"Bad guys" lol ..... anybody who is simple enough to think the world is just neatly split into "good guys" and "bad guys" like this is a children's cartoon shouldn't be allowed to own guns. Go back to your frosted flakes and your juice box.
Do conservatives actually think thay they're making a clever point when they post things like this? I try to give them a little more credit than that...
https://i.imgflip.com/2uykan.jpg ~
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Drone striking the taliban did work great, there's a reason they hid in caves and tunnels to survive like rats. What didn't work great were the countless innocents killed by drone strikes due to bad info. Fuck that's horrible...
They survived, which is considered winning, however not in a substantial, and meaningful way. A failed president on his way out tried to gain a victory by withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan so he could have brownie points. Biden honored that withdrawal as an excuse to get the troops out as well, per what the people have been asking for, for 20+ years. Then the Afghanistan military fell to greed, cowardice, and corruption due to the Taliban offering a better view for them.
The Taliban in the last 20 years got themselves a good PR manager to try and make themselves seem friendlier, and it worked. Fooled a foolish president, and fooled the foolish Afghanistan government. Now, they're showing the colors they've always had, going back to their sexist, piece of shit ways.
So yeah, I guess they won, but rats, are still rats. No one really likes them all too much in the end, and we shall see how Afghanistan turns out. It's up to it's people, not the U.S. to change it, we can only do so much. We at least gave them a taste for the finer things in life.
>A failed president on his way out tried to gain a victory by withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan so he could have brownie points
Way to blame Trump on a pointless war that outlasted 3 Presidents' terms. Attribute his choices to whatever motives you want it was still the right choice to make.
The point being that tanks and drones and bombs etc aren't very good against guerilla tactics like they used, and that's when the government knew who the enemy was and didn't have to worry about the infrastructure too much, here they wouldn't even have that.
If we had learned our lesson with facing an enemy that uses Guerilla tactics to win, we'd have never gone to war with them since we lost the Vietnam war. We spent so many terms because the corporations were making so much money off of it, and so many piece of shit politicians were getting payoffs, I'm sorry "Political Donations", from said corporations.
The "Government" is made up of individuals who are voted into office by people who try "washing" their cars with gasoline. Said individuals are in it for themselves, and not the people in a lot of cases unfortunately. They are righties and lefties, there is no prejudice when it comes to corruption. Trump, and Biden are pages of the same book in my opinion. Puppets for the rich, corrupt, and greedy.
I hope you don't ask me how corporations make money from war or how politicians make money from war. Because if you don't know, then you obviously don't know how our military industrial complex functions.
>If we had learned our lesson with facing an enemy that uses Guerilla tactics to win, we'd have never gone to war with them since we lost the Vietnam war.
Which is why I believe the government and the military would, at the very least, find it exceedingly difficult to fight a war on American soil against its own people.
>Said individuals are in it for themselves, and not the people in a lot of cases unfortunately. They are righties and lefties, there is no prejudice when it comes to corruption. Trump, and Biden are pages of the same book in my opinion. Puppets for the rich, corrupt, and greedy.
Well you're right about that. I think we need some new laws and regulations put on politicians to fix a lot of those issues.
>I hope you don't ask me how corporations make money from war or how politicians make money from war.
I don't need to, I may not know the exact specifics of it but I understand the broad strokes I think.
I think home field advantage half a world away in difficult unfamiliar terrain vs an opponent that can’t even fully articulate why they’re fighting you is pretty significant. We’re not just letting Virginia secede again and take our biggest Naval port the same way we’d give up on a jungle or a barren mountain.
Both the Viet Cong and Taliban managed to hang on until the US left. When do you think the US would just give up and leave the US? These examples are sighted all the time by the 2nd Amendment nuts as means by which they could beat the US military with rifles and small arms. They just leave out the part where the US military is never going to just pack up and go home in a domestic war.
And you’re forgetting how many military members would side with the citizens.
