[aporetics]

How does private gun ownership check the government?

How would the government act differently if citizens owned fewer or different or no guns? Where does the fantasy that the everyone is out to get you and you had better be armed and ready come from? Cowboy movies? The whole idea of the cowboy is myth[0].

If you want to see real power hungry government in action, don’t think SWAT coming for you, look at the Missouri State Health director keeping a spreadsheet of women’s menstrual cycles, in order to make sure that if any became pregnant the state could intercede [1].

If you’re reading HN, you’re probably some kind of engineer. So tell me, how is a problem which is itself generated by the accumulation of brute power solved by a countervailing accumulation of brute power? Which then just becomes an arms race. Which is objectively insane. It is an infinite loop. How do you break it?

[0] See "This Land" pg 61-66 by Christopher Ketcham (https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018042), citing Lynn Jacobs "The Waste of The West" (https://lccn.loc.gov/92121736)

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-health-directo...

[JumpCrisscross]

> How does private gun ownership check the government?

It raises the stakes for oppression. How would Hong Kong look right now if the population were lightly armed? Instead of a civilian police force repressing millions the Chinese military would have had to occupy its own territory. That has political and international consequences.

I believe in gun regulation. But I recognise the civic core of the opposition’s argument.

[aporetics]

> How would Hong Kong look right now if the population were lightly armed?

Let’s be honest, if they were armed and gun ownership weren’t already against the law, the Chinese government would sweep in and pass a law that day and start going door to door, seizing weapons, take the people from their families and send then to reeducation camps. It wouldn’t forward their cause at all.

The word “civic” is odd here too (I recognize that your comment is about the intent of the parent comment’s argument), because the opposite pole to political violence is… civil discourse. There is an unavoidable incoherence to the idea that gun ownership is about civic responsibility.

[throwaway0a5e]

Going door to door to confiscate people's property is far from a bloodless process.

What the GP said about "upping the stakes" is very true.

[abduhl]

During the start of the coronavirus pandemic Minnesota enacted a stay at home order. Protestors arrived at the governor’s residence armed with guns after the lockdown order was extended. The stay at home order was modified to be less restrictive THAT DAY by the governor. He claimed that the modification was unrelated, but everybody knows that’s not true.

[hackyhacky]

So you're saying that rather than communicating our will to our elected officials with ballots and phone calls, we should use the threat of violence against them?

Great idea, let's apply it in other contexts. Next time I get a parking ticket, I'll follow around the traffic cop with an assault rifle until they lower the fee.

[abduhl]

The GP asked “How does private gun ownership check the government?” The government of Minnesota was checked by private gun owners in 2020.

You may think that waiting to vote at the ballots or having your phone calls dumped to a voicemail and never returned is an appropriate response to being locked up in your own house against your will with the threat of state action if you leave; however, a few people in Minnesota did not think that it was appropriate. So they showed up and they showed up armed.

That’s their right and it’s the right the second amendment protects. You may not like it, but that’s just because you haven't disagreed with the government hard enough yet.

[hackyhacky]

> The government of Minnesota was checked by private gun owners in 2020.

Sure, if by "checked" you mean "threatened with violence." My comment is intended to question whether or not that's a good idea, by attempting to applying the same principle to other walks of life.

> being locked up in your own house against your will with the threat of state action if you leave

You mean the usual way of dealing with the outbreak of a deadly contagious disease?

> That’s their right and it’s the right the second amendment protects.

Threats are not protected.

[tehwebguy]

> How does private gun ownership check the government?

It often doesn’t even give local police enough pause to make sure they are invading the correct home in the middle of the night.

[hackyhacky]

The answer to your question is obvious: gun owners buy into a fantasy, probably inspired by action movies, that they will one day be able to use their weapon "righteously" against another human being. Possibly in simple self-defense from a crime, but especially in a poetic-heroic setting, such as defending their god-given rights from an oppressive government.

Never mind that gun owners in America don't have the organization, training, resources, or equipment to effectively combat a police department, much less the US army quelling an armed insurrection, even if their rights ever were legitimately threatened. Never mind that private gun ownership as it currently exists would never be a realistic check on any government. The macho fantasy endures, and colors so much of our discussion on gun rights.

The other missing datum from the macho fantasy is under what conditions is armed revolt justified. The sibling post mentions Hong Kong as an example. So what if, on the other hand, the government wants to compel citizens to vaccinations? Are the citizens justified in murdering cops and healthcare workers in order to avoid mandatory vaccination? What if the citizens believe that an election was fraudulent? Are the citiens (legally, ethically) justified in raiding the Capitol to forcibly overthrow the government?

There are no good answers to these questions because the justification for gun ownership is not based in any real-world conditions: it's purely a fantasy.

[Clubber]

>Never mind that gun owners in America don't have the organization, training, resources, or equipment to effectively combat a police department, much less the US army quelling an armed insurrection, even if their rights ever were legitimately threatened.

This is a common argument, but completely ignores what the Taliban/Iraqis/ISIS did to the best and most well funded military for 20 years. What the Vietnamese did 40 years before that; completely ignoring 60 years of actual events.

[hackyhacky]

The Taliban were repelling an invading army. The Viet Cong were strictly trained.

Do you think ordinary Americans have the skill or appetite to take up arms against other Americans? Especially better trained and equipped Americans?

How far do you think the Jan 6 insurrectionists would have gotten had the capitol police taken the threat at all seriously?

The argument that "America's armed forces have lost wars" does not support your conclusion that "ordinary Americans are capable of defeating America's armed forces."

And you also conveniently ignore the rest of argument, pointing out that a democratic government doesn't need armed insurrections.

[throwaway0a5e]

>Do you think ordinary Americans have the skill or appetite to take up arms against other Americans? Especially better trained and equipped Americans?

IDK. Ask the Irish.

The Taliban, VC, etc, had basically ZERO ability to mess with the invading army's supply lines or the political process keeping those supply lines open. Furthermore, the martial law steps taken in places like Iraq to stem the violence would be much more politically costly domestically. I can crap out plenty of non-US examples of this kind of thing if that helps.

This shit is all basic stuff covered in Armchair General 101. Educate yourself.

[hackyhacky]

> This shit is all basic stuff covered in Armchair General 101. Educate yourself.

Based on the snide tone of condescension, this response sounds like it was written by precisely the kind of delusional macho wannabe who fetishizes firearms and dreams of one day murdering someone.

[throwaway0a5e]

>this response sounds like it was written by precisely the kind of delusional macho wannabe who fetishizes firearms and dreams of one day murdering someone.

Or maybe I've read just a little bit of history and think you're the delusional one.

Civil wars don't go down like foreign occupations. If this nation breaks down into widespread violence (I don't personally think it would, I think it would balkanize before we ever got to that point) I hope that you live long enough to be subject to is so that you may learn an important lesson and that some future generation may be spared the task of mopping up the mess.