RiverDog wrote:I was speaking of non violent means. We have a better chance of controlling the government by making sure that our elected officials are responsible to those that put them in office. It means staying informed and not allowing ourselves to be controlled by the media, to view the news from multiple sources and come to our own conclusions.
Non-violent means is not effective against all tyrants or even the majority. I listed for you numerous and will do so again from recent memory: Saddam Hussein, Iran's Ayatollah, The Taliban, Russian Communism and now Dictatorship, Chinese Communism, The Khmer Rouge, the psychopathic warlords in Africa.
It wouldn't make any difference if every citizen was armed with and M16. They don't work well against tanks, and as the Syrian rebels found out, they don't work well against poison gas.
You're thinking short-term. They will work when the civilian population with M-16s cuts off tank refueling depots, ammunition replenishment, and the people having to leave to eat and take a rest. Armies of men are still useful because you can use them in insurgencies to cut off the supply of machines which are far harder to keep active. I guarantee you that 300 million people armed with M-16s would make a huge difference against a 500,000 person military.
You want to have that argument, we can have it. I'll break down how an insurgency force 300 million strong with M-16s can outlast a 500,000 person army with tanks, planes, and the like. That in fact an armed and prepared population is one of the greatest defenses and checks and balances on government in history. It is exactly why historically leaders of nations have taken very extensive steps to disarm populations they plan to conquer and create elite military and police classes to control civilian populations. Even in Germany Hitler made it a point to disarm Jews to make them easier to round up and kill. In America we made sure to disarm Native and African populations to make them easier to control.
A disarmed population is far easier to tyrannize and I would argue that they are in a state of tyranny as soon as they give up their weapons because they no longer have the capacity to use force to disarm their government. They have literally put themselves at the mercy of their government police and military.
Agreed. It's a good justification for maintaining the 2nd. But you don't need an assault weapon to maintain that attitude and have a basic knowledge of weaponry.
I believe you do. The weapons of the soldier are different than a hunting rifle or pistol. It's why so many people want them gone. They are designed for a purpose and that purpose is one the civilian population should have access to.
I don't believe that it's an effective check and balance
Why? You really believe only the government should have access to military and police use of force? And that the civilian population should be what....disarmed and at their mercy? At what point would you consider yourself tyrannized? How much would they have to raise your taxes to feel tyrannized? When they do and you don't have that M-16 to join with your neighbors, what would you do then? March like all these protesters? Vote? What if they ignore your vote, where do you draw the line? When you do need it? If they remove your right to have it and you did it to yourself, then what do you do?
but I do agree that it would be very problematic to round up every assault weapon in the country and toss them into a burn pile. It's a similar problem that they had during prohibition and IMO would lead to more gangs and underworld crime just as it did in prohibition.
In nearly every nation where they disarmed the population crime has risen. All disarming the population does is set them up to be prey for criminals and aggressive governments. Why do you think so many liberal organizations want gun control? Just because? It is far easier to push a socialist agenda on a disarmed population. They use the power of legislation to push it and then the police and military to enforce it against a disarmed population that can no longer resist them. It's called mob tyranny. Our Founders were against it which is why they intended a Republic based on individual rights and even bothered to add an Amendment like the 2nd Amendment.
You seem to have some knowledge of the Constitution? Why exactly do you think they included an Amendment like the 2nd Amendment and why so high on the list? Do you ever ask yourself that question? It seems not many do. I know I did, then started to research why would the Founders of a nation based on liberty ensconce in the Constitution an amendment that militarizes the people of that nation? If it were just for national defense, they could have formed a standing army like Great Britain. But for some reason they decided to make it an individual right in a document they clearly made to put checks and balances on government power. Why would they make arming citizens such an important part of that if it was not a quality check and balance?
What I have said is that I would be agreeable with banning all military style weaponry if I could be assured that the gun control crowd would stop there. But when I look at our past history from 1963 through the present day and see polls where there are already 20% of the American population that want to repeal the 2nd, it makes me hesitate.
As I said, you are not a free people if you are not armed people capable of forcibly unseating your government. The Founders knew this. Anyone that understands that all government is based on force understands this. Only dumbass socialists and liberals believe that a disarmed people is still a free people because their size has been brainwashed to believe that only the government is capable of military or police action. Don't buy into it. An armed population that can defend themselves violently is the best defense from governmental tyranny that at people can be provided. Does it guarantee victory against a tyrant or ensure a perfectly free state? No, nothing does. Does it at least ensure that if it should come to it you as a people have the means to violently dissolve your government amongst the population so you can at least fight if it comes to it? Yes, it does.
And that is all the Constitution is meant to guarantee is that the means for liberty is there be it the freedom to verbally oppose your government, assemble to talk about opposing your government, and if necessary take up arms to oppose your government. None of them guaranteed to provide a positive result, but all of them provided so that the American people as a whole might be able to defend their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness on all fronts as needed. I would not give up any of those rights due to fear caused by a handful of very evil people any more than I would give up my car due to irresponsible drivers which kill or maim far more people each year. Don't buy into the hype and BS pushed by the anti-second amendment lobby.
And citing other nations as examples of reduced gun violence due to the numbers is like removing cars and saying we reduced vehicular deaths. It's a no brainer that removing something from society is going to cause a reduction in that type of violence, but still doesn't resolve the underlying issues that cause the violence or trouble in the first place. Fight the socialists that want to take our liberty, RD. Fight them to the last. They have an agenda they raise up every time these mass shootings happen without ever bringing up the fact that mass shootings are exceedingly rare, rarer than car accidents, drug overdoses, and other crap they don't seem to be much against.
I'll leave it there. I can't make the point any stronger than I have. I feel like I live in the end times of America where people have forgotten what keeps them free and are willingly giving up their rights and idea of America because it seems like it is ok to do so, like we can all let our guard down because tryanny and evil have been banished from the world forever. I don't personally that is the case, but it shows how much people go to sleep when the bread and circuses are plentiful and entertaining. They no longer want to maintain the vigilance, values, and hard work that has made this nation extraordinary. All I know for certain is the weakness that so many are willing to teach their children and future generations makes it far easier for me to empower my children to excel past them and maintain strength while society teaches weakness, acquiescence to the masses, and insouciance.