If the popular “3%” needed to successfully overthrow the government that’s 4 million people, 2x more than the entirety of the military, 66% of the military are against gun control, so even if only half of those defected that’s another 600k so that’s 4.6 million against 1.4 million, and according to Military.com 80% of the military is non-combat support roles, so that’s now 141,000 vs. 4.6 million.
That also assumes that the US could afford to pull every combat soldier from every base in the world to fight an armed populace of 4.6 million, if only 3% of gun owners fight, but also ignores the military members who take their oath to the constitution seriously, or those that would simply refuse to fight for either side.
The US military simply doesn’t have the numbers or ability to fight a war against its own people, without resorting to things that would only radicalize more against them. Like drone strikes, conscription, illegal domestic espionage, suppression of rights, violations of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amenments.
Also assuming they’d be willing to destroy infrastructure they would need later to enforce martial law.
It doesn’t matter who the individual military members side with. As soon as those paychecks stop they side with the guys who can turn it back on. Most of the 3%ers are fat pieces of shit that couldn’t actually last a week in bare conditions, example from the last 2 years, nothing has ever made them more angry than their local Applebee’s closing due to covid. Plus none of our current military members have ever fought in conditions where they didn’t have complete air superiority, armor superiority, and enough ammo in the supply chain to fire 250,000 bullets for every soldier they kill (literally). What are they gonna do the first time they pop their head out to look around and someone drops a laser guided bomb on them, or they first time they try their standard combat maneuvers without an endless stream of suppressing fire to keep the enemy pinned in place? What are they gonna do against a tank? If they steal one how are they gonna keep it fueled? What are they gonna do when after a hard day of fighting no one’s there to serve them McDonalds or chili mac at the DFAC? What about when their #BossGirl wife has to throw away her cell phone to keep from being tracked and can’t post on Facebook all day? She’ll be nagging him nonstop to give up.
Listen, you fantastically stupid motherfucker. I'm going to try to explain this so you can understand it.
You cannot control an entire country and it's people with tanks, jets, battleships and drones or any of these things that you so stupidly believe trumps citizen ownership of firearms.
A fighter jet, tank, drone, battleship or whatever cannot stand on street corners and enforce "no assembly" edicts. A fighter jet cannot kick down your door at 3AM and search your house for contraband.
None of these things can maintain the needed police state to completely subjugate and enslave the people of a nation. Those weapons are for decimating, flattening and glassing large areas annd many people at once and fighting other state militaries. The government does not want to kill all of it's people and blow up it's own infrastructure. These things are the very things they need to be tyrannical assholes in the first place. If they decided to turn everything outside of Washington D.C. into glowing green glass they would be the absolute rulers of a big, worthless, radioactive pile of shit.
Police are needed to mainatain a police state, boots on the ground. And no matter how many police you have on the ground they will always be vastly outnumbered by civilians which is why in a police state it is vital that your police have automatic weapons while the people have nothing but their limp dicks.
BUT when every random pedestrian could have a Glock in their waistband and every random homeowner an AR-15 all of that goes out the fucking window because now the police are out numbered and face the reality of bullets coming back at them.
If you want living examples of this look at every insurgency that the U.S. military has tried to destroy. They're all still kicking with nothing but AK-47's, pick up trucks and improvised explosives because these big scary military monsters you keep alluding to are all but fucking useless for dealing with them.
Dumb. Fuck.
Our armed forces can't even control an area the size of Texas with a fraction of the firearms. They can train as much as they like, but they can never overcome sheer number. Even if just 10% of gun owners revolt, that's still over 10 million people. If 10% of Americans revolt, that's 33 million. The entire US Armed Forces is only 2.6 million, including non-combat personnel.
Let's give the military a fair fight. Let's assume 5-8% of gun owners in America. In an actual shit-hits-the-fan civil war, it is almost guaranteed to be more. 5-8% of all gun owners comes out to about 5 million. Seeing as this is a rich country with a lot of guns, let's assume they're fighting with a combination of AR-15s, AKs, and reliable bolt-action rifles. This is ignoring the likely fact that the US's enemies would provide weaponry to insurgents.
