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The weapons needed to resist a regime are not weapons we allow people to generally have in America at any rate. If we really believed in the 2nd Amendment, peo

The weapons needed to resist a regime are not weapons we allow people to generally have in America at any rate. If we really believed in the 2nd Amendment, people would be allowed to own serious weapons of war but not be allowed to own concealable personal firearms.

jevinskie 14y ago
The 2nd ammendment is not just about protecting yourself from foreign powers or your own government. You have a natural right to self defense from all threats.
chill1 14y ago
> You have a natural right to self defense from all threats. Foreign and imaginary.
- jevinskie 14y ago
  I think today's news shows that the non-foreign threats are hardly imaginary (and I would argue much more relevant than foreign threats).
Spooky23 14y ago
From a legal POV, that's true in many places. Getting legal access to high-performance rifles similar to military weapons is pretty trivial. Easily concealable weapons like pistols usually are more difficult to get a hold of legally. The legal environment doesn't always translate into reality. I live in a small upstate NY city where we unfortunately have lots of shootings, mostly between poor high school kids. The local drug gangs make "community guns" available in public places like parks. I would never want to own one, but for someone like me to own a handgun for target practice, there's an onerous process. I'd be required to get training, get background checked and go through a permit application process. After that's done, it's up to a county court judge's discretion, and in this county, the answer is usually "No."
bcoates 14y ago
Most wars are still primarily men + logistics + intelligence + rifles, the rest is just details.
- jbattle 14y ago
  + Apache gunships
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Hardly. Just because the public doesn't have nuclear weapons doesn't mean that they are incapable of resisting an oppressive regime. Ordinary firearms are for more than sufficient for that purpose. A populace doesn't need to be able to defeat conventional armies on an open battlefield in order to resist oppression. What would be the likely result of, say, an American insurgency against an oppressive government? You wouldn't see militias fighting against tanks, that's just stupid. You would see widespread assassination. You'd see guerrilla attacks on police forces and so forth. You'd see guerrilla forces with ordinary firearms making targeted attacks to gain access to more powerful weaponry. You'd see the public at large making life more difficult for the forces of the regime while giving support to the forces of the insurgency. A mass of civilians aren't going to be able to stand up to a column of tanks easily, but just a hundred civilians armed with AR-15s are going to be able to stand up even to massed police forces. And if an insurgency is supported by the public at large then life is not going to be easy for the police and the military. This is the way that all guerrilla wars go, and there are many examples of successful insurgencies when they have widespread popular support, even against very well armed government forces.
- jevinskie 14y ago
  This is precisely true. You need not look further than America's troubled middle east wars to see how devastating a small guerrilla force can be. Some of the insurgents are using Mosin-Nagant rifles, a Russian bolt-action rifle that dates back to 1891!
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    It's also worth pointing out that in Iraq, for example, the insurgents did not have very much popular support and yet still made things tough for the most powerful conventional army in history. In fact, it was the erosion of that small amount of popular support that turned things around, as much as it was the increased troop levels in the surge before the US finally completely pulled out.
  - hackinthebochs 14y ago
    This argument is silly. The only reason why the US has trouble against small guerrilla forces is because the world is watching. The US has the military power to literally take over the world if it could get away with it (barring nukes). War is hard in modern times because of moral outrage, not because of some intrinsic power of a firearm against an oppressive government

jevinskie 14y ago

The 2nd ammendment is not just about protecting yourself from foreign powers or your own government. You have a natural right to self defense from all threats.

chill1 14y ago

> You have a natural right to self defense from all threats. Foreign and imaginary.

jevinskie 14y ago
I think today's news shows that the non-foreign threats are hardly imaginary (and I would argue much more relevant than foreign threats).

Spooky23 14y ago

From a legal POV, that's true in many places. Getting legal access to high-performance rifles similar to military weapons is pretty trivial. Easily concealable weapons like pistols usually are more difficult to get a hold of legally. The legal environment doesn't always translate into reality. I live in a small upstate NY city where we unfortunately have lots of shootings, mostly between poor high school kids. The local drug gangs make "community guns" available in public places like parks. I would never want to own one, but for someone like me to own a handgun for target practice, there's an onerous process. I'd be required to get training, get background checked and go through a permit application process. After that's done, it's up to a county court judge's discretion, and in this county, the answer is usually "No."

bcoates 14y ago

Most wars are still primarily men + logistics + intelligence + rifles, the rest is just details.

jbattle 14y ago
+ Apache gunships

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

InclinedPlane 14y ago

Hardly. Just because the public doesn't have nuclear weapons doesn't mean that they are incapable of resisting an oppressive regime. Ordinary firearms are for more than sufficient for that purpose. A populace doesn't need to be able to defeat conventional armies on an open battlefield in order to resist oppression. What would be the likely result of, say, an American insurgency against an oppressive government? You wouldn't see militias fighting against tanks, that's just stupid. You would see widespread assassination. You'd see guerrilla attacks on police forces and so forth. You'd see guerrilla forces with ordinary firearms making targeted attacks to gain access to more powerful weaponry. You'd see the public at large making life more difficult for the forces of the regime while giving support to the forces of the insurgency. A mass of civilians aren't going to be able to stand up to a column of tanks easily, but just a hundred civilians armed with AR-15s are going to be able to stand up even to massed police forces. And if an insurgency is supported by the public at large then life is not going to be easy for the police and the military. This is the way that all guerrilla wars go, and there are many examples of successful insurgencies when they have widespread popular support, even against very well armed government forces.

jevinskie 14y ago
This is precisely true. You need not look further than America's troubled middle east wars to see how devastating a small guerrilla force can be. Some of the insurgents are using Mosin-Nagant rifles, a Russian bolt-action rifle that dates back to 1891!
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  It's also worth pointing out that in Iraq, for example, the insurgents did not have very much popular support and yet still made things tough for the most powerful conventional army in history. In fact, it was the erosion of that small amount of popular support that turned things around, as much as it was the increased troop levels in the surge before the US finally completely pulled out.
- hackinthebochs 14y ago
  This argument is silly. The only reason why the US has trouble against small guerrilla forces is because the world is watching. The US has the military power to literally take over the world if it could get away with it (barring nukes). War is hard in modern times because of moral outrage, not because of some intrinsic power of a firearm against an oppressive government