As to effectiveness: the Taliban just recaptured their country from a US backed military. The point of civilian gun ownership is to force citizen soldiers to decide between defecting and killing their neighbors. That’s exactly what happened in the Bangladesh independence war. The revolutionaries knocked over military depots in Dhaka to acquire firearms. Once the fighting started, Bangladeshis in the Pakistani military defected.
Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen.
The US will not be invaded by anyone, and the US government with all it's flaws is considerably more legitimate than most of the people with guns and has been for more than a century.
If the US falls, it will be due to crumbling from within, and given what has happened in the last few years, I'm afraid gun owners, however responsible and conscientious, are as likely to 'Rise Up' against a pack of falsehoods and populism than they are any kind of legitimate reality.
Why? What’s the evidence other than juxtaposition? Arabs are also nuts about guns. People from pastoral honor cultures (like the Scots Irish ancestors of many southerners and Appalachians: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-sco...) often are. Is that caused by racism too?
> Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen.
This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. Tens of thousands of my people died at the hands of the Pakistani army because they had to fight with sticks and rocks until they knocked over some military depots to acquire firearms: https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/bangladesh-liberation-.... The Afghans have now expelled two superpowers from their country with handheld weapons. Guns work.
All of that stuff could happen in America too. Because history isn’t over, civilization is a thin veneer over nature, and there’s nothing fundamentally different about us versus them.
In much the same way you could argue US gun culture comes from being 'at the frontier' - well - slavery was another big artifact of history.
When the slaves were freed they were a huge portion of the population, and there was every reason to believe there would be retribution and revolts.
Since then, there has been ongoing efforts to suppress that community, which rationally might engender violence.
In pop culture, African Americans have been portrayed as violent, which can make people afraid, and since the 1980s there's been a huge uptick in violence within that community, which also makes people afraid (though the violence is mostly intraracial not interacial).
2) "This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. "
Your arguments here are very poor.
First, the Army 'has guns' as a legitimate form of managed violence. Keeping the Army in check is a central part of managing the powers in a liberal democracy. If the Army gets out of hand, it's going to be very bad.
'Look what the Taliban' did is a horrendous argument, because the Taliban are totalitarian murderous overlords who murder for their own ideology and not the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen.
You're basically arguing that 'Guns Work Because Look How Well The Nazis Murdered Jews!'
That's an argument against the population having guns, because it seems to me the American Right Wing Taliban are the group the most likely to use guns and for all the wrong reasons.
"All of that stuff could happen in America too."
Yes, but it's unlikely to happen because the 'government goes bad'. It's going to happen because a demagogue like Donald Trump will rile up the gun-wading population to commit violence on the basis of a pack of lies. It won't start like that, it may just be a protest, but if starts to get out of hand, some blood is spilled and then each side uses that as justification for increasing the threshold.
The last 6 months have revealed that Trump pressured the military hard for the 82cnd Airborne to be used against BLM protesters and the Pentagon refused. Thankfully, that's the Army standing up against authoritarian leaders.
I don't think there has been in all of American history an example of where American citizens took up arms against the government in situation wherein they had some kind of moral legitimacy.
Liberal Democracy stay intact with education, transparency, oversight, a free and rational press, legitimate institutions, independent judiciary. If it delves into individual militias fighting against government units 'it's all over'. Americans can then expect the quality of life of rural Pakistan.
While there is some argument for 'Guns v. Tyranny' I can't see how it works out in practicality. One idea might be to require the government a Congressional vote to send any troops anywhere, for any reason, to further restrict US forces from being deployed in the homeland etc..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga#French_aid
So that refines the question to: how important was the private ownership of guns in the American victory at Saratoga? Well, the Wikipedia article referenced above says that, "militiamen and supplies continued to pour into the American camp, including critical increases in ammunition, which had been severely depleted in the first battle."
"General Fraser was mortally wounded in this phase of the battle, . . . The fall of Fraser and the arrival of Ten Broeck's large militia brigade (which roughly equaled the entire British reconnaissance force in size), broke the British will, and they began a disorganized retreat toward their entrenchments."
So that got me curious about what "militia" meant exactly during this time frame. Well, General Ten Broeck's Wikipedia page says that 2 years prior to the action described in the last paragraph General Ten Broeck was colonel of the Albany County militia, which has a Wikipedia page, which starts as follows: "The Albany County militia was the colonial militia of Albany County, New York. Drawn from the general male population, by law all male inhabitants from 15 to 55 had to be enrolled in militia companies."
