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Given the massive mismatch of firepower, training and numbers between the government and the very best armed/trained groups within the civilian population I ha

Given the massive mismatch of firepower, training and numbers between the government and the very best armed/trained groups within the civilian population I have trouble believing that anyone can still make this argument at any intellectual level.

notdrunkatall 14y ago
Afghanistan. Duh.
jivatmanx 14y ago
Any uprising is likely to include a significant contingent of defecting armed forces.
splat 14y ago
Is that really true, though? The US has a large military, but it pales in comparison to the number of armed civilians. Just look at the number of hunters in this country. In Wisconsin alone there are 600,000 hunters. That would make them the ninth-largest army in the world. There are more hunters in just the four states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia than there are in the entire U.S. military. Obviously the U.S. army has far more firepower than a group of hunters. But even a much, much smaller band of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan has been able to create substantial problems for the U.S. in its own in guerrilla warfare against the U.S. military. Is it really so implausible that a group orders of magnitude larger would not be able to stand a chance? (Keep in mind, too, that if there ever were to be a serious rebellion in the U.S. you'd probably have a lot of desertion from the U.S. military. In fact, some of them might even bring some of that firepower to the other side.)
- tomkin 14y ago
  This is a really poor argument. First, what's "tyrannical" to you? There are various degrees of "tyrannical", just as there are various degrees of terrorism. Can you expect the entire country of gun owners to react all at once? Because I have some evidence that suggests otherwise. You're hoping for some "flipped switch" type of tyranny that never happens. Even Hitler's madness took place in phases and wasn't universally recognized as a threat. This idea of immediate revolt is a fairy tale. One that other gun-less countries watch in awe. Don't you think its time to move on and concentrate on more important issues?
  - tome 14y ago
    To be fair to splat, he didn't mention tyranny himself.
  - notdrunkatall 14y ago
    You're arguing that because people might not suddenly decide to revolt en masse that... what, exactly? That a revolution is therefore not possible, and that we should then give up the right to bear arms? How ironic that you would accuse him of making a really poor argument when yours is about as poor as they come. I hope no one upvoted that drivel.
    - tomkin 14y ago
      Your right to bear arms is silly. Incredibly silly and archaic. You live in 2013, not in colonial times. While the amendment made perfect sense then, it makes no sense now. The pro-gun movement seems to be completely ignorant to the staggering evidence that guns in citizen's hands are unnecessary at the least and dangerous at the worst. Society: an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. As the above dictionary definition suggests, a society is based on a collective set of ideas, rules and order so that all within the society can live peacefully. Remove the guns and the strange associated chest-thumping, less people die. It's really that simple. You used to be able to drink and drive, until we all realized it was for the betterment of the society to change that. You lost that right, too. Guns are no different.
      - giardini 14y ago
        "... the staggering evidence that guns in citizen's hands are unnecessary at the least and dangerous at the worst." Not true. US citizens are more effective than police in handling firearms: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-the-myths-promoted-by-the-gun-control-lobby/2/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-t... http://actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml http://actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml scroll down to "Armed Citizens Make Fewer Mistakes Than Police"
- tome 14y ago
  This is an excellent, level-headed, clear and persuasive comment that outlines a side of the argument that I previously failed to grasp. Thank you!
sigzero 14y ago
You also assume that the whole of the military would be against the civilians. I don't think that is true at all.
nonamegiven 14y ago
It may be that there's a huge mismatch between citizens and the government, but that does nothing to remove or reduce the fact that the constitutional right to bear arms in the United States is based on the possible need to revolt. The Constitution and its Amendments were written in the aftermath of that exact circumstance. The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting or sport. Any serious discussion about gun control cannot ignore that, and you can't logic it away. It's the elephant in the room, and it won't seriously change one way or another except in a constitutional context.
Turing_Machine 14y ago
"Given the massive mismatch of firepower, training and numbers between the government and the very best armed/trained groups " ~700,000 cops, 1.4 million active duty military and ~200 million gun owners (many of whom have had military training) is quite a mismatch, all right, but not in quite the way you think.
- Anechoic 14y ago
  and ~200 million gun owners Where are you getting this number from? 200 million gun owners means that nearly 2 in 3 US citizens owns a gun which doesn't sound close to correct. http://rense.com/general62/gns.htm http://rense.com/general62/gns.htm says 80 million gun owners. http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp says 70-80 million adult gun owners. I can't find any better numbers, but 80 million sounds more reasonable. (still an order of magnitude more than police/military, but not 66% of American citizens).
  - mixonic 14y ago
    There are not 200 million gun owners, but there are ~270,000,000 privately owned guns in the US (http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states). That's a gun for 8.5 out of 10 Americans. Or 3.4 guns for every legal gun owner. I think this is a fact gun rights folks miss. We can clear people when they purchase guns, but a gun is a lethal weapon for years. You can't guarantee it won't fall into other hands in 30 years. Some people argue we should give up, and embrace the number privately owned weapons in the US: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-case-for-more-guns-and-more-gun-control/309161/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-case... Others argue that registration of weapons is a better solution: http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/24/fact-check-the-gun-registry-red-herring/ http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/24/fact-check-the-gun-regi... But the sheer number of these things is amazing. FWIW, the country with the second highest number of guns per capital is YEMEN. With a gun for only 5.4 out of 10 citizens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co... (IMHO, gun registration and improving our mental health system would go a long way toward addressing gun violence)
InclinedPlane 14y ago
How do revolutions happen even in countries without mass individual gun ownership then? Remember that we're not talking about merely an insurgency here, we're talking about an insurgency with massive popular support, against a government that has turned tyrannical. In such a situation there is no technological or firepower advantage that guarantees victory to the state, even nuclear weapons. There are always points of weakness, which can be exploited best by folks backed by extensive popular support locally. An uprising of ubiquitously armed civilians would be able to quickly overpower police forces, and they'd also be able to take over some military bases, gaining access to more powerful weapons. There would also likely be defections from military forces. Look at Syria as an example, the regime there is ruthless and willing even to use mass carpet bombing and shelling on civilian targets, and there is no right to private gun ownership there, and yet somehow the rebels have managed to arm themselves not just with small arms but also RPGs, mortars, and tanks. Facilitating the early stages of a rebellion vastly accelerates all of the later stages. Moreover, mass civilian ownership of firearms means that the ability of police and armed forces to attack the public without fear of injury becomes much diminished, which provides a deterrent effect against such attacks.
- notdrunkatall 14y ago
  Obviously the absence of guns do not make it impossible to stage a revolt; they do, however, make it much more difficult.
- introspect 14y ago
  I understand your argument, but help me understand, where do you draw the line in the types of "arms" that can be legal today? Would you support private ownership of such "RPGs, mortars and tanks"? How about the anti-aircraft projectiles that the Syrians rebels are so desperate to obtain? All these things would help me immensely when fighting a tyrannical government.

