We've also seen it go wrong plenty of times. They can do them and we can do us I figure; I'm quite happy with my gun rights thanks.
There are highly developed countries that tightly regulate speech and network access relative to most of the west. Does that mean adopting an ID requirement to post on Twitter coupled with anti hate speech laws would be an obviously good thing?
It was an arbitrary example. Try to see past the politically charged topic to the actual analogy that I'm attempting to make.
The point of my original reply wasn't about the position being expressed but rather the stated reasoning. If your logic amounts to "Y could solve X therefore we should be doing Y" notice that when applied to other things that line of reasoning doesn't seem to hold up very well.
If you want to have a discussion about child mortality versus tail risks such as elections being suspended or the government murdering protesters a la Iran that's fine but please realize that wasn't the point of my earlier reply.
Most importantly, Australia removed "self-defence" as a reason to own firearms. You have to be a farmer, hunter, or belong to a shooting club.
While the number of guns increased, the number of gun owners dropped. And the new regulations enacted this year drop the number of guns one can own even more.
There was a near-total ban on "military style" guns. See how the terrorists at the massacre last year were limited by the type of guns they had access to, only managing to kill 15 despite having all the time in the world. An Ar-15 or similar weapon could have been used to slaughter that 15 in under 15 seconds.
In the sense that there are more private registered guns than ever before in Australia, sure.
> Most importantly, Australia removed "self-defence" as a reason to own firearms.
More importantly, it unified gun laws - before the Port Arthur shooting, Queensland, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, probably the Australian Capital Territory were all unregulated.
Unregulated states with no border control effectively made the entire Federation of States unregulated.
Regulated states, at least the ones that I lived in prior to Port Arthur, didn't have "self defence" as a reason for owning gun - it was always about hunting, feral control, specific security (regularly carrying money) etc.
The last I checked, the emphasis was more on where you intended to use / carry a gun; shooting club (common), carry for security in street (rare), rural (property owner or have letter of authority to shoot from a property owner).
> There was a near-total ban on "military style" guns.
Sure .. they serve no real purpose, the only activity that requires high fire rates and larger magazines is pig shooting, maybe camel control, and rat shooting.
Rats can be shot with professional BB guns .. a better choice when shooting in sheds, silos, etc - no spark or risk of punching holes in tin walls.
If you're pig shooting in bulk, that's a contract shooting licence.
> they serve no real purpose, the only activity that requires high fire rates and larger magazines ...
Did the Australian ban of "military style" rifles include a blanket clause that covers all semi-automatic fire? Or is it an almost entirely aesthetic category as it tends to be whenever such measures are proposed in the US?
When it comes to automatic fire there's a rather famous US case where someone was ultimately convicted for possessing a shoelace (IIRC) attached to some fastening hardware. As to larger magazines, those probably don't even meet the bar for an introductory level highschool shop project.
> We’ve seen other highly developed countries operate just fine without arming their citizenry to the teeth.
Good for them. As an American, I'm quite happy with our Second Amendment rights, I'm not looking to roll that back in the slightest. And if anything, with the recent rise of the fascist authoritarian regime that we've seen, I'd think that maybe a whole lot of "anti gun" people here would be well on their way to becoming "formerly anti gun" people.
All my life I've heard that an armed populace is to protect us from authoritarian government. Now that we have creeping authoritarians running the country, where are all of those "second amendment solution" people? What trigger are they waiting for, exactly?
Recall that this authoritarian won the popular vote ~18 months ago.
The protection is against a minority authoritarian government. If half the populace supports the guy in charge then taking up arms is effectively a declaration of civil war. That's a case of the cure being worse than the affliction.
Fast forward a year or so, suppose popularity has hit single or low double digits, imagine a blatant attempt at subverting the election process, that's where an armed populace comes in.
Look, I could pick up a rifle tomorrow, and march on DC by myself with the intention of toppling the fascist regime. And what would result? I'd be quickly arrested or killed and nothing would change. So what's the point?
But if I was part of a group of 1,000,000 like-minded people, then I might still be arrested or killed, but at least there's a much higher likelihood that some actual change would take place.
Now, as a lifelong believer in the "an armed populace is to protect us from authoritarian government" mindset myself, I have to say, I am extremely disappointed in a lot of people right now. People that I grew up with, that I've always trusted, respected, and maybe even admired. Because while fascism metastasizes and spreads through our country nearly completely unchecked, they all seem unwilling to even speak up against what's going on. And I can't defend their choices, but I can say that I still believe that there is a tipping point, some event, or sequence of events, that would kick things into into gear if needed[1].
[1]: I say "if needed" because it's not 100% clear to me that the only possible way out of this mess is an armed uprising. We might still be able to "vote our way out of this" and the optimistic take is that many Americans are sitting on their hands as long as they hold a shred of hope that that is still possible.
The more pessimistic take is that a majority of the "second amendment to protect us from authoritarianism" crowd are hypocritical ass-clowns, who are actually OK with authoritarianism as long as "their guy" is the one in power. :-(
But you won't get that critical mass without a spark.
People need to see action and see it work without repercussions to the actor.
People will take notice when someone like Thiel, Bannon, or Miller are taken down with a drone and the drone operator escapes arrest.
They'll think to themselves "Wait a minute, if someone can take out a billionaire I can take out that cop who raped my cousin and got a paid vacation as punishment for it."
What comes after that is anybody's guess but I predict an impending moment where individual citizens realize that they're not as helpless as they have been lead to believe and that technology can help them eliminate long-standing criminals operating in positions of power with immunity in theiry local communities.
As an individual person, having right to bear guns doesn't seem to have any impact or saving powers against the authoritarian regime. What scenarios relating to authoritarian regimes (be specific) do you find having a gun at home would help with?
> As an individual person, having right to bear guns doesn't seem to have any impact or saving powers against the authoritarian regime.
See my reply above. But loosely speaking, you are correct when looking at things from a purely individual point of view. No one of us is going to topple an authoritarian regime by ourselves. But I don't think that was ever the point. It's an assemblage of large numbers of like-minded armed individuals who can effect change.
And just to be clear... I'm a peaceful person at heart (but not a pacifist). I don't want blood-shed, and I don't want to see an armed uprising or a civil war on many levels. But I'd at least like to see many of my fellow #2A advocates being more vocal and visible about stating our displeasure with the current environment, and our willingness in principle to take action if/when it becomes clear that it is necessary. That, ideally, in and of itself reduces the need for actual violence, by acting as a strong deterrent.
Aside from the obvious (being ready and able to form an armed resistance) there's the deterrent. When you know that your populace has certain options available to them that will inform your actions.
There are highly developed countries that tightly regulate speech and network access relative to most of the west. Does that mean adopting an ID requirement to post on Twitter coupled with anti hate speech laws would be an obviously good thing?