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Any armed militia (let alone a single citizen) would have no power to fight anything. A government army would crush them. Today, guns are mostly killing other l

Any armed militia (let alone a single citizen) would have no power to fight anything. A government army would crush them. Today, guns are mostly killing other law-abiding citizens: hence, they are the wrong approach to a 21st century society. 300 years ago, US people had to protect themselves (against all enemies, including their "government" of the time: the British army)

teitoklien 3y ago
> Any armed militia (let alone a single citizen) would have no power to fight anything. A government army would crush them. If this were true, then America wouldn’t have failed so badly in Afghanistan, guerilla tactics work. The objective isnt to defeat the military in a war, if that were possible it would lead to instability and random groups of americans from taking over the government anytime. The objective is to give enough capabilities to everyday citizens to atleast be able to setup a resistance severe enough that no government would consider such an action. For those abilities I think the liberties provided are helpful enough. But I agree with you, there are far more dangerous instruments being used against common citizens now, that it makes people protecting themselves with guns a bad joke. That calls for more policies to allow citizens to defend themselves, whether that’s a more robust education system to help citizens catch lying politicians, or a more robust system to bring in control the massive polarization spreading across all democracies, and defences against gutting out of the middle class that’s taking place. But all of them call for more protections to be added, not existing ones to be removed
- antod 3y ago
  > If this were true, then America wouldn’t have failed so badly in Afghanistan, guerilla tactics work. There is quite a gulf between making a democracy give up on occupying you (especially when the reasons for that occupation become kinda nebulous), and an internal rebellion or civil war. Guerilla tactics are often successful in the former case. The latter situation is much more prevalent, and in most cases just devolves into long term suffering.
  - teitoklien 3y ago
    There will be no internal rebellion or civil war, if government actually works for its own people and serves them diligently. More effort should be placed in helping people improve their lives, get access to healthcare, education, food, clean water, protect them from isolation and mental health issues, improve the civil discourse so people are kinder and gentler, more civil to each other. The answer might not be present in taking people’s guns away or remove methods for people to protect themselves. America has had a century of prosperity, while having the liberties to carry arms. You’re right a lot of democracies are right now at risk of an internal rebellion and civil war, including america. But the question is what caused it and how can we reverse the trend ? The answer surely cannot lie in removing something (gun rights) that was present even in years of prosperity. The risk of foreign governments initiating civil war is real, and america itself has done this to other countries that once used to be democracies, civilians not having guns certainly didn’t prevent those civil wars, it’s not that difficult for nations to pump in guns to rebels and terrorists to cause instability in a nation. None of those countries had gun rights like america did, yet they all fell to civil wars. The answer lies in government serving the people, and being afraid of the public. Not in making gov fearless, and thus less concerned about working for the masses. Think about it for a moment, you and I are worried about a civil war breaking out. Why ? Because the recent government on both party sides haven’t been too honest and diligent in working for the public. Whether that’s in deteriorating public education, prospects of high tech jobs, destruction of good blue collar jobs for people to improve their lives without obscene college debt, bad healthcare policies. These situations can only happen from an apathetic government structure that cares 0 about the masses. How do you think, it’ll make those same governments more caring towards the public, by removing the first and second amendments ? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think gun rights are necessary or some messiah that’ll save mankind, I just don’t understand the obsession with trying to remove them.
    - antod 3y ago
      I wasn't talking about what governments should and shouldn't do, or how they should behave. Or even anything US specific - I'm not American. I was just addressing the statement that guerilla tactics work and Afghanistan was the example cited. And I don't think Afghanistan is a good example in this case. Guerillas fighting an occupier (especially a democratic one) have had a reasonable track record of success. Guerillas fighting their own government much less so - the world has been and still is littered with those conflicts. There's a big difference in what is at stake from someone who can just go home, and someone who is fighting for their own home/survival.
- catlover76 3y ago
  [dead]
hef19898 3y ago
That, and one could make the case than countries with strict gub laws, and thus a theoretically less afraid government, actually serve their citizens better than US when it comes to stuff like education, health care, social security, housing and infrastructure. So I am not really sure the theory of an armed citizenry resulting in better government for the people actually holds water.
- lukas099 3y ago
  Yeah it's interesting that this is debated because we actually have real-world data on this. It's not like no country with relatively high indices of freedom and prosperity has ever instituted strict gun control.
sickofparadox 3y ago
It has been said many times before but tanks and planes cannot enforce a no-gathering order, they cannot stand on street corners enforcing curfews. Tanks and planes cannot defend the incredibly fragile (to attackers) US energy grid, which is too spread out and vulnerable to be defended by boots on the ground anyway. There's also the fact that a large amount of the US military would desert or defect from their posts if tasked with killing American citizens. Organized rebel groups would receive aid from our geopolitical adversaries, and the highways would be destroyed within weeks or months of the anarchy setting in. If the US ever suffered a civil war today, it would end as a country overnight, possibly permanently.
- ohthatsnotright 3y ago
  > There's also the fact that a large amount of the US military would desert or defect from their posts if tasked with killing American citizens. I'm ex-military and I don't agree with this statement at all. It's even less clear when you look at the number of people involved in Jan 6 and their affiliation with police or military. You can pull from history on what members of the U.S. military will do against their own citizens so long as those citizens are properly vilified.
  - sickofparadox 3y ago
    Sentiment certainly would vary unit to unit, I work with a number of vets (mostly enlisted not commissioned so that might bias it a bit) and when I've asked them about it I've gotten various answers from "refusal of unlawful orders" to "sabotage and desert". I don't know if its all talk but I certainly never hope the chips are on the table to find out.
dudul 3y ago
I dont know, I've been told by the media that on January 6th we were one hair away from being overtaken by a fascist regime. If there's one thing we've learned over the past century is that conventional armies are terrible at winning guerilla wars against population.