Washington didn't think the militia helped:
>To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows ... if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)#Confed...
No, but some of the very earliest gun control laws were aimed at only black citizens and were enacted during lynching's heyday. Gun control in America has a very sordid history when viewed through a racial lens, and its ties to the civil rights era and the drug war are less blatant but still insidious.
The American gun fetish dates back to the earliest arrivals in the New World, in all areas of the country, both initial northern states, and later southern states, and the West. If you haven't spent enough time in the wild to encounter a grizzly, a 300 pound boar, a wolf pack, a coyote pack, or a solitary mountain lion intent upon considering you as a food source - consider yourself lucky.
> As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion.
Au Contraire
The Taliban, freedom fighters, or Terrorists, perhaps both, just seized pretty much the entirety of Afghanistan with roughly ~70k light infantry, against a force roughly 4x their numbers with much heavier armament. [1] This, after having fought to a standstill one of the nations with the best fighting force in a long guerilla warfare, vs airpower, advanced weaponry, drones, armor, you name it.
Because they had willpower.
> The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting.
Flyover country has neither the presidency, the House, or the Senate, but the US wants not for authoritarianism.
The unfortunate, and tragic fact is that the vast majority of the gun violence in the US happens in inner cities [2], typically with repressive gun laws. Sure, there will be the occasional red state nutjob too.
If you truly and deeply cared about the horrible gun violence, you might ask why, where, for what reason, who, and why don't we know more about it? [3]
You might seek to grasp a true understanding of the culture involved, the economics, education, or lack thereof, opportunities denied, the crime involved, or not, and to paint us a full picture.
But you don't.
Instead you leave us with a shallow political attack on others. Demonizing, rather the engaging in a civic manner. Pontificating, rather than questioning. Politicizing, rather than conversing.
Take a break from the keyboard and have a socially-distant coffee with others. Your others. Have two.
We're all human.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/taliban-victor...
[2] https://www.thetrace.org/2020/09/mass-shootings-2020-gun-vio...
[3] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/roseburg-attack-...
> You might seek to grasp a true understanding of the culture involved
Please do the same. Your entire post is dripping with an urban elitism and does not show any hint that you might consider someone else's point of view. Enjoy that coffee.
That is kind of ironic, since I am isolated in a deeply blue area in a deeply blue workplace that eschews the local orthodoxy
The difference is that I don't assign an urban or rural divide around this. I've lived in the sticks where first responders were an hour away, in the city, suburbia, and warzones. But, it was never locale only that divided those who wanted weapons vs those that did not. There were other divides there, mainly a cognitive and worldview one.
Many of my friends have had weapons, for both reasons of upbringing, hunting, and also, experience in the combat arms.
However, I would be remiss not to realize some of the underlying reasons for the high crime in the close-enough-to-be-concerned urban blight which made itself into so many rap songs. I am not deluded - there is a vast difference in opportunities, and good/bad influences in varying locations. Due to good fortune, I happened to be in an area that pushed people towards better choices. But, many people I knew did not have that good fortune, and so were more inclined to a different path merely because of that. They were not forced to make a series of bad decisions, but the opportune to become was definitely readily available.
> and does not show any hint that you might consider someone else's point of view.
I consider everyone's views, since, they are up front everyday. For the most part, the Uniparty is split into two dominant factions with subcliques from there on out. I am neither.
I try to balance my perspectives in both the company I keep, and the echo chambers from which I drink. I value what other perspectives bring to the table and how they think about things. While I might not share all of them, and I maintain a measure of independence, I deeply appreciate other worldviews.
> Please do the same.
I do.
> Enjoy that coffee
Oh I definitely shall. That is a bonus!
Authoritarians control institutions. What do the “wrong people” control? If the January 6 nutters had taken the capital, who would have supported them? General Milley? The national guards of DC, MD, or VA? Any of the country’s corporations or other institutions? You’re confusing the Whiskey Rebellion for the Beerhall Putsch.
Maybe give some consideration to the possibility that what’s really happening is that you’re a resident of the Capital clutching your pearls at the “threat” posed by people in District 12.
As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion.
The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting.