That is certainly debatable. Americans seem used to the idea, but to the uninitiated the idea of building armed insurrection into the governing system seems pretty mad.
How is it mad? Government's are capable committing atrocities of unprecedented scale against their own citizenry. I wonder if the Russian Kulaks could have organized an armed resistance, or perhaps the Chinese peasants during Maosism.
Also, I recommend to you the fascinating history of the African-American tradition of arms in the US. Black's used firearms to defend their families and communities against KKK and white mobs.
"A good revolver is the best response to the slave catcher" - Fredrick Douglas
Both the Russians and Chinese had big civil wars in which the governments you mention eventually came into power. The question of armed resistance isn’t a hypothetical. It was tried and it failed.
The notion of gun rights as essential to defending against tyranny is inherently self-defeating. If all it takes to defeat gun owners is passing some laws making them illegal, won’t a tyrant do that before they start with other forms of oppression? If gun control works, tyrants will use it too. If it doesn’t then you don’t have to worry about it.
You are just ignoring things you don't want to see.
Russian peasants actually did stop the government from taking over in 1920. Lenin was forced to enact the NEP because their policies were literally collapsing.
There was no other plan behind the NEP, it was written within a 3 month period.
It took a massive effort and practically a civil war by Stalin to collectivize agriculture.
While the state was eventually successful in that case, it clearly shows that resistance is possible.
In many other countries in the middle east for example, the governments know that they can not implement many polices, so they don't even try.
It also depends on level, if you are 1 of 50 people who oppose the government, its not gone go well. However if there is widespread support then the cost of the government goes up hugly if citizens are armed.
You keep regurgitating this line of reasoning like it's some sort of profound "gotcha" logical trap. We worry because we do not wish for things to escalate. And I can assure you, they will escalate, as armed separatism would be inevitable.
I keep regurgitating it because nobody addresses it.
If the reasoning was “don’t pass gun control, or you’ll have an armed insurrection” then that would make sense. But that’s never what gun advocates say. They always portray gun owners as somehow being simultaneously the final bulwark against a tyrannical government, and vulnerable to even mild gun control laws.
Hey, perhaps you have a mistaken impression - the existence of gun control advocates does not imply those who oppose them are "gun advocates". There do exist freedom and liberty advocates who would prefer to be law-abiding and do not appreciate gun control advocates constantly demanding and enacting a blizzard of laws expanding state authority to curtail freedom in the name of the public good. State authority is exercised with the implicit alternative of violence, so any proposed expansion of laws should be weighed accordingly. There exists historic precedent of a cause for action when a plethora of laws is enacted, each simple in object but collectively enabling state harassment of the law-abiding into giving up freedom to remain law-abiding. The success of such action to retain freedom in the face of state power is not guaranteed, so a reasonable free citizen will try to hedge in favor of retaining freedom without the need for armed insurrection.
A "mild" law will carry all that as an implicit potential consequence, so perhaps it should not be enacted, thus sparing us the possibility of having to deal with an lawfully empowered tyranny (tyranny is usually lawful, btw).
I don't care. I'm neither american nor interested in american gun culture. I'm just pointing out that it is simply false that citizens with guns can not have any impact.
That isn't what I said. I said that the notion of gun rights as essential to resisting tyranny is self defeating. Guns themselves may be useful in this respect, but gun rights cannot be.
Both the Russians and Chinese had big civil wars in which the governments you mention eventually came into power. The question of armed resistance isn’t a hypothetical. It was tried and it failed.
This has nothing to do with my point, or if it does, it certainly isn't clearly elucidated. As far as I'm aware, there is no strong history of armed resistance from either of the groups that I mentioned. And I'll leave you to the research the history of successful resistance movements, as there are many. I would start with the American Revolutionary War and then perhaps the importance of guns and armed resistance by blacks during Antebellum South and the Jim Crow period.
The notion of gun rights as essential to defending against tyranny is inherently self-defeating. If all it takes to defeat gun owners is passing some laws making them illegal, won’t a tyrant do that before they start with other forms of oppression?
Your argument is circular as it's based on a false premise. Yes, they may very well begin with outlawing guns. Which is why we have guns. If you try to take my gun by force, I will shoot you.
If all it takes to defeat gun owners is passing some laws making them illegal
This isn't what it takes. This would be the first formal step, but what it would take is for the State to pry them out of my hands, which would be met with resistance. Not just by me, but by the millions of gun-owners across the country - which is precisely why it won't happen.
Right, but why is there always such a fuss about gun control laws? Every time politicians propose some restriction, gun advocates talk about how this is dangerous because it will leave us unable to resist tyranny.
