[thayne]

But we no longer have the right to bear the same arms as the government. Obviously, gun control is complicated, and I'm not advocating that anyone should be able to buy military grade armaments, but at the same time, it does concern me that the citizens last resort against tyranny becomes less and less viable.

[xyzzyz]

When things actually come to this, I don’t expect US military to actually use its superior equipment to mow down the opposition en masse: you’d more likely see various factions in military take it out one upon another.

[adventured]

> But we no longer have the right to bear the same arms as the government.

You hardly need it.

You can see what guerrilla forces do to the standing army of a superpower, by looking at Iraq and Afghanistan. They can't stop it, its demoralizing, and even if the superpower kills at a 2 to 1 or greater ratio, the losses are considerable. And in this case that force would be domestic, so all the negative PR/image consequences are radically amplified (your army might kill at a 2 to 1 or 4 to 1 ratio, but every one of those citizens that you kill makes the general population hate you more and brings out more recruits for the opposition).

The US has maybe 12 to 15 million functional, trained former soldiers, many of whom have been to war, they know everything the military knows, they have experience in every aspect of combat, and they have a vast number of arms and a hundred million sympathetic people behind them. It makes Afghanistan look like a cakewalk. A standing army trying that in the US would be butchered, they'd bleed like a stuck pig. And that's to say nothing of the vast internal sabotage and assassinations that would immediately begin to occur and would never cease; it would instantly split the military into factional pieces that would fight against eachother.

[bavell]

I don't know why more people don't understand this. Is it because they have no exposure or experience in military matters? I don't understand how so many people think the 2A is obsolete... it's just as effective today as it ever was.

[asdff]

It is obsolete since you are comparing apples to oranges. Comparing hardened people who have been fed arms and resources by various superpowers for decades vs. your average out of shape medicated American who buys their shotgun at the sporting goods store.

[kevin_thibedeau]

The kill ratio in Iraq is 100 to 1.

[svieira]

And we still haven't won

[confidantlake]

The side that is getting killed at 100x the rate isn't winning either.

[svieira]

There's an old apocryphal story about the Chinese and the Japanese duking it out in the prelude to WWII that applies here, but there's also a poem far closer:

> That though all lances split on you, > All swords be heaved in vain, > We have more lust again to lose > Than you to win again.

~ G. K. Chesterton - The Ballad of the White Horse - Book III https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm#link2...

The side that is willing to loose one more time than the "winning" side is willing to win ... they win in the end.