notdrunkatall 14y ago

Afghanistan. Duh.

jivatmanx 14y ago

Any uprising is likely to include a significant contingent of defecting armed forces.

splat 14y ago

Is that really true, though? The US has a large military, but it pales in comparison to the number of armed civilians. Just look at the number of hunters in this country. In Wisconsin alone there are 600,000 hunters. That would make them the ninth-largest army in the world. There are more hunters in just the four states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia than there are in the entire U.S. military. Obviously the U.S. army has far more firepower than a group of hunters. But even a much, much smaller band of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan has been able to create substantial problems for the U.S. in its own in guerrilla warfare against the U.S. military. Is it really so implausible that a group orders of magnitude larger would not be able to stand a chance? (Keep in mind, too, that if there ever were to be a serious rebellion in the U.S. you'd probably have a lot of desertion from the U.S. military. In fact, some of them might even bring some of that firepower to the other side.)

tomkin 14y ago
This is a really poor argument. First, what's "tyrannical" to you? There are various degrees of "tyrannical", just as there are various degrees of terrorism. Can you expect the entire country of gun owners to react all at once? Because I have some evidence that suggests otherwise. You're hoping for some "flipped switch" type of tyranny that never happens. Even Hitler's madness took place in phases and wasn't universally recognized as a threat. This idea of immediate revolt is a fairy tale. One that other gun-less countries watch in awe. Don't you think its time to move on and concentrate on more important issues?
- tome 14y ago
  To be fair to splat, he didn't mention tyranny himself.
- notdrunkatall 14y ago
  You're arguing that because people might not suddenly decide to revolt en masse that... what, exactly? That a revolution is therefore not possible, and that we should then give up the right to bear arms? How ironic that you would accuse him of making a really poor argument when yours is about as poor as they come. I hope no one upvoted that drivel.
  - tomkin 14y ago
    Your right to bear arms is silly. Incredibly silly and archaic. You live in 2013, not in colonial times. While the amendment made perfect sense then, it makes no sense now. The pro-gun movement seems to be completely ignorant to the staggering evidence that guns in citizen's hands are unnecessary at the least and dangerous at the worst. Society: an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. As the above dictionary definition suggests, a society is based on a collective set of ideas, rules and order so that all within the society can live peacefully. Remove the guns and the strange associated chest-thumping, less people die. It's really that simple. You used to be able to drink and drive, until we all realized it was for the betterment of the society to change that. You lost that right, too. Guns are no different.
    - giardini 14y ago
      "... the staggering evidence that guns in citizen's hands are unnecessary at the least and dangerous at the worst." Not true. US citizens are more effective than police in handling firearms: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-the-myths-promoted-by-the-gun-control-lobby/2/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-t... http://actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml http://actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml scroll down to "Armed Citizens Make Fewer Mistakes Than Police"
tome 14y ago
This is an excellent, level-headed, clear and persuasive comment that outlines a side of the argument that I previously failed to grasp. Thank you!

