[Permit]

>Clearly the tyrants of today disagree with you. They would not be trying so desperately to ban guns if they did not fear an armed population!

I can't tell if you're serious. The world isn't out to get you. We've had sensible restrictions on guns in Canada for some time now without a resulting genocide.

Is it so hard for you to believe that one might want guns banned for reasons other than the oppression of fellow citizens? As a citizen I have nothing to gain by banning guns. If I became a politician and offered the same position, I'd be called a scheming tyrant by individuals like yourself.

Bizarre. Your comments remind me of: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2012/08/08/calga... Perhaps the attitudes of Canadians and Americans differ more on this issue than I initially thought.

[_dps]

Your factual observation is correct, but I don't think the parent is suggesting that the absence of weapons guarantees genocide. I believe the claim is that weapons provide a deterrent to genocide.

To relate to your example: Canada may have merely "gotten lucky" in not yet having had a genocidal leader. If I had to pick among two competing theories:

Theory 1) An armed populace can deter genocide. The observed fact is because Canada hasn't yet had a leader inclined to genocide, or influential enough to accomplish it.

Theory 2) An armed populace cannot deter genocide.

I'd be inclined to believe the first. The policy implications of such a belief would, of course, depend on the general likelihood of leaders prone to genocide. If they are vanishingly rare, then the benefits of deterrence are probably outweighed by the costs of widely distributed arms. The history of twentieth century states leaves this, for me, an open question.

[n3rdy]

Not to mention that an armed United States is a reasonable deterrent that would undermine any attempt at genocide in Canada.

The moment it was clear that the Canadian government intended to begin mass executions, activists from the U.S would start moving weapons and other provisions over the border to assist a resistance. This is assuming that the U.S government didn't send its own military to stop the genocide itself.