Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by goolulusaurs 1455 days ago
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." The thing that could have saved HK was legalization and widespread private gun ownership. Yes, there would have been more gun crime, but the victims of all of the random gun crime in the world is a tiny fraction compared to the victims of communism.
2 comments
logicchains 1455 days ago
This is what Ukraine found out too late. When Russia invaded they legalised gun ownership but there weren't enough guns to go around. If Ukrainian civilians had been as well armed as Americans, the Russian army would have been vastly outnumbered in urban warfare and washed away in a river of blood.
link
vanattab 1455 days ago
I mean I fully support the second amendment, but no amount of AK-47's are going to stop a Russian armored column they needed the javelins and drones for that.
link
BeFlatXIII 1455 days ago
The point in an invasion that's reached that point isn't to turn back the enemy with your backyard AKs; it's to rack up the casualty toll to prevent the supposed victor from achieving peace. See also: Iraqi IEDs.
link
throwaway2048 1455 days ago
Not sure we agree on a shared reality if you think even literally every single person in Hong Kong owning a gun is going to much of anything stop the CCP.
link
goolulusaurs 1455 days ago
Yes, I think if literally every single person in Hong Kong had a gun that would be enough to stop the CCP. The entire active military of China is about 2 million people, less than a third of the approx. 7.5 million people in HK. Maybe the CCP could bomb the city into dust, but taking it over intact would be a practical impossiblity.
link
vanattab 1455 days ago
Maybe if everyone had guns and everyone was willing to let the city burn to the ground. But must people just want to get on with their lives for better or worse. The majority of Hong ong residents would not have supported all out war.
link
goolulusaurs 1455 days ago
Sure, maybe it is possible if the residents are okay with the CCP taking over, but on the margin everyone being armed makes them taking action much more costly. Guerrillas were able win against the US in Vietnam, and Mao used guerrilla warfare himself and won against a better equiped military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Guerrilla_Warfare
link