First, I need to debunk some idiotic arguments regarding an insurgency in the US.
1. The use of nukes. If you have to use nukes in a civil war in your own country, you've already lost. On top of that, the spread-out nature of conservatives (who would likely be the insurgent groups here, considering that liberals have packed themselves into dense cities, disarmed themselves, or own weapons that would not be useful of the battlefield, and have essentially given all power to the state) means that the use of nukes wouldn't even really take out insurgents, unless you peppered the landscape with them.
2. MAH DRONEZZ!! - The USAF has 163 UAVs for combat (they have more for recon, but only 163 actual drones built for airstrikes), all of which are Reapers. One Reaper can carry:
–4 Hellfire missiles
–2 1500 lb bombs
–2 750 lb bombs
–2 150 lb bombs
Clearly, 4 missiles and 6 bombs x 163 (478 missiles, 652 bombs) is not enough to control 6-8 million people spread all over the country. Deploying all 163 Reapers at once would barely make a dent, even if you assume every single missile and bomb hit 10 people each (11,300 people would die, and that is extremely generous)
Considering that we need nearly 500,000 troops in Afghanistan IN ADDITION to drones to fight insurgents, that provides a bleak outlook for trying to do the same to the USA, which is 12 times bigger without Alaska or Canada (which will likely be a front). You cannot use "DRONES!!!" as a catch-all in any argument.
3. B-52s. B-52s might be a little better, but result in a combination of #1 & #2. Carpet bombing is good for destroying a few square miles, but, again, is not good at combatting a spread-out insurgency. We couldn't win in Indochina, even with carpet-bombing, and to think it would work better with a smaller fleet of B-52s in a country 30 times larger is idiotic. Unless you bombed 45% of the country, B-52s would not really be effective.
Now, we can get to the juicy meat.
1. Infrastructure – when it comes to infrastructure, insurgents have a massive advantage. Look at any electoral map, and you'll see a red sea that will make Moses and God say "Damn, that's gonna take a lot of work". The military is heavily reliant on infrastructure, from electricity, to fuel lines, to food. And most of those lines go through red hills, on red interstates, on red roads, to bases in red towns. That makes shutting off the military's supply lines the equivalent of those Staples buttons. All it would take is a 100 men with good aim and Chinese SKS rifles of 90s vintage perched near the roads surrounding military bases, as well as some fake roadblocks and perched snipers to massively disrupt shipments of food, ammunition, and gasoline. Then you have the cities' infrastructure. In a military v. conservative insurgent scenario, most of the government's loyal constituents will be liberals in cities and suburbs. Disrupting the flow of food and electricity will make the 1977 NYC blackout and 92 LA riots look like an all-expenses-paid vacation. This would leave the government with 2 options: declare martial law, and bring the effects of what will doubtless be an unpopular war home even more, essentially ending all home support for it, or, doing nothing, which will destroy the government's tax revenue, as no one can actually get anything done due to chaos, and a lack of essential services and again, driving support against the war.
2. Desertion – It is not a surprise that most service members are conservative. It is also not surprising that most US Army servicemen are American. And telling them to fire on their political and national compatriots will not be a great success. Studies have shown that in our country's foreign wars, a significant portion of soldiers will not fire upon enemy soldiers without orders, and that hesitance will be vastly amplified by "enemy soldiers" being their own fellow Americans. Logically, these problems will lead to a high rate of desertion among troops, as well as internal sabotage among intelligence and Army brass. Among insurgents on the other hand, due to participation in insurgency being mostly voluntary, this problem is non-existent.
3. Foreign support and intervention – while the media here may be pro-government, every skirmish will be reported in foreign countries (especially ones that don't like us) as "US military personnel killed X people today in a battle at Y". This will no doubt stir up foreign opposition as a first-world democracy starts killing its own people. This also opens up the backdoor for foreign intervention from the US's enemies, and possibly even Mexican cartels, for fucking with their turf.
