I don't buy the "we need guns to prevent government tyranny" argument.

[ZombieHorde]

The Japanese interment camps went very well for the US Government, and guns were legal then. Certainly, that was a good example of government tyranny.

I have other reasons too, but I am just going to stick with that one for now.

[patrice]

1. Guns don't make up for ignorance, dishonesty, & ir-responsibility. They make it ALL worse. nt

[Shankapotomus]

2. Especially when the tyranny of our children right now

is real and is coming from private gun ownership.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

3. Forgive me if I'm incorrect...

but interring Japanese and Japanese-Americans at the time was a good thing as far as the rest of America was concerned.

I don't think many people were 'up in arms' (so to speak) over it at the time.

[ZombieHorde]

4. I agree with your reply, but I think it demonstrates that our Government knows

how to use tyranny in a way that won't face much resistance. They just have to wait for a disaster.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

9. Good point, and I agree...

I think though that even if we have a ton of armed militias, going up against the US military isn't gonna go well.

[ZombieHorde]

14. I'm not convinced armed militias will do anything until the situation

becomes even more extreme than the Japanese internment camps. However, by that point, things would probably be too late for resistance.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

21. I guess it's a matter of whether or not one believes that our government is tyrannical...

and in need of defending oneself against.

I for one don't believe that, but I don't discount the idea that at some point something could happen to make it so. There were times under Bush that I thought we might have been on that road but it never materialized.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Or arrange for one.

The real situation is that they're arming themselves for the ultimate disaster, the trifecta of global warming, post-peak oil, and social collapse. The NRA goons are their first line of protection against a potentially awakened people.

[oldhippydude]

6. look how quick folks bought the patriot act...n./t

[OneMoreDemocrat]

13. SOME folks...

We were actually at war with Japan at the time, and though it was most certainly overkill and unnecessary in retrospect, I do understand how people came to the decision to inter.

The Patriot Act was maddeningly transparent as was the motivation for it, which is why there was such a backlash from the sane sectors of the country. Even politicians (once they weren't terrified of the Bush regime anymore) spoke out against it.

[JVS]

16. Nearly all Americans are ok with the patriot act

It just took 8 years for about half the people ok with the patriot act to realize it.

[booley]

5. what about Iraq

Thriving gun culture, almost everyone owned guns..

also a police state and brutal dictatorship.

Not to mention those guns didn't stop our military.

[TheKentuckian]

25. Slowed them substantially and made occupation between difficult and impossible

Even the surge never really worked, buying the cooperation of local warlords is what made the situation manageable.

The occupation ability of our military is greatly exaggerated and usually conflated with its destructive capability, though the two are very different.

I also suspect for many and probably most the regime was not particularly oppressive and folks went about their lives with little bother and that most weren't looking for any revolution and even most that did was over religious differences or feeling the country was too secular rather than any restriction on liberty.

[booley]

34. except ultimatly it wasnt' the guns that did that

It was bombs

The occupation was difficult but the actual invasion as quick and if guns really would have stopped that it would have been during the invasion we would have seen that.

I also suspect for many and probably most the regime was not particularly oppressive and folks went about their lives with little bother

OF course that's true for just about any regime. Even in the most repressive police state, people still carry on with their daily lives.

[MNBrewer]

7. And, it's usually made by the same folks who insist that the US is an Exceptional

nation. The freest nation in the world, an example of liberty for the rest of the planet. Except for those jack-booted thugs who enforce the dictates of the tyrants in Washington. Which is it??

[ZombieHorde]

8. An interesting point. nt

[Taverner]

10. The US Military could outgun us all

Trust me, not even Koresh could win that war

[Ikonoklast]

12. I would always bet on the house to win in that hypothetical situation.

In a scenario where there would be a real, live armed insurrection of any size against the government, the government would show up with an armored division.

Or three.

With self-propelled artillery. And tanks.

And close air support.

Followed by infantry.

Highly-trained, professionally led infantry. A division's worth.

Or three.

Infantry that would have you out-flanked before you even remembered that you had a flank to defend.



A smart person with only small arms in hand would most likely run like hell in the opposite direction just as quickly as possible.

A less-smart person will be remembered by his surviving pals as a martyr in a failed uprising against the legitimate government of this nation.

[ZombieHorde]

15. Or just some armed drones. nt

[Ikonoklast]

17. That comes later.

First, a big show, "Pour l'encouragement des autres."

[oldhippie]

18. That's only true assuming ...

... That all those tank commanders, pilots, drone drivers and infantrymen are on the side of the Government.

A reading of history will show that in most successful revolutions and insurgencies the regular military ends up siding with the rebels.

In the US military, all officers take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the orders of the officers above them. (That's a little known difference between the officer's and enlisted oaths.)

