standoff]
torstenvl 3y ago
As a minority in the LGBT community, I'd appreciate if you didn't go on pretending that disarming me is somehow magically going to lead to a better outcome for me. You are, obviously, free to have any opinion you like. But my existence is not a rhetorical device for you to exploit while trying to take away my rights.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  On the contrary, I think you should arm yourself. I am trying to disabuse people of the idea that the right-wing "2A warrior" actually gives a fuck about anyone's rights. We should have seen them all out in protest for what happened to Daniel Shaver, where were they? Merely owning guns isn't going to stop the government from infringing rights, we need collective action that is not being taken by the people who claim they need guns to defend their rights. Meanwhile children are being murdered in numbers. So we get the worst of both sides of the argument.
  - latchkey 3y ago
    Saw a quote I liked the other day: "By creating a world in which anyone CAN own a gun, we've forced ourselves to live in a world in which everyone MUST carry a gun?"
mrguyorama 3y ago
Ruby ridge and Waco (though that is less clear) happened, and the only person to "revolt" about that used a farming material bomb. "We need guns to protect us from authoritarianism" has always been a fucking lie. No gun owners protested and started a rebellion after the patriot act. The few times gun owners HAVE "rebelled" it has been for incredibly stupid reasons like "I don't want to pay taxes for the land my cattle have grazed on"
- infamouscow 3y ago
  The US fought a war over not wanting to pay taxes. This reductionist thinking is quite asinine.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Again and again it always comes back to "but muh revolutionary war!" An aberration. Great Britain was a little fuckin busy during that period, what with the existential threat of the hundred years war, and a largely inept King. Great Britain sent only about 50k troops during the entire affair. Had they not been so busy, it likely would have looked a lot more like all the times India tried to get uppity.
    - infamouscow 3y ago
      40K Americans were able to beat the greatest empire at the time. In the last few decades, a rag-tag group of goat herders and farmers managed to kick out multiple empires using only basic fighting equipment. This is all despite having air supremacy, satellite imagery, night vision, tanks, body armor, and a 10:1 ratio of troops. The overwhelming majority of experienced combat veterans have been out of the US military for almost a decade. You can see this reflected it in how ineffective the current organization is. If tyranny does strike the US again, I wouldn't want to be on the side of the tyrants.
      - krapp 3y ago
        > 40K Americans were able to beat the greatest empire at the time. 40K Americans and lots of assistance from the French, including their navy. The American war for independence was a proxy war between empires in which the colonies were pawns, and if not for one of those empires the American insurgency would have been crushed, regardless of whatever the myth of American exceptionalism has probably taught you.

You'd have a stronger case if Americans were opening fire on people in the government or military that were violating their rights instead of schoolchildren, the LGBT community, and minorities.

HaroldBolt78 3y ago

[dead]

smcl 3y ago

I am 100% in support of what you've said, but there is one case where someone surprisingly got away with armed resistance against the government: Cliven Bundy[0]. The guy just stopped paying the government to graze his cattle on common ground, the feds came to sieze his cattle as a form of payment and were confronted with hundreds of armed guys he managed to rally to his cause. They backed down and left. It's not quite the story of the little guy standing up for what's right against a tyrannical government though, just suggests that in some parts of the US if you show up with enough guns and outnumber someone you can intimidate them and get away with it. [0] - no that is not a typo, his name is "Cliven"

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
You mean that guy that wanted free grazing and used public (our) land without permission? or paying? Used those same guns to keep others off the ground? That selfish money-grubbing demagogue? Yeah that was a high point in US history for sure.
- smcl 3y ago
  Yep that's the one, doesn't seem like a very nice guy as evidenced by his Wikipedia page having a special "Racist Comments" section. Reading that page a bit more suggests that he's actually pretty lucky to not be in prison after his confrontations with the government. Turns out the prosecution were inept and his trial got thrown out: > On January 8, 2018, Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial and dismissed the charges because the federal government had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence
  - jtbayly 3y ago
    I haven’t read about it, but that quote doesn’t make it sound like the fed was inept but rather corrupt, which is where we started talking about why people want guns.
    - smcl 3y ago
      He got into this situation because they were waving their guns around, and got out of it through the courts. You're suggesting there should have been a threat of gun violence against the prosecutor and that this somehow would've helped his situation?
      - jtbayly 3y ago
        No. I’m suggesting that government corruption is a major reason people want guns.
techdmn 3y ago
White right-wing extremist escapes consequences for violent action, news at 11!