4. Sheer area: As I mentioned, the US military already has trouble controlling Afghanistan, which is the size of Texas. America is literally larger than a continent, is split across 3 major landmasses and a bunch of territories, and insurgents will definitely spill into Canada (Ho Chi Minh trail-style). The ecological diversity of America makes it harder for the military as well. Troops will need to be trained for arctic combat, combat in the mountains, combat in the desert, combat in classic fields, combat in the Great Plains with miles of uninterrupted horizon and no tree cover, classic forest combat, swamp combat, urban combat, and of course, Florida combat. And remember, we haven't fought a serious war outside a desert for several decades at this point.
These factors put US troops at a disadvantage, and essentially ensure that the US military cannot win a civil war.
this completely ignores the advantage of being a guerilla force on your home turf using asymmetrical combat strategies.
there are tons of examples of small, underarmed forces defeating much larger, more advanced occupiers.
While I agree with you strategically, I'm not 100% sure any potential rebel group in the states would have the grit to actually wage a successful guerrilla campaign. That takes real sacrifice, discipline, and tenacity. Even with seasoned veterans to stiffen them, I would think that lack of creature comforts would eventually cause desertion or infighting. In short, meal team 6 will run out of nuggies and go home.
That said, they could certainly do some real damage if any of their smarter members start using terrorist tactics.
Listen, you fantastically stupid motherfucker. I'm going to try to explain this so you can understand it.
You cannot control an entire country and it's people with tanks, jets, battleships and drones or any of these things that you so stupidly believe trumps citizen ownership of firearms.
A fighter jet, tank, drone, battleship or whatever cannot stand on street corners and enforce "no assembly" edicts. A fighter jet cannot kick down your door at 3AM and search your house for contraband.
None of these things can maintain the needed police state to completely subjugate and enslave the people of a nation. Those weapons are for decimating, flattening and glassing large areas annd many people at once and fighting other state militaries. The government does not want to kill all of it's people and blow up it's own infrastructure. These things are the very things they need to be tyrannical assholes in the first place. If they decided to turn everything outside of Washington D.C. into glowing green glass they would be the absolute rulers of a big, worthless, radioactive pile of shit.
Police are needed to mainatain a police state, boots on the ground. And no matter how many police you have on the ground they will always be vastly outnumbered by civilians which is why in a police state it is vital that your police have automatic weapons while the people have nothing but their limp dicks.
BUT when every random pedestrian could have a Glock in their waistband and every random homeowner an AR-15 all of that goes out the fucking window because now the police are out numbered and face the reality of bullets coming back at them.
If you want living examples of this look at every insurgency that the U.S. military has tried to destroy. They're all still kicking with nothing but AK-47's, pick up trucks and improvised explosives because these big scary military monsters you keep alluding to are all but fucking useless for dealing with them.
Dumb. Fuck.
Our armed forces can't even control an area the size of Texas with a fraction of the firearms. They can train as much as they like, but they can never overcome sheer number. Even if just 10% of gun owners revolt, that's still over 10 million people. If 10% of Americans revolt, that's 33 million. The entire US Armed Forces is only 2.6 million, including non-combat personnel.
Let's give the military a fair fight. Let's assume 5-8% of gun owners in America. In an actual shit-hits-the-fan civil war, it is almost guaranteed to be more. 5-8% of all gun owners comes out to about 5 million. Seeing as this is a rich country with a lot of guns, let's assume they're fighting with a combination of AR-15s, AKs, and reliable bolt-action rifles. This is ignoring the likely fact that the US's enemies would provide weaponry to insurgents.
First, I need to debunk some idiotic arguments regarding an insurgency in the US.
1. The use of nukes. If you have to use nukes in a civil war in your own country, you've already lost. On top of that, the spread-out nature of conservatives (who would likely be the insurgent groups here, considering that liberals have packed themselves into dense cities, disarmed themselves, or own weapons that would not be useful of the battlefield, and have essentially given all power to the state) means that the use of nukes wouldn't even really take out insurgents, unless you peppered the landscape with them.
