[mothballed]

Seems paradoxical.

If I'm not allowed to have guns, then I am physically unsafe, because someone from government will use violence against me if they both discover it and have the ability to do something about it. I wouldn't feel safe anywhere violence is used for malum prohibitum 'crimes.' In fact I don't feel safe basically anywhere a government exists because they all do this; this is part the reason why I live in a rural area with basically no government services, no police, no public utilities or anything like that with involvement by the state beyond the bare minimum possible in the USA.

Your proposition also relies on the place itself not changing, and my and my offsprings atrophying their practice of skills of self defense and therefore not needing them when moving elsewhere. But sure if you had a magic wand and could trade 'no guns' for anyone for world peace, I'd take it.

[titanomachy]

Are there any examples of someone in the US successfully defending themselves from “government violence” using a gun? I mean, examples where it ultimately worked out for that person?

Maybe you could be the first!

[mothballed]

Yes, American Revolution. More recently, Battle of Athens[0]. Also see the Bundys who are still (as far as I know, to this day) ranching on the land they had an armed standoff over the BLM with in Nevada [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff

[titanomachy]

Ok, I guess you’d be the first in ~100 years. Crazier things have happened. But the much more likely outcome of meeting government violence with lethal violence of your own is that you are now dead. That’s a scenario that plays out all too often in this country; no need to reach into the distant past for examples.

Kudos for engaging civilly and earnestly on this even though the majority here seem to disagree with you. It’s rare that I encounter someone coherently articulating a belief system so wildly divergent from my own.

[47282847]

Oh wow! I wonder what must have happened to you that you feel so threatened. I only have positive experiences with government and police interactions. In multiple situations they made me feel safer and protected. I would however not feel safe around a gun, regardless of who owns it. Too much can go wrong.

[ponector]

>> I am physically unsafe, because someone from government will use violence against me

And how your gun can prevent this now? If you are allowed to carry a gun police will act like you have one lane shoot you. While in other case they will just beat you with stick.

[gls2ro]

(coming from a country where having guns at home or seeing a civilian with a gun is very very strange and an huge emergency so maybe my question is stupid)

IF the government decides to use violence against you do you really have a chance with a gun? or 10?

[mothballed]

I'm not claiming you'd be safe even with a gun. I'm not claiming there is any real government you are safe living under given a long timespan (maybe longer than even your own lifespan, but still these skills are passed down in families so breaking the chain during 'safe' times is still harmful).

To your specific question, probably not, but the better question is whether you have more of a chance with or without a gun? If you look at the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising for example, having a gun bought those people hours to days, which is better than nothing. Of course if you look at places like Chechnya, it bought them outright years that they were able to obtain independence from the brutality of Russia (even if not from their own brutality) as a result of militia activity in the first Chechen war.

[neilv]

(don't know why you were downvoted for an honest-sounding response)

If I understand correctly, the reasoning is a kind of long-term best-practice thinking?

And that best-practice is a high enough priority that it would prevent you from moving someplace that was otherwise better than a place that would let you have guns?

Is it only reasoning, or it there also a psychological component, like you'd also feel unsafe without guns, maybe due to past or current threatening situation (e.g., physical danger, or economic)?

[mothballed]

My reasoning is that if firearms are banned then the underlying threat is that violence will be used against me for obtaining them. I consider myself unsafe if 'legitimate' violence will be used against me despite the fact I have deprived no one of their life, liberty, or property.

[neilv]

Thanks, I have a better idea where you're coming from.

If I understand correctly, you have both practical (near-term or long-term) and also philosophical objections, to the power imbalance between citizen and state, when citizens can't have guns. And it's a high priority.

FWIW, I sympathize with vigilance. Though my own priorities around guns are different. I live in a fairly safe city, with good police. Where I live, the prevalence of citizen guns seems to create more problems than it solves. The problems I have don't seem to be solvable with guns. I might feel differently, if I lived in a less-safe place or in different circumstances.

[danaris]

> someone from government will use violence against me if they both discover it and have the ability to do something about it

This is a statement so far removed from reality that it makes anything else you say immediately suspect.

You appear to view "government" as an entity whose primary purpose is to bring violence against anyone who cannot resist that violence with lethal force. There is no possible justification for that as a blanket definition.

If you are omitting, perhaps, the fact that you are a wanted and dangerous person, who has, for instance, committed a string of murders, and that is why the government would "use violence against you", then that would seem to make anything you say quite inapplicable to anyone else's situation.

[jerhewet]

See: I.C.E.

[danaris]

ICE exists in a very specific context in one country.

This discussion is, very specifically, about leaving that country for other countries.

[lucyjojo]

well said!

i myself am a maximalist about this and i don't feel safe unless i carry some strains of ebola with me. it would be nice if you could support my ebola open-carry efforts (dm me for details).

[array_key_first]

The actual paradox is that, in the US, simply having a firearm in your home increases your risk of death to gun violence.

[mothballed]

Simply owning or encountering a seat belt also 'increases' your risk of dying in a car crash. This is the kind of nonsense causation-correlation mix-up statistics you are operating on.

[array_key_first]

It's not, because most gun death are actually from the person owning the gun or people close to them.

It's much more likely that you shoot yourself or your kid shoots you or your husband/brother/other-troubled-man has a bad day and shoots you than a criminal shooting you.

The relationship between gun deaths and guns is not correlative, it's causative. Because, surprise! Guns cause gun death.

Generally, less guns = less gun death. Which might seem like such a simple understanding that it must be naive or stupid. But no, it's actually just that simple.

On a related note, less automobiles = less automobile deaths.

[mothballed]

Show the evidence you have that it is causative rather than correlative.

>Generally, less guns = less gun death. Which might seem like such a simple understanding that it must be naive or stupid. But no, it's actually just that simple.

It's really not, in many cases it's been found anti-correlative i.e. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/guns4.jpg

[array_key_first]

> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8371731/

"Virtually all of this risk involved homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance."

[mothballed]

It does not assert what you've claimed. It found correlative association. They did not conclude that the gun was causative of the homicide.

Even thinking this through for a second, it makes sense someone expecting to be murdered by a family member or intimate partner might be more likely to keep a gun, as it might be useful in frustrating that effort.