[yequalsx]

What's interesting is that rural America was in favor of increased gun control in the 1960s when blacks started to assert their right to own guns. Ultimately peoples' attitudes can be swayed and changed and it isn't really hard to do it. Witness our embracing of torture, taking shoes off to board an airplane, fear of sharia law, etc.

[TaylorAlexander]

Yes, and blacks were taking up arms because they were literally being bombed. The whites wanted to control their rights to have guns so they could continue controlling the black populations with violent force.

So you highlight how gun control has been used as an oppressive tool in the past. What are we do to when only our corrupt government is allowed to have guns?

[Mononokay]

If you're going by second amendment rights, at this point it's more to the spirit of it for civillian fighter jets and tanks to be legalized than guns.

To some extent, I actually imagine it'd be safer for the average citizen.

* * *

From a more protectionist standpoint, you could say that an AR-15 or an AK-47 will allow you to stand up against your government. This isn't really realistic, however - no civillian weapon, especially not a semi-automatic rifle, will reliably take care of a tank, fighter jet, drone or military robot. [0]

[0] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150715-killer-robots-the-s...

[reitanqild]

> From a more protectionist standpoint, you could say that an AR-15 or an AK-47 will allow you to stand up against your government. This isn't really realistic, however - no civillian weapon, especially not a semi-automatic rifle, will reliably take care of a tank, fighter jet, drone or military robot. [0]

It gives you some leverage however if you need to get some ingredients for your IEDs.

A few guns might make the difference between efficient large scale killings like Auschwitz and a case where a large number of civilians get away and hide until the international community can come and help.

[DuskStar]

Yep, people with rifles and improvised explosives are completely ineffective against a modern military force. That's why the US was in and out of Afghanistan in less than a year!

Oh wait.

[jjjensen90]

Our "corrupt government" would crush us with jets, tanks, nukes, laser weapons, missiles, helicopters, drones, ships, chemical weapons, smallpox, and probably many more things regardless of whether we had AR-15s or not.

[flounders]

Libya and Syria are probably good examples of this not being the case. Libya had the benefit of NATO coming to the aid of the rebellion and stopping the airstrikes, Syria also had outside involvement. When a government goes to war with it's civilians other nations tend to get involved.

Even if that isn't the case, all those weapons are on the ground or in port at some point. Meaning an attack with small arms to get in there and preemptively blow them up will work. These weapons also have to be maintained meaning they need a base. You have millions of citizens with weapons and a military that's a much smaller fraction of that, with bases that have a much smaller fraction of personnel. The base is going to be overrun. There is also the chance of military personnel defecting, so that some of these weapons never get fired.

Chemical and biological weapons are a really bad idea. The problem is a civil war isn't going to be geographically defined in this case. There is no polarization along something like a Mason-Dixon line. You will end up killing people that don't revolt, which will probably make them rethink their not revolting. How would you feel if your family and friends were killed in an attack, and they weren't on the rebel side?

The other problem is even if you increase the military's size to win the civil war, you have the second problem of the very people that you could grab immediately to fight are probably going to be a majority of people who have been opposed to gun ownership, don't have weapons and don't know how to use them. It will take time to become proficient and the other side has both the weapons and training.

Even with advanced military tech, the numbers game combined with a guerrilla approach, and the fact these are civilians and it would be hard to identify civilian combatants from non-combatants, will make it a losing battle. We already haven't done well in Afghanistan or Iraq for similar reasons, and despite the enemy being technologically inferior, we have never been able to secure those regions.

[nbdev]

You would have probably been against the American Revolutionary War then? Meh, let's let the British tax us. They're big and powerful. They're the Government.

And what about something like Vietnam? Who won that one?

And even if you're right, that the US government is just that big and bad. What if half the military defects and joins the revolt?

People have the right to defend themselves, and must be trusted to do so. Otherwise you get something like England. Say the wrong thing and you go to jail. The 2nd Amendment keeps the government in check. Eventually, given enough time, it will need checking.

[jjjensen90]

Generally I am against loss of human life, be it in war or gun violence, but I'm not sure how I would have felt at the time of the Revolution, and I'm not sure you do either.

But really, that is just a weak strawman. The US government/military is MANY orders of magnitude more powerful than the British vs the colonists. The US military could nuke every single state capital in a few minutes, for example. If you take the argument to it's logical conclusion, we should have legal access to weapons equivalent to that of the military, which we already definitely do not.

I am just pointing out that an untrained populace armed with even military-style assault weapons is really just laughable if your enemy is the largest military that has ever existed with technology and weapons that could annihilate humanity. I just don't agree that it is productive to use that as an excuse against thoughtful regulation in the face of the actual, currently occuring epidemic of gun violence (accidents, suicides, school shootings, domestic violence, gang violence, etc) where people are really losing their lives.

[nbdev]

You missed the part where I mentioned Vietnam, and the part where I asked what if half the military defects?

I'm against loss of human life too, that's why I'm pro-2nd Amendment. People can defend themselves. People can fight off tyranny. Given enough time, people will need to do that again.

[pasquinelli]

what if half the military and all the gun nuts decide this country is for whites only? the people can fight for tyrrant as well as against it.

[reitanqild]

> I am just pointing out that an untrained populace armed with even military-style assault weapons is really just laughable if your enemy is the largest military that has ever existed with technology and weapons that could annihilate humanity.

Tell that to the Nazis. They were the military superpower of their time.

Except for the nuclear option every armed enemy can tie up >10 soldiers if they are going to try to keep people alive for slave labour/selective genocide/etc.

Edit: my point is that the Nazis had a giant technological advantage as well as a giant army and even powerful allies and still they were vulnerable to all kinds of sting operations.

Edit2: a little more context.

[watwut]

Third reich army was trained. It was army. This is not an example of "untrained populace". This is example of well trained army from country with great military tradition.

The fight against nazi was ultimately won by armies, not by "untrained populace".

All in all, this is really odd example.

[Mononokay]

The Brits weren't actually that far ahead of the civs in the ARWar, it was mostly a numbers issue, not a tech issue.

Vietnam wasn't on US soil, home-base would be infinitely cheaper.

> And even if you're right, that the US government is just that big and bad. What if half the military defects and joins the revolt?

The higher up they are the more nonexistant that chance gets, and the higher up you are the more likely it is that you have a kill-switch to any devices that can be used against the nation.

> People have the right to defend themselves, and must be trusted to do so. Otherwise you get something like England. Say the wrong thing and you go to jail. The 2nd Amendment keeps the government in check. Eventually, given enough time, it will need checking.

Actually, you have the US. People have been arrested for bible burning, [1] promoting Communistic views, [2] Japanese Internment Camps, [3] and more. It's absolutely anti-democratic, but the 2A supporters never will speak against these practices.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150715-killer-robots-the-s...

[1] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/23/bible-burning-incident-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act_trials_of_Communist_...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

[nbdev]

I don't think it's fair or accurate to say folks wouldn't speak out against those things.

Your argument is that people shouldn't have guns because we probably couldn't beat the government. I'll take my fighting chance. It's better to die free.

[reitanqild]

Soviet and later USA didn't crush Afghanistan easily in a few months.

The Nazis had quite a lot of soldiers tied up in already occupied countries because of sting operations.

Edit: remove stupid snark

[cgag]

Can't win if you don't play.

[archagon]

And what are we to do when half the population is armed and wants to install an authoritarian regime?