sigzero 14y ago

You also assume that the whole of the military would be against the civilians. I don't think that is true at all.

nonamegiven 14y ago

It may be that there's a huge mismatch between citizens and the government, but that does nothing to remove or reduce the fact that the constitutional right to bear arms in the United States is based on the possible need to revolt. The Constitution and its Amendments were written in the aftermath of that exact circumstance. The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting or sport. Any serious discussion about gun control cannot ignore that, and you can't logic it away. It's the elephant in the room, and it won't seriously change one way or another except in a constitutional context.

Turing_Machine 14y ago

"Given the massive mismatch of firepower, training and numbers between the government and the very best armed/trained groups " ~700,000 cops, 1.4 million active duty military and ~200 million gun owners (many of whom have had military training) is quite a mismatch, all right, but not in quite the way you think.

Anechoic 14y ago
and ~200 million gun owners Where are you getting this number from? 200 million gun owners means that nearly 2 in 3 US citizens owns a gun which doesn't sound close to correct. http://rense.com/general62/gns.htm http://rense.com/general62/gns.htm says 80 million gun owners. http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp says 70-80 million adult gun owners. I can't find any better numbers, but 80 million sounds more reasonable. (still an order of magnitude more than police/military, but not 66% of American citizens).
- mixonic 14y ago
  There are not 200 million gun owners, but there are ~270,000,000 privately owned guns in the US (http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states). That's a gun for 8.5 out of 10 Americans. Or 3.4 guns for every legal gun owner. I think this is a fact gun rights folks miss. We can clear people when they purchase guns, but a gun is a lethal weapon for years. You can't guarantee it won't fall into other hands in 30 years. Some people argue we should give up, and embrace the number privately owned weapons in the US: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-case-for-more-guns-and-more-gun-control/309161/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-case... Others argue that registration of weapons is a better solution: http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/24/fact-check-the-gun-registry-red-herring/ http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/24/fact-check-the-gun-regi... But the sheer number of these things is amazing. FWIW, the country with the second highest number of guns per capital is YEMEN. With a gun for only 5.4 out of 10 citizens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co... (IMHO, gun registration and improving our mental health system would go a long way toward addressing gun violence)

InclinedPlane 14y ago

How do revolutions happen even in countries without mass individual gun ownership then? Remember that we're not talking about merely an insurgency here, we're talking about an insurgency with massive popular support, against a government that has turned tyrannical. In such a situation there is no technological or firepower advantage that guarantees victory to the state, even nuclear weapons. There are always points of weakness, which can be exploited best by folks backed by extensive popular support locally. An uprising of ubiquitously armed civilians would be able to quickly overpower police forces, and they'd also be able to take over some military bases, gaining access to more powerful weapons. There would also likely be defections from military forces. Look at Syria as an example, the regime there is ruthless and willing even to use mass carpet bombing and shelling on civilian targets, and there is no right to private gun ownership there, and yet somehow the rebels have managed to arm themselves not just with small arms but also RPGs, mortars, and tanks. Facilitating the early stages of a rebellion vastly accelerates all of the later stages. Moreover, mass civilian ownership of firearms means that the ability of police and armed forces to attack the public without fear of injury becomes much diminished, which provides a deterrent effect against such attacks.

notdrunkatall 14y ago
Obviously the absence of guns do not make it impossible to stage a revolt; they do, however, make it much more difficult.
introspect 14y ago
I understand your argument, but help me understand, where do you draw the line in the types of "arms" that can be legal today? Would you support private ownership of such "RPGs, mortars and tanks"? How about the anti-aircraft projectiles that the Syrians rebels are so desperate to obtain? All these things would help me immensely when fighting a tyrannical government.