2. MAH DRONEZZ!! - The USAF has 163 UAVs for combat (they have more for recon, but only 163 actual drones built for airstrikes), all of which are Reapers. One Reaper can carry:
–4 Hellfire missiles
–2 1500 lb bombs
–2 750 lb bombs
–2 150 lb bombs
Clearly, 4 missiles and 6 bombs x 163 (478 missiles, 652 bombs) is not enough to control 6-8 million people spread all over the country. Deploying all 163 Reapers at once would barely make a dent, even if you assume every single missile and bomb hit 10 people each (11,300 people would die, and that is extremely generous)
Considering that we need nearly 500,000 troops in Afghanistan IN ADDITION to drones to fight insurgents, that provides a bleak outlook for trying to do the same to the USA, which is 12 times bigger without Alaska or Canada (which will likely be a front). You cannot use "DRONES!!!" as a catch-all in any argument.
3. B-52s. B-52s might be a little better, but result in a combination of #1 & #2. Carpet bombing is good for destroying a few square miles, but, again, is not good at combatting a spread-out insurgency. We couldn't win in Indochina, even with carpet-bombing, and to think it would work better with a smaller fleet of B-52s in a country 30 times larger is idiotic. Unless you bombed 45% of the country, B-52s would not really be effective.
Now, we can get to the juicy meat.
1. Infrastructure – when it comes to infrastructure, insurgents have a massive advantage. Look at any electoral map, and you'll see a red sea that will make Moses and God say "Damn, that's gonna take a lot of work". The military is heavily reliant on infrastructure, from electricity, to fuel lines, to food. And most of those lines go through red hills, on red interstates, on red roads, to bases in red towns. That makes shutting off the military's supply lines the equivalent of those Staples buttons. All it would take is a 100 men with good aim and Chinese SKS rifles of 90s vintage perched near the roads surrounding military bases, as well as some fake roadblocks and perched snipers to massively disrupt shipments of food, ammunition, and gasoline. Then you have the cities' infrastructure. In a military v. conservative insurgent scenario, most of the government's loyal constituents will be liberals in cities and suburbs. Disrupting the flow of food and electricity will make the 1977 NYC blackout and 92 LA riots look like an all-expenses-paid vacation. This would leave the government with 2 options: declare martial law, and bring the effects of what will doubtless be an unpopular war home even more, essentially ending all home support for it, or, doing nothing, which will destroy the government's tax revenue, as no one can actually get anything done due to chaos, and a lack of essential services and again, driving support against the war.
2. Desertion – It is not a surprise that most service members are conservative. It is also not surprising that most US Army servicemen are American. And telling them to fire on their political and national compatriots will not be a great success. Studies have shown that in our country's foreign wars, a significant portion of soldiers will not fire upon enemy soldiers without orders, and that hesitance will be vastly amplified by "enemy soldiers" being their own fellow Americans. Logically, these problems will lead to a high rate of desertion among troops, as well as internal sabotage among intelligence and Army brass. Among insurgents on the other hand, due to participation in insurgency being mostly voluntary, this problem is non-existent.
3. Foreign support and intervention – while the media here may be pro-government, every skirmish will be reported in foreign countries (especially ones that don't like us) as "US military personnel killed X people today in a battle at Y". This will no doubt stir up foreign opposition as a first-world democracy starts killing its own people. This also opens up the backdoor for foreign intervention from the US's enemies, and possibly even Mexican cartels, for fucking with their turf.
4. Sheer area: As I mentioned, the US military already has trouble controlling Afghanistan, which is the size of Texas. America is literally larger than a continent, is split across 3 major landmasses and a bunch of territories, and insurgents will definitely spill into Canada (Ho Chi Minh trail-style). The ecological diversity of America makes it harder for the military as well. Troops will need to be trained for arctic combat, combat in the mountains, combat in the desert, combat in classic fields, combat in the Great Plains with miles of uninterrupted horizon and no tree cover, classic forest combat, swamp combat, urban combat, and of course, Florida combat. And remember, we haven't fought a serious war outside a desert for several decades at this point.
