The only justification for citizens possessing firearms as a defense against their govern is if the army is corrupt or ill trained to a large extent. there are very few countries in the world like that,a few african countries and the one’s mentioned above minus pakistan. and if a country ever reaches a point where it decides to start killing it’s own people i assure you guns aren’t going to help you.
@chickentikka: You cant voice dissent in India? Then where you can, you can run down anyone, you can allege them of any wrong doing, you would have a hard time to get noticed though because so many are doing that
Is PE firm Cerberus anticipating something? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/18/cerberus-sell-gunmaker-freedom-group See also http://qz.com/37276/meet-the-private-equity-firm-that-dominates-the-us-gun-industry/
Storytime EU readers. Let me explain America and guns to you: First there was YOU, the brits. Well, actually, no I’m getting it wrong. First there were the Indians, feathers not dots. They didn’t have guns and guess what happened to them? Lesson learned. Then there was YOU, the brits, again. 1812. A shitty war where pretty much everyone involved embarrassed the Hell out of themselves. We weren’t very well organized. Lesson learned. Have better guns. Then there was the civil war. A war where the North basically forced the South to capitulate. If only we’d taken their guns from them it would have been a lot easier. But we didn’t and they put up a damn good fight for a long time even though in the end, they were never gonna win. But this forced us to compromise. And guess what, the rednecks still love their guns. Why, cause they are waiting for the feds to come back. Lesson learned. Then there was the 20th century where we spent most of it helping you guys deal with your governments which were busy killing their own people (e.g. the nazis, moussilini, franco, the Romanian guy who’s name I can’t spell, and basically the entire Soviet Union). Soviet style pogrom in the US? No thanks. Lesson learned mother fuckers. You better believe that Stalin and Hitler took away the guns from their victims too first, long before they organized their genocide. Another thing that happened in the 20th century was consolidated US federal government power and the idea of states rights became old-fashioned. We created things like the FBI to go across state lines, prior to that you could commit a crime in one state and cross to the next state and you were free. No Interpol. We now no longer saw a huge difference between one state and another. We identified as Americans, not as Virginians as Robert E. Lee did when he decided to take up the Army of Virginia (not the Army of the South). Oh, but wait this sounds familiar right? Ah yes. The European Union. What if Angel Merkel or Von Rumpoy suddenly said to you, the English, "Hey Limey’s, hand over your guns. It’s for you own good. We know better, we’re the EU guys in Brussels. Yep, no more shooting birds on the weekends. No more UK military. We’re gonna have one big European military with mostly German commanders. “How’s that sounds? You ok with that, Limeys? No you’re not?” Well, neither are the rednecks and red-staters. They got about as much in common with me (I’m from Connecticut) as you Limey’s do with Bulgarians in the EU. Furthermore they don’t trust a primarily northern led government worth a damn. Would you trust Angela Merkel to run England? They don’t trust a primarily Northern led army. Would you be happy having the Huns running the Royal Greenjackets? No, f’cken way! In terms of counterbalancing the power of the US military should it actually turn against me. Yeah, I’d be very afraid the day the US military openly turns against its own people. It wouldn’t be pretty. However, I do feel that we are less likely to ever get to that place because the US government is afraid of the US citizens. Let me give an example. We had a relatively recent event, WACO about 20 years back. Now these WACO guys are just the kind of insane lunatic redneck christian assholes that you guys in the EU would think the government ought to just have the right to exterminate and on the surface I would agree with you there. Some guys in our government thought the same thing - I mean WACO was a weirdo autocratic christian sex cult marrying underage children en masse to its leader - slam dunk. The kind of operation that makes careers like ZERO DARK THIRTY. Except when the ATF and FBI showed up they managed to basically participate in a massacre that, like the War of 1812 and Vietnam, made everyone involved in it, look like idiots. Nobody was a winner. All those kids being brainwashed into marrying the leader? Dead. Yep, everyone dead. Even a few government agents. A complete clusterfuck. While, nobody in the US liked this WACO cult, we all kind of collectively thought, “What were they thinking going in with guns blazing, ATF and FBI? You knew they were armed and insane. You knew they’d have no problem setting the compound on fire, rather than being taken alive. They told you as much. Big government overstep.” Most Americans genuinely disliked that the government was going in and attacking its own people. Even though they were nuts. Sure we have no problem with our government killing citizens from other countries, but not our own. Yes, it’s a bit hypocritical, but actually pretty rationale cause the US military is basically unbeatable if allowed to do whatever its wants. So even though nobody liked these WACO guys, you better believe some top FBI and ATF guys got sacked over this operation. Failure. And they haven’t tried an operation like it against US citizens (well, unless their name is Muhammed) since. Lesson Learned. In addition to the political shit storm, WACO caused, it didn’t go unanswered by John Q. Public. Another nutcase Tim Mcveigh went and massacred a whole bunch of government workers in Oklahoma and even a bunch of children. He did this as payback for WACO. Not because he loved the guys in WACO, but because he felt the US Government didn’t have the right to just storm its own citizens as it did. Lesson learned. Before you get your knickers in a twist, I am not justifying terrorism. I am just