teitoklien 3y ago

> Any armed militia (let alone a single citizen) would have no power to fight anything. A government army would crush them. If this were true, then America wouldn’t have failed so badly in Afghanistan, guerilla tactics work. The objective isnt to defeat the military in a war, if that were possible it would lead to instability and random groups of americans from taking over the government anytime. The objective is to give enough capabilities to everyday citizens to atleast be able to setup a resistance severe enough that no government would consider such an action. For those abilities I think the liberties provided are helpful enough. But I agree with you, there are far more dangerous instruments being used against common citizens now, that it makes people protecting themselves with guns a bad joke. That calls for more policies to allow citizens to defend themselves, whether that’s a more robust education system to help citizens catch lying politicians, or a more robust system to bring in control the massive polarization spreading across all democracies, and defences against gutting out of the middle class that’s taking place. But all of them call for more protections to be added, not existing ones to be removed

antod 3y ago
> If this were true, then America wouldn’t have failed so badly in Afghanistan, guerilla tactics work. There is quite a gulf between making a democracy give up on occupying you (especially when the reasons for that occupation become kinda nebulous), and an internal rebellion or civil war. Guerilla tactics are often successful in the former case. The latter situation is much more prevalent, and in most cases just devolves into long term suffering.
- teitoklien 3y ago
  There will be no internal rebellion or civil war, if government actually works for its own people and serves them diligently. More effort should be placed in helping people improve their lives, get access to healthcare, education, food, clean water, protect them from isolation and mental health issues, improve the civil discourse so people are kinder and gentler, more civil to each other. The answer might not be present in taking people’s guns away or remove methods for people to protect themselves. America has had a century of prosperity, while having the liberties to carry arms. You’re right a lot of democracies are right now at risk of an internal rebellion and civil war, including america. But the question is what caused it and how can we reverse the trend ? The answer surely cannot lie in removing something (gun rights) that was present even in years of prosperity. The risk of foreign governments initiating civil war is real, and america itself has done this to other countries that once used to be democracies, civilians not having guns certainly didn’t prevent those civil wars, it’s not that difficult for nations to pump in guns to rebels and terrorists to cause instability in a nation. None of those countries had gun rights like america did, yet they all fell to civil wars. The answer lies in government serving the people, and being afraid of the public. Not in making gov fearless, and thus less concerned about working for the masses. Think about it for a moment, you and I are worried about a civil war breaking out. Why ? Because the recent government on both party sides haven’t been too honest and diligent in working for the public. Whether that’s in deteriorating public education, prospects of high tech jobs, destruction of good blue collar jobs for people to improve their lives without obscene college debt, bad healthcare policies. These situations can only happen from an apathetic government structure that cares 0 about the masses. How do you think, it’ll make those same governments more caring towards the public, by removing the first and second amendments ? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think gun rights are necessary or some messiah that’ll save mankind, I just don’t understand the obsession with trying to remove them.
  - antod 3y ago
    I wasn't talking about what governments should and shouldn't do, or how they should behave. Or even anything US specific - I'm not American. I was just addressing the statement that guerilla tactics work and Afghanistan was the example cited. And I don't think Afghanistan is a good example in this case. Guerillas fighting an occupier (especially a democratic one) have had a reasonable track record of success. Guerillas fighting their own government much less so - the world has been and still is littered with those conflicts. There's a big difference in what is at stake from someone who can just go home, and someone who is fighting for their own home/survival.
catlover76 3y ago
[dead]

hef19898 3y ago

That, and one could make the case than countries with strict gub laws, and thus a theoretically less afraid government, actually serve their citizens better than US when it comes to stuff like education, health care, social security, housing and infrastructure. So I am not really sure the theory of an armed citizenry resulting in better government for the people actually holds water.

lukas099 3y ago
Yeah it's interesting that this is debated because we actually have real-world data on this. It's not like no country with relatively high indices of freedom and prosperity has ever instituted strict gun control.

sickofparadox 3y ago

It has been said many times before but tanks and planes cannot enforce a no-gathering order, they cannot stand on street corners enforcing curfews. Tanks and planes cannot defend the incredibly fragile (to attackers) US energy grid, which is too spread out and vulnerable to be defended by boots on the ground anyway. There's also the fact that a large amount of the US military would desert or defect from their posts if tasked with killing American citizens. Organized rebel groups would receive aid from our geopolitical adversaries, and the highways would be destroyed within weeks or months of the anarchy setting in. If the US ever suffered a civil war today, it would end as a country overnight, possibly permanently.

ohthatsnotright 3y ago
> There's also the fact that a large amount of the US military would desert or defect from their posts if tasked with killing American citizens. I'm ex-military and I don't agree with this statement at all. It's even less clear when you look at the number of people involved in Jan 6 and their affiliation with police or military. You can pull from history on what members of the U.S. military will do against their own citizens so long as those citizens are properly vilified.
- sickofparadox 3y ago
  Sentiment certainly would vary unit to unit, I work with a number of vets (mostly enlisted not commissioned so that might bias it a bit) and when I've asked them about it I've gotten various answers from "refusal of unlawful orders" to "sabotage and desert". I don't know if its all talk but I certainly never hope the chips are on the table to find out.

dudul 3y ago

I dont know, I've been told by the media that on January 6th we were one hair away from being overtaken by a fascist regime. If there's one thing we've learned over the past century is that conventional armies are terrible at winning guerilla wars against population.