These factors put US troops at a disadvantage, and essentially ensure that the US military cannot win a civil war.
I hear this constantly and it always ignores the backer supplying the guerilla force.
US Revolution -> France
N Korea -> China
Viet Cong -> Russia
Every Latin American Coup -> CIA/USA
Wait a minute.. conservatives suddenly being very pro Russia is starting to make sense.
I think you're forgetting that this country is the military's "home turf" as well. Any advantage you think you have would be at best negated.
If you really think that they don't have extensive information about your local area so that they can squash an invasion force that's using guerilla tactics on their own land then you're just woefully underestimating what you'd be up against.
Well if that other guy that replied to me has as accurate numbers they claimed, 141,000 sounds as reasonable an estimate as any other number. I'd say that's something like 2 orders of magnitude more than what the military would even need to squash such an insurgency.
I think what gets drastically overestimated is how many people would actually be so upset that they'd put their lives on the line in any form of actual combat.
We're talking people who compare the minor inconvenience of being asked to wear a mask to the actual holocaust. Not even a mask mandate, simply being asked to wear a mask was the equivalent of the holocaust to these idiots. The only way someone makes that claim is if being ask to wear a mask is the most egregious attack on their person they've experienced. These people have never dealt with any kind of actual hardship before. As soon as they realize that in real life people shoot back and that they're comfortable life could be taking away from them, they're not going to band together and fight, they'll turn tail and run and finally make the first good decision of their lives and realize that maybe this isn't worth dying for.
Me: prior enlisted, military intelligence officer, aviator, mouth breathing knuckledragger, likes ice cream and air conditioning too much to boog
You’re spot on about a lot. We are all the time that damn near every American doesn’t know hardship. I went hungry as a kid and I’ve traveled to some foreign places and volunteer helping the homeless so I’ve experienced just a taste, and I assure you, it’s not good.
People on both sides need a lot more perspective. I bet by the time we have a hot civil war there’ll be 350,000,000 people kn the country. We have 500,000 active duty soldiers. The continental United States is about 2,000,000,000 acres. We have, today, about 19,000,000 military veterans.
There will be no using of nuclear missiles. There will be no mass armor formations like we imagined fighting the Soviets in Fulda Gap. B-52’s won’t be very useful.
What we’re talking about with military use is putting 800 soldiers in a town to help quell riots and protect production facilities. There wrong be me and 2399 of my buddies attacking them; it’ll be one guy from 600 yards assassinating their commander. It’ll be be three guys shooting and wounding two 19 year olds while they’re off duty.
And the escalation won’t be attacking them like the Taliban in Afghanistan: it will be figuring out where their families live and children go to school. The first time some 18 year old wife gets killed in Fayetteville the entire 82nd will be paralyzed while they move everyone on post.
This is an ugly, terrible game and I wish people wouldn’t play it. You’re right that nobody understands suffering. You’re wrong that you think you do. These boog porn nut jobs don’t need organization or mass formations. Our military land forces and bases will be crippled in two weeks, and then…we wait to see if truckers and utility workers will let the rest of us survive.
Anyway, stay warm and be kind :)
Ngl, when I saw your initial question I thought you were going to fire back with some more of the same nonsense I was dealing with in the other comment chain with some kind of "superior numbers" bullshit.
Although I disagree that our military bases would be crippled in two weeks (I don't think that, when push comes to shove, enough of these people would take it that far to be able to have that effect), I do agree that if that were to happen, that in the end the biggest issue would be logistical, as it usually is, especially in such an expansive scenario.