explaining the affect that it had. The government decided, “Bad idea, to attack our own citizens.” Unlike, in let’s say in Saudi, where you grovel at Politician/Dictator/Bureacrat’s feet, in America some redneck will take you out if you go too far exercising your political will. Once again, not justifying it, just explaining it. So what did Mcveigh use to killnearly 200 people (800 injuries) a body count that would make Lanza blush? Did he use an assault rifle like our retarded angry teenage boys are doing? No. He used a bomb. A fertilizer bomb - something you can google how to make and pick up the parts for at Walmart. The same kind of bomb that will be used the moment that guns are taken away. Come on you guys are Economists this is straight up multicolliniarity. You really think just taking away the guns will stop this? It’s not the root of the problem. Just a symptom. There’s an inventive solution for gun control, if you’re a pissed off teenage boy, and its easier than stealing your mom’s guns and requires no background check. Bombs. Which is why, while I don’t really care if they ban Assault rifles all that much, I’d much rather they figure out why somewhat intelligent teenage white males, from generally good families, are continuously pulling this crap rather than blaming guns, which are not the cause, and hoping that stops massacres from occurring. The root problem is this demographic of pissed off teenage suburban white males. Guns didn’t create the psycho. But, I do believe that the pyscho will use whatever is at his disposal. Personally, I’d rather he come after the kids with a gun than a fertilizer bomb. The latter is just way more deadly, effective, and requires no permits. So, I do believe that defending the 2nd amendment is important. In my opinion, that isn’t the decision I’m making in this debate. If banning guns would have stopped the ROOT OF THE PROBLEM of these massacres then I might be for it. Even in spite of all this shit I’ve just told you about not trusting the government. But guns aren’t the root of the problem. Something else is. We should find that. Let’s figure that one out first THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM. Then we can propose whatever legislation we find effective to stopping it. I’m all for it. My theory, and yes it’s only a theory, is the media making these shitheads famous. I’m sure you could plot a direct correlation with these things and the advent of the internet, facebook, and social media. We’ve had big awesome guns in the US for a long long time. My dad used to keep his gun in his school locker - the only reason he locked it was because he didn’t want anyone stealing it and his teachers thought he’d be distracted by it if he had in the class room… So guns have been around for a long time in the US. Big ones too. They didn’t just show up with Columbine. The internet and 24 hour news did though. If that theory turns out to be true then we can have a debate over whether to censor, either voluntarily or forcefully, the media. That will be a different amendment though, the 1st.
^tldr 
Did you see those chicks that got arrested for saying something along the lines of, “People like Bal Thackeray die everyday. It’s no reason to shut down the entire state.” Perfect example. If it weren’t for the foreign media taking up their cause they’d be f’ed.
^ not really. the part about the north and south still not getting along was interesting though.thought america had gotten over all that.
Must be a very scary place, the United States of Paranoia!
Ah…resisting the power of government. If the US army turned against you with its predators and F-22s and sent Abrams tanks driving down your little street in suburbiawhoknowswhere. A bunch of guys armed to the hilt with fully automatic assault rifles would be cannon fodder dispatched in minutes. It sounds terribly romantic to say “guns will resist GOTUS dictatorship!”, but unless your idea of accountability is turning New Jersey into Chechnya or Jaffna or Kurdistan or Aleppo, well who knows then…
Really? Tell that to the Taliban and the Syrians. One of the reasons the Syrians have been successful is that international pressure has forced restraint on their government and also that the military is forced to use weapons that were intended for large scale assault against guerrilla operations. The bigger point is that it gives a people the ability to force the government’s hand. Force them to step up with arms or back down and begin talks. The government can’t keep passing totalitarian laws and quietly arresting people under the radar. Instead, armed resistance brings inter-national attention and makes the military step back and determine if they want to kill their families to support a regime. I’ll be honest. There’s a part of me that always enjoys reading 1984 and knowing I wouldn’t have to blindly run.
See my response to Plantir about the effectiveness of resistance. Europeans argue that in this day and age a totalitarian government would not occur outside of third world countries. But 70 years ago, there was Nazi Germany, Facist Italy, Portugal under a dictatorship that was overturned in an military coup (and the list goes on). Weren’t they civilized societies then? It amazes me how short our memories are.
You’ve got people in the UK saying we should ban guns because they cause innocent deaths, while ignoring the fact that after removing suicides, drunk driving causes equally as many deaths (many of those are indiscriminately elementary aged passengers) and alcohol is far more socially destructive. You’ve also got people arguing that if guns were banned our problems would be solved, despite having spent the last 10 years buying pot.
I think there are about 2.3 million people currently serving in the US military, including reserves. That leaves about 110 million people between the ages of 18 and 44. Throw in another 82 or so million aged 45 - 64 and that puts you just south of 200 million people, but let’s call it 190 million. I’ll take 190 million against 2.3 million any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
…and the greeeks 
Look, I’m not totally against a ban. But I’m also not going to pretend there aren’t legitimate pro’s and cons.