I don't know. Why don't you ask him why he said it?
>Yes, they may very well begin with outlawing guns. Which is why we have guns. If you try to take my gun by force, I will shoot you.
>This isn't what it takes. This would be the first formal step, but what it would take is for the State to pry them out of my hands, which would be met with resistance. Not just by me, but by the millions of gun-owners across the country - which is precisely why it won't happen.
Poster was asked what it would take for gun control to be effective as a precursor for tyranny. Poster responds with an answer which goes beyond the pale for what most civilized countries would consider.
I asked why you were incredulous, and you responded that you were incredulous about an incredulous hypothetical. The part you quoted says it's untenable.
Oh, I misunderstood you. I was incredulous because most people would not admit that. I wonder if the poster has considered who would be coming to take away his guns. Most 2A advocates are thin-blue-line apologists.
That's a fairly recent development. Only about 20 years ago, the NRA was going on about "jack-booted thugs" and the gun enthusiasts in general were pretty skeptical of law enforcement.
It's been interesting, and more than a little disturbing, to watch it change. I'm not a big fan either way, but I much preferred them when their gun advocacy was part of a larger libertarian framework rather than a fascist one.
Yes, many of us do. The vast majority of US gun-owners are not criminals, and the social problems that gun ownership seems to correlate with can be argued, debated, and squared away with "other" strong correlations, so the debate is certainly not settled.
Both the American Revolutionary and Civil War have only hardened my position on the importance of gun ownership.
There is a fundamental ideological divide between us that drives these positions. You can call me a cook, crank, nutter, clinger, whatever you want, but the fact is this:
I simply don't trust the government and I believe in the right to arm and protect myself at any and all costs.
> I simply don't trust the government and I believe in the right to arm and protect myself at any and all costs.
But you are aware that your government has tanks, drones and vast selection of chemical weapons. Soon they'll have lethal drones small enough to make a person with gun just as harmless as a person without a gun.
People that want guns, I feel, think they are living with their minds in the future where they heroically oppose facist leaning government with their trusty guns. I feel they are in fact living in the glorious past when such thing was possible, not even in the present when goverment has all the power industry manufactured for military since the beginning of industrial revolution. Definitely not in the future when you'll be just labeled domestic terrorist and bombed, gassed, sniped from at least a mile or assasinated by a drone.
Guns today in context of opposing government are just imagination enhacers same way as D&D figurines, just less harmless.
All that technology, and yet a bunch of Vietnamese living in small villages and mud huts put up enough of a fight to create a permanent sore spot in US military history.
Also, those guys we've been trying to kill for the past 15 years in the middle east keep coming back fiercer than ever.
And who do you think operates all that fancy technology? Men who own guns and whose fathers owned guns before them. No, not all of them, but by and large. So I wouldn't be so sure that they would be on "your" side if push came to shove.
> All that technology, and yet a bunch of Vietnamese living in small villages and mud huts put up enough of a fight to create a permanent sore spot in US military history.
Do you expect Soviets to help you with your struggle with your oppressive US government?
Besides it was 40 years ago which is pretty much ancient time for military and anti-riot technology.
> Also, those guys we've been trying to kill for the past 15 years in the middle east keep coming back fiercer than ever.
So losses of 15000 isis soldiers for each US military soldier dead is for you "guys ... in the middle east coming back fiercer than ever"? You'd like to be of the loosing side of such conflict for whatever reason?
> And who do you think operates all that fancy technology? Men who own guns and whose fathers owned guns before them.
Not necessarily own, just operate. I don't think that soldiers have significantly higher gun ownership percentage than civilians. Also all of them have a strong opinion about obeying your superiors, kinda goes along with the job. I don't think they'll be sympathetic to bunch of civilians that don't obey their superiors.
The Civil War was, essentially, fought to preserve the institution of slavery. The period after the Civil War was marked by incredible violence against blacks by the KKK and racist whites and white mobs.
Blacks protected themselves, their families and their communities through armed resistance. They could finally "shoot back". In fact, some of the earliest gun control measures were taken up TO KEEP GUNS AWAY FROM BLACKS, so that they could not resist against the atrocities of slavery.
It isn't talked about because white liberal academic elites are so hostile to guns, but armed resistance and guns were a central part of the civil rights movement.
Recommended reading for you:
We Will Shoot Back - Umoja
Negros With Guns - Williams, Martin Luther King Jr., Truman Nelson
Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms - Johnson
So ... After all the history that passed since then, after all the civil wars and armed revolutions do we still believe they are good idea?
I guess US military thinks so after supporting so many in the middle east. Europe I think has different take on the subject.