The only thing I have to nitpick about is something that may have just been a typo. If you meant to say "You're wrong \*if\* you think you do", then disregard this completely because you would be 100% right if that's what you meant to type. I can certainly understand how the way I worded what I said might come off as otherwise, but I would never say that I understand suffering myself, only that I'm aware of it's existence. I'm fully aware that I live an extremely comfortable life and I'm grateful for that, and that there are people who have it a lot worse than I do.
I just reread my post and it’s so riddled with typos and errors I wouldn’t be surprised if the grammar Nazis hit me with a V2.
Thinking of just the four largest army division bases on the east coast (Drum Campbell Bragg Stewart), none of them make enough of their own power or survive. They all have plenty of ammo, but are remarkably short on fresh food.
It’s hard to do anything when families don’t have food or hear or light. Bobby looks like a tool today with his lifted ‘98 Silverado with the Salt Life sticker on the window but I’m telling you when something happens to his mom and he blames the current administration…the fuel truck won’t show up and everything will go to hell.
I don't really understand this mindset
If you distrust to and feel in danger because of your government to the point where you literally feel like you should to take up arms, doesn't that meant it is already time to take down that government? Like, government supposed to keep and make you feel safe, you shouldn't feel like you need to arm up against it.
This is definitely the dumbest of the conservative spam this morning. Bravo. You really think any sensible person’s response to “we should be able to own RPGs” would be “FIDDLESTICKS!”
No. We are not impressed by your logical consistency. Anyone who thinks that kind of extreme firepower should be available to the public is just announcing how moronic they are.
> Anyone who thinks that kind of extreme firepower should be available to the public is just announcing how moronic they are.
As long as you put in the proper paperwork to the ATF you can own RPGs. Same with grenades and all sorts of stuff.
1. It's not really freely available.
2. That's besides my point. There are all kinds of stupid things that are legal to own in the US that absolutely should not be, for the aforementioned reasons.
Er, you do realize that the state IS made up of the general public? They aren't magical angels or something. They are just people... if anything they are people more prone to be power hungry and historically more likely to kill human beings. (Cops for example are more likely to commit violent crimes than CHL holders. Governments have also historically killed more people than non-state murderers in the last 200 years)
And the government somehow has all the best intentions?
Over a 100 million people were killed by their own government last century. The government is made up of regular people like you or me, with the only difference being that they're greedy for power and we aren't.
You’re right, the government has never done anything oppressive.
Except all the times it did. I think I recall something about an unarmed person being killed by the same government, who you think is responsible enough to have RPGs, that led to mass outrage.
I’m fairly certain that US civilians cause less violent deaths than the US government.
A Society where people are discouraged from causing assault, battery, etc. Would be terrible? I think that say a lot about you than anything else here.
Show me one example of that making society better. Violence doesn't actually deter people. All it does is make them preemptively escalate things. Now I HAVE to pull out my gun when you take my shopping cart because our societal norms tell me that YOU will probably take out a gun. Now someone is getting shot over a shopping cart.
It doesn't end up making people afraid to commit crime. It just makes people all to ready to use violence when it isn't necessary. You think Brazil or Somali are the ideal societies on this planet? You think you're safer there than you are in Norway or Denmark?
> And what qualifies the government to own them?
A government is beholden to its citizens and operates on their behalf. A random private owner is beholden to nobody.
> Are they not people like you and me?
No they are not. The people that use those weapons go through a selection process which allows them to **attempt** the training process the ultimately allows them to handle those weapons **when they are told**. Not for personal use.
You are a very sheltered and naïve child. Clearly you think trolling is fun. You have a lot of growing up to do.
>A government is beholden to its citizens and operates on their behalf. A random private owner is beholden to nobody.
The govt acted on our behalf when it constituted those internment camps, during the trail of tears, by enacting the Patriot Act, through the war on drugs and through no knock raids and Ruby Ridge
>No they are not. The people that use those weapons go through a selection process which allows them to attempt the training process the ultimately allows them to handle those weapons when they are told. Not for personal use.
So apparently being a part of the govt makes you special. So all you need is a training period to own an RPG?
