> I sincerely doubt the average first world person has what it takes to sacrifice their comfortable life and go live in caves to resist a tyrannical occupation.

Why are you talking about the "average first world person"? IIRC, Afghanistan is a country of ~30 million people, and the most recent estimates I saw said the Taliban only had ~75 thousand fighters. That's 0.25%. So not even the average Afghan did that.

Also, guerilla warfare isn't so much about living in caves as melting into the population.

>melting into the population.

Or, as in Afghanistan, actively supported by the population who hated both the occupiers and the VICE (Vertically Integrated Criminal Enterprise) known as the government.

Sure, it won't happen if everyone's life is still comfortable, that's the point. It's a safeguard against life becoming so extremely uncomfortable that the people started fighting.

Still, one of the first signs of a society approaching tyranny is the government cracking down on guns. So if nothing else, it serves as a great canary in the mine.

> Still, one of the first signs of a society approaching tyranny is the government cracking down on guns

In a dictatorship, yes.

Australia?

Do Australians have Freedom of Movement back yet?

Exactly how do you think you wind up in a dictatorship?

Australia doesn't seem that tyrannical to me.

Have you not heard of Gladys?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLTGXblgUoc

Haven't really been paying attention to the news out of Australia over the past year and a half, have you?

That is not actually true historically. That is popular talking point.

On the other hand, quite a few authoritarian tyrannical movements started by arming themselves and taking it on themselves to get power. Both nazi and communists started as private citizens arming themselves and causing fights in the streets or robbing people.

Partially true.

"On Nov. 11, 1938, the German minister of the interior issued "Regulations Against Jews Possession of Weapons." Not only were Jews forbidden to own guns and ammunition, they couldn’t own "truncheons or stabbing weapons."

In addition to the restrictions, Ellerbrock said the Nazis had already been raiding Jewish homes and seizing weapons.

"The gun policy of the Nazis can hardly be compared to the democratic procedures of gun regulations by law," Ellerbrock told us. "It was a kind of special administrative practice (Sonderrecht), which treated people in different ways according to their political opinion or according to ‘racial identity’ in Nazi terms.""[0].

[0] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/oct/26/ben-carson...

Amusingly, Einstein's home got raided and they confiscated a kitchen knife or something.

One example close from home, Belarus and Russian governments have gone to lengths in order to limit gun ownership. It is actually very difficult, at least legally. Perhaps when you are trying to stir a revolution you might speak to the nation arming itself. Once you have taken power, peacefully or otherwise, your next steps regarding gun control are still highly illuminating.

> I sincerely doubt the average first world person has what it takes to sacrifice their comfortable life and go live in caves to resist a tyrannical occupation.

I think the people seizing those weapons should be less concerned about "average" gun owners, and more worried about fringe citizens willing to die to detonate a high yield explosive in the centers of power.

The crazies are always the first off the porch. They're a canary.

I sincerely doubt the average first world government has what it takes to sacrifice its comfortable bureaucracy and inspire even a tiny fraction of 330,000,000 citizens to fight back against tyranny.

That’s why federal legislators freaked out when a few thousand pissed off voters simply walked into the Capitol without permission - and without weapons. Every one of those mostly peaceful demonstrators represented a thousand equally angry, and well-armed, citizens not visible on security cameras.