6 ms·

Somehow I doubt handguns and rifles offer much protection against drones. Your thinking is muddled and you seem kind of paranoid.

MartinCron 14y ago
I think a shotgun would probably be most effective against drone aircraft, and there has been little to no discussion about changing how shotguns are regulated.
rhizome 14y ago
I think we're way beyond any kind of disarmament situation, but a drone can certainly be considered to be a handgun of foreign policy.
defilade 14y ago
It's not an issue of handguns vs. drones, or rifles vs. tanks. It's an issue of ~20 million households holding 300 million guns. In the (admittedly unlikely) event that someone has tyrannical aspirations, those numbers present a real obstacle.
- bithive123 14y ago
  It's mostly in movies and comic books where the tyrants literally round everyone up at gunpoint and violate their rights. I'm not saying "we're all slaves because plutocracy" but your framing of the issue demonstrates a real lack of imagination.
  - hga 14y ago
    Errr ... how familiar are you with 20th Century history? Well more than 100 million previously disarmed people were rounded up at gunpoint and their rights were violated to the point they were killed. Those movies and comic books had some real world inspiration, after all.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Ah, but all of those crimes against humanity were not committed by current governments that we like! (and of course those that were have the benefit of victor's justice...)
    - ajuc 14y ago
      No amount of guns in people hands could prevent Hitler or Stalin or WW2. Even in WW2 era guns weren't sufficient to overthrow governments. You would need tanks and planes and artillery, and logistic system to support all of this. Since 1945 war became even more expansive and require much more specialized equipment. Guns won't do. Yes, you could organise resistance movements. People did that a lot, even on German occupied areas. And they were thorns in regular army side. But no resistance would suffice to win WW2, because by that time war required very costly machines. You think Jews or Poles could maybe shoot at Germans taking them from homes? Yeah - they did that. And escaped to forests, and ambushed them, etc. Poles even did uprising and liberated Warsaw for roughly a month. Guns weren't that big problem - they massproduced them in homes and hidden factories. Tanks and flamethrowers and bombers and logistic were the problem. Germans retook and obliterated the city to be 90% flat. Do you really think people in USA could overthrow government if it went Nazi? Assuming army is supporting the government. I think it's very naive argument. Also pre-WW2 Poland had quite liberal laws regarding gun ownership - you only needed positive opinion from local police station. Didn't helped.
      - hga 14y ago
        Our recent difficulties in the Middle East would seem to argue against your assertions. One other point you're ignoring is wealth and the development of guns that don't take a great deal of maintenance to keep working (e.g. non-corrosive primers). However liberal Polish policies were, and I can't possibly believe they were for Polish Jews, many fewer people could afford to keep a functioning gun of military utility. Things are very much different today, with cheap reliable designs like the AK family and non-corrosive primers. The other problem is that we're addressing different scenarios. Guns vs. a mechanized invasion: yep, that's bad. But I'm talking about governments killing what were nominally their own people. Armenians in Turkey. Jews in greater Germany, which points out the problem of numbers on each side. Lenin and Stalin killing more than both combined, in once case the latter arresting 1/3 of the residents of Leningrad in one night (!). Guns are really useless against the agents of the state, no matter how expensive they make genocide or mass deportations or executions? I mean, does any state have an infinite supply of thugs?
coley 14y ago
They wouldn't. The drone comment, and protect ourselves comment were separate ideas. I think he's trying to bring to light that our country completely stopped for a month after Sandy Hook, but we ignore all of the innocent lives(including children) that get taken by drone strikes. Assault weapons don't stand a chance against drones, but I'm willing to bet they out number them and have a lot more trained operators. My AR-15 was around $900 when I bought it(~2 years ago). Now the same gun is going for $1000+, and there's not even new legislation yet. If these weapons get banned, the criminals that all ready own them will see a gain in their net worth. I don't see how raising the value of 'criminal' assets is going to help anyone. Paranoid is an easy answer. A much more difficult answer is that our country has used it's excessive force on the unarmed before. What's to stop them once their governing body(the citizens) is unarmed?
- bithive123 14y ago
  Guns may help individuals defend themselves from other individuals (who may or may not be working for the government) in specific interactions (being mugged / taken to the gulag) but surely their raw numbers don't make The Citizenry safer from government oppression. That has to come from somewhere else; leading many people to conclude that "having guns" doesn't protect us from the government any more than "holding leaders accountable" or "having an educated populace".

MartinCron 14y ago

I think a shotgun would probably be most effective against drone aircraft, and there has been little to no discussion about changing how shotguns are regulated.

rhizome 14y ago

I think we're way beyond any kind of disarmament situation, but a drone can certainly be considered to be a handgun of foreign policy.

defilade 14y ago

It's not an issue of handguns vs. drones, or rifles vs. tanks. It's an issue of ~20 million households holding 300 million guns. In the (admittedly unlikely) event that someone has tyrannical aspirations, those numbers present a real obstacle.

bithive123 14y ago
It's mostly in movies and comic books where the tyrants literally round everyone up at gunpoint and violate their rights. I'm not saying "we're all slaves because plutocracy" but your framing of the issue demonstrates a real lack of imagination.
- hga 14y ago
  Errr ... how familiar are you with 20th Century history? Well more than 100 million previously disarmed people were rounded up at gunpoint and their rights were violated to the point they were killed. Those movies and comic books had some real world inspiration, after all.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Ah, but all of those crimes against humanity were not committed by current governments that we like! (and of course those that were have the benefit of victor's justice...)
  - ajuc 14y ago
    No amount of guns in people hands could prevent Hitler or Stalin or WW2. Even in WW2 era guns weren't sufficient to overthrow governments. You would need tanks and planes and artillery, and logistic system to support all of this. Since 1945 war became even more expansive and require much more specialized equipment. Guns won't do. Yes, you could organise resistance movements. People did that a lot, even on German occupied areas. And they were thorns in regular army side. But no resistance would suffice to win WW2, because by that time war required very costly machines. You think Jews or Poles could maybe shoot at Germans taking them from homes? Yeah - they did that. And escaped to forests, and ambushed them, etc. Poles even did uprising and liberated Warsaw for roughly a month. Guns weren't that big problem - they massproduced them in homes and hidden factories. Tanks and flamethrowers and bombers and logistic were the problem. Germans retook and obliterated the city to be 90% flat. Do you really think people in USA could overthrow government if it went Nazi? Assuming army is supporting the government. I think it's very naive argument. Also pre-WW2 Poland had quite liberal laws regarding gun ownership - you only needed positive opinion from local police station. Didn't helped.
    - hga 14y ago
      Our recent difficulties in the Middle East would seem to argue against your assertions. One other point you're ignoring is wealth and the development of guns that don't take a great deal of maintenance to keep working (e.g. non-corrosive primers). However liberal Polish policies were, and I can't possibly believe they were for Polish Jews, many fewer people could afford to keep a functioning gun of military utility. Things are very much different today, with cheap reliable designs like the AK family and non-corrosive primers. The other problem is that we're addressing different scenarios. Guns vs. a mechanized invasion: yep, that's bad. But I'm talking about governments killing what were nominally their own people. Armenians in Turkey. Jews in greater Germany, which points out the problem of numbers on each side. Lenin and Stalin killing more than both combined, in once case the latter arresting 1/3 of the residents of Leningrad in one night (!). Guns are really useless against the agents of the state, no matter how expensive they make genocide or mass deportations or executions? I mean, does any state have an infinite supply of thugs?

coley 14y ago

They wouldn't. The drone comment, and protect ourselves comment were separate ideas. I think he's trying to bring to light that our country completely stopped for a month after Sandy Hook, but we ignore all of the innocent lives(including children) that get taken by drone strikes. Assault weapons don't stand a chance against drones, but I'm willing to bet they out number them and have a lot more trained operators. My AR-15 was around $900 when I bought it(~2 years ago). Now the same gun is going for $1000+, and there's not even new legislation yet. If these weapons get banned, the criminals that all ready own them will see a gain in their net worth. I don't see how raising the value of 'criminal' assets is going to help anyone. Paranoid is an easy answer. A much more difficult answer is that our country has used it's excessive force on the unarmed before. What's to stop them once their governing body(the citizens) is unarmed?

bithive123 14y ago
Guns may help individuals defend themselves from other individuals (who may or may not be working for the government) in specific interactions (being mugged / taken to the gulag) but surely their raw numbers don't make The Citizenry safer from government oppression. That has to come from somewhere else; leading many people to conclude that "having guns" doesn't protect us from the government any more than "holding leaders accountable" or "having an educated populace".