[frylock]

19. i can't imagine a military coup will take place at the behest of what amounts to maybe 8%..

of the population and their sick, paranoid worldview. no, i think what you'd see is a handful of armed standoffs quashed by some pretty superior firepower, after which the remainder of the teabagger prepper movement would likely fall in line.

[oldhippie]

22. It would depend on the situation .....

It wouldn't necessarily be a coupe. Just a refusal to cooperate, kinda like what happened in Egypt. Take a scenario of the Fed Govt BATFE or FBI teams trying to go door to door confiscating firearms. I've been around the military pretty much my whole life. I don't see military officers reacting well to that situation. They learn about and talk about such things at the War College and the other Senior Service Colleges. Many will see a Constitutional violation. Same with many NCOs and enlisted, though they are to follow the orders of their officers. Officers have a duty to refuse unconstitutional orders.

I think in my little town any fed agents trying to confiscate firearms under a questionable constitutional authority would have to fight their way through our police force first. And I know a lot of troops at Fort Hood (right next door) that will join them.

[quaker bill]

20. It never has

When there are guns, the tyrants get more and bigger ones.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

23. I am yet to hear that IRL from any legally sane person

Maybe because I am black, but I literally have never heard it in person.

Online is another story, but lots of people post things online that they would not do or say IRL

[morningfog]

24. Anyone asserting such argument shouldn't be taken seriously.

[Thinkingabout]

26. It was said to me if Romney won the election there would be war with Obama supporters.

Didn't believe it then and thank goodness we do not have to live with Romney in charge, trees might not be the right height. I would venture to say a lot of this fear comes from
the NRA.

[JoeyT]

27. No one else buys it either.

Including the people that spout it. There are valid reasons to own a gun, fighting off the government isn't one of them.

Besides, about half of gun owners are going to support whatever tyranny happens, so private citizens having guns certainly won't help.

[pinto]

28. I don't buy the "government is the enemy" argument, either.

It's simplistic, often composed with a long stretch of hyperbole, stitched together at times with an unhealthy dose of conspiratorial assumptions.

[moondust]

29. Democracy and separation of powers are supposed to take care of all that.

Their argument would apply more to a monarchy or autocracy or one-party system that "the people" cannot change with a popular vote. Of course some would say that we almost have a one-party system now but still...

[Poiuyt]

30. That was not the original purpose of the 2nd Amendment

Right-wing resistance to meaningful gun control is driven, in part, by a false notion that America’s Founders adopted the Second Amendment because they wanted an armed population that could battle the U.S. government. The opposite is the truth, but many Americans seem to have embraced this absurd, anti-historical narrative.

The reality was that the Framers wrote the Constitution and added the Second Amendment with the goal of creating a strong central government with a citizens-based military force capable of putting down insurrections, not to enable or encourage uprisings. The key Framers, after all, were mostly men of means with a huge stake in an orderly society, the likes of George Washington and James Madison.
---
Beyond this clear historical record – that the Framers’ intent was to create security for the new Republic, not promote armed rebellions – there is also the simple logic that the Framers represented the young nation’s aristocracy. Many, like Washington, owned vast tracts of land. They recognized that a strong central government and domestic tranquility were in their economic interests.

So, it would be counterintuitive – as well as anti-historical – to believe that Madison and Washington wanted to arm the population so the discontented could resist the constitutionally elected government. In reality, the Framers wanted to arm the people – at least the white males – so uprisings, whether economic clashes like Shays’ Rebellion, anti-tax protests like the Whiskey Rebellion, attacks by Native Americans or slave revolts, could be repulsed.

However, the Right has invested heavily during the last several decades in fabricating a different national narrative, one that ignores both logic and the historical record. In this right-wing fantasy, the Framers wanted everyone to have a gun so they could violently resist their own government.

more
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/real-rationale-2nd-amendment-right-wingers-are-totally-ignorant-about?paging=off

This is a great article that really educated me about the origins of the 2nd Amendment and how it got transformed by the new leaders of the NRA.

[Loudly]

32. I would disagree with that assessment because of the use of the words "free State" in the 2A.

They literally mean state as in the political subdivision.

Not state as some generic reference to government.

The 2A was an appeasement of those who were skeptical of a federal government.

It was a means of courting ratification of the Constitution.

The implication being that a State could dissolve the compact and secede.

All later made moot (just like the 2A itself) by the Civil War.

We have no right to guns and ammunition because have no right to engage in armed rebellion against the government.

[stuntcat]

31. We need people paying attention, and voting.

The writers of the constitution were very thoughtful and careful. The worst thing threatening the democracy they've built is our public's complacency and stupidity.

[Recursion]

33. Japenese Americans, like most minorities, were forbidden from owning guns

Gun control and race have a long and unfortunate history together in the US...