dontlaugh 3y ago

And when the black panthers did arm themselves legally to defend their communities from the police, gun control laws were quickly introduced. Individual gun rights are just a culture war topic. It’s collective gun rights for workers as a class that could actually make a difference.

scintill76 3y ago
Honest question: What would a law (or other manifestation) of collective rights look like, and how does it differ from individual rights?
- alistairSH 3y ago
  In the context of the Founding Fathers, state militias armed well enough to stand-up to an overbearing federal government. In the context of the parent comment? No idea.
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  Trade unions and revolutionary parties have kept weaponry, trained members and organised resistance to state repression (for example against strikes). This tends to build into worker's councils (in some languages called soviets) under revolutionary conditions. Of course, it's unlikely the capitalist ruling class would willingly allow legalising such practices.
alistairSH 3y ago
There was also the MOVE bombing in '85. And that wasn't even the army - the city PD dropped a bomb from a helicopter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing [Note: MOVE had more than a few criminal members; I'm making no claim about the righteousness of their actions before or during the standoff]

torstenvl 3y ago

As a minority in the LGBT community, I'd appreciate if you didn't go on pretending that disarming me is somehow magically going to lead to a better outcome for me. You are, obviously, free to have any opinion you like. But my existence is not a rhetorical device for you to exploit while trying to take away my rights.

plagiarist 3y ago
On the contrary, I think you should arm yourself. I am trying to disabuse people of the idea that the right-wing "2A warrior" actually gives a fuck about anyone's rights. We should have seen them all out in protest for what happened to Daniel Shaver, where were they? Merely owning guns isn't going to stop the government from infringing rights, we need collective action that is not being taken by the people who claim they need guns to defend their rights. Meanwhile children are being murdered in numbers. So we get the worst of both sides of the argument.
- latchkey 3y ago
  Saw a quote I liked the other day: "By creating a world in which anyone CAN own a gun, we've forced ourselves to live in a world in which everyone MUST carry a gun?"

mrguyorama 3y ago

Ruby ridge and Waco (though that is less clear) happened, and the only person to "revolt" about that used a farming material bomb. "We need guns to protect us from authoritarianism" has always been a fucking lie. No gun owners protested and started a rebellion after the patriot act. The few times gun owners HAVE "rebelled" it has been for incredibly stupid reasons like "I don't want to pay taxes for the land my cattle have grazed on"

infamouscow 3y ago
The US fought a war over not wanting to pay taxes. This reductionist thinking is quite asinine.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Again and again it always comes back to "but muh revolutionary war!" An aberration. Great Britain was a little fuckin busy during that period, what with the existential threat of the hundred years war, and a largely inept King. Great Britain sent only about 50k troops during the entire affair. Had they not been so busy, it likely would have looked a lot more like all the times India tried to get uppity.
  - infamouscow 3y ago
    40K Americans were able to beat the greatest empire at the time. In the last few decades, a rag-tag group of goat herders and farmers managed to kick out multiple empires using only basic fighting equipment. This is all despite having air supremacy, satellite imagery, night vision, tanks, body armor, and a 10:1 ratio of troops. The overwhelming majority of experienced combat veterans have been out of the US military for almost a decade. You can see this reflected it in how ineffective the current organization is. If tyranny does strike the US again, I wouldn't want to be on the side of the tyrants.
    - krapp 3y ago
      > 40K Americans were able to beat the greatest empire at the time. 40K Americans and lots of assistance from the French, including their navy. The American war for independence was a proxy war between empires in which the colonies were pawns, and if not for one of those empires the American insurgency would have been crushed, regardless of whatever the myth of American exceptionalism has probably taught you.