And you’re even assuming there aren’t mass defects of units and equipment as we’ve seen in every major armed revolt. Most of the South in the civil war was formed by regiments that defected because they wouldn’t shoot on their own.
Yes it is 1% likely that the US government will turn into Nazis and we will need to take up arms. However, it is 100% likely that thousands of people will die over the next few years due to gun accidents and violence under the current level of regulation.
Interesting chart over here: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/12/10-tuesday-am-reads-48/ Direct chart link: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/guns.jpg I made the following comment: — There is something very interesting about this chart though. The US is an outlier in many ways. If you removed the US from the sample and reran the regression, and then the line would actually be much steeper. If you used that line to predict where the US should be on that line, you would find that the actual US position lies far BELOW what would be predicted by a much steeper line. Now the chart is not set up well. If the theory is that gun ownership leads to higher homicide rates, then gun ownership should be on the horizontal X axis, and not the Y axis, because this is how we (by convention) read charts. It’s only those who are careful enough to look at the axis labels who will notice that gun ownership is actually on the Y axis. This probably was done because a steep line looks much more convincing, even if it happens to reverse the implied causal connection. Taken together, however, it does suggest that the US has many more gun deaths than would be predicted by gun ownership alone. I personally wouldn’t mind mind much if assault rifles and stuff were banned, but I am a little surprised to find myself thinking that 2nd amendment lovers have a point when they say that gun ownership is not the root cause of these problems. We need to figure out why we are so much more violent than other industrialized nations, and how to deal with that.
Listen, the U.S. Military, all 2.3 million of them, can totally wipe out the rest of the US and the entire world for that matter if they are allowed to do whatever they want. Fortunately they can’t and probably do not want to. They are kept in check, by politicians. The US isn’t like Egypt because the politicians can cut off their funding and stop them from getting the weapons they need. Politicians can sack the top commanders. Furthermore, if the military or the ATF, FBI, CIA, or whomever, piss off the American public, they will get shit from the politicians who need to show their voters that they are listening and just as angry. Why cause they fear the public. But what if the politicians and the military make an unholy alliance? What happens then? Well, then you get a situation like Egypt where Mubarek and his cronies run the place and democracy doesn’t matter. That’s when you will wish that you had guns. If you don’t have them, then the government can basically Gulag, Pogrom, or Haulocaust you out of existence. Why hasn’t this happened in the US already? Well some might say it has. Remember Ike’s farewell address about the MIC? The good news is that its easier for the politicians to appease the population in the US rather than risk a redneck shooting their heads off at their next fund raiser. The military is similarly incentivized to cooperate, as they still get their toys, even if they aren’t allowed to make any real decisions. But what if one politician really wanted to win re-election for life? What if he promised the military brass everything? Well then he’d have to surgically kill every last armed redneck in the United States without blowing up the world. Good luck with that! Syria: The only thing stopping Syria from committing full scale genocide against its own people are foreign governments and their threat of military force. Otherwise they’d be committing full scale genocide against one another right now. This could be done by Assad and his Alawites or the so-called “rebels” who are just a different brand of Islam. They both want the other side dead. Dead… Dead… Dead… That’s really the only outcome that either side wants or even works. If you haven’t figured it out from Iraq or Afghanistan, democracy doesn’t work in these places. Genocide is generally the best solution, for one side to win. It’s how humanity has operated forever. We have just lost our taste for it, thankfully, in the West. There is nothing stopping them from doing a full scale “Lord of the Flies” style faction killing on one another except WE won’t let them. You can call it paranoid, but these type of events happened within the EU in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. That’s recent enough for me to think it can happen again. It also continues to happen everyday all over pretty much every continent. Mexico is basically having one such feud right now in North America. Syria in North Africa. It happened here in Mumbai in the 1990s. We might be able to stop Syrians from murdering one another en masse. But who will stop us? Nobody. So let’s hope that this very precarious trinity of population, politicians, and military continues to work the way it does in the US. Well armed “militia” might just be a decent check and balance in this.
Well, while we’re ignoring weight of impact and being trite about it while focusing entirely on probability: It’s also 1% likely that without alcohol the US would be plunged into a massive state of depression, which they would be unable to drink their way out of. However, it’s also 100% likely that tens of thousands of drunk driving fatalities (more than from non-suicide firearms) would be avoided, fewer domestic violence issues would develop, many lives would be saved from liver diseases, and fewer children would be abused. It’s also 1% likely that without easy access to automobiles society will ground to a halt. However, it’s also 100% likely that tens of thousands will develop breathing disorders over the next several years, the climate / environment will continue to be damaged and 10’s of thousands of people will be killed indiscriminately within the US. Even with that, it’s pretty clear that you and I have different levels of value that we place on a society. Because to me a 1% chance of a totalitarian (you said Nazi) US government that could result in millions of lives is both actuarily and fundamentally worse than several thousand lives in several years. ----- Something like 50 million people died in WWII. I don’t care what happened, it doesn’t give you a right to scoff at that. It was real and it cost the world an incredible price.