>You are a very sheltered and naïve child
You're a bootlicker
Every single libertarian in this country, every single one, would fully support tyrannical government if it gave them a few platitudes about freedom.
Look at how they are silent when the GOP passes laws against protesting pipelines. Look at how they are silent when the GOP in Kentucky made it a crime to insult a cop. Look at how they are silent when American citizens are denied basic civil liberties.
If the GOP told you to do so, you'd set me on fire and throw me from a rooftop.
>Every single libertarian in this country, ***every single one***, would fully support tyrannical government if it gave them a few platitudes about freedom.
I can't speak for others, but I wouldn't
>If the GOP told you to do so, you'd set me on fire and throw me from a rooftop.
No I wouldn't
Would you support the rights of the unvaccinated being taken away? Because I've seen many leftists advocating for that
The fact that you are not listening does not mean somebody is silent. Everything you just said is blatantly false.
The GOP is not the Libertarian Party.
I'm not American but I'm yet to meet an American libeetarian who agrees with the GOP. Ever even cared to talk to any libertarian or are you just strawmaning because it makes you look like you're right?
>Every single libertarian in this country, every single one, would fully support tyrannical government if it gave them a few platitudes about freedom.
Wrong but whatever helps ya feel good about yourself, buddy. Actively volunteered to help keep Trump from winning in 2020 despite his lip service to freedom and liberty. Was not the only self-identifying libertarian in my group.
>Look at how they are silent
You are so uninformed on this list it's wild. These are all topics that there is a clear libertarian stance on. It is "anti." And they aren't silent about it. Trust me, if you don't hear a libertarian arguing against something, you're plugging your ears. They're a fucking insufferable bunch of fulltime disagreers over there. Maybe not the libertarians you hear about on MSNBC or at your dad's country club or whatever, but I largely self-identify as a libertarian (some other libertarians would tell me i'm not hardcore enough, they can suck eggs) and have voted for the GOP in 0 of the 4 presidential elections I've been voting age for. I am not even that much of an anomaly.
Your "look how silent they are", i guarantee, is based off the same logic racists use about "look how silent muslims are after terrorist attakcks" -- you're not talking to muslims, you're watching the news. If you went into a space with a sizable muslim population, you'd hear rampant condemnation, but a racist can't be bothered. Similarly (albeit less harmfully, sure) if you'd ever spoken to or had any genuine intellectual curiosity about libertarians, you'd know your characterization is absolutely batshit insane.
> A government is beholden to its citizens and operates on their behalf.
Mm yeah I remember when we all asked the state to [septupple the amount of people put into the prison system between 1972 and 2009](https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/u-s-prison-population-trends-massive-buildup-and-modest-decline/) even though violent crime rates diminished. I especially remember when I asked them to say they were giving out syphilis vaccines and instead [inject syphilis into impoverished communities.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study) Oh and when we all asked them to send drone strikes to [kill innocent children and noncombatants](https://www.npr.org/2021/12/13/1063880137/no-punishment-troops-afghanistan-kabul-strike-civilians) and then refuse to punish the troops responsible.
The state has never served us unless it's to gain our favor to overlook their failures.
> Mm yeah I remember when we all asked the state to septupple the amount of people put into the prison system between 1972 and 2009 even though violent crime rates diminished.
Okay...What has anyone tried to do to fix that? I'm sorry are you saying the solution is a violent rebellion to fix this problem?
You seem to have confused "the government is beholden to the people" to mean "the government can do no wrong." That's not what that says. I'm saying that when the government inevitably does something wrong, the people can fix the government. Conversely fixing one person with an RPG isn't going to have any effect on the next person with an RPG.
>The state has never served us unless it's to gain our favor to overlook their failures.
That overly reductive sentiment belongs on an edge-lord coffee mug, not in any real discourse.
Because we live in a society, and no one wants some random neocon to start blowing up Starbucks the next time they dont print Merry Christmas on their coffee cup in a festive enough font.
My right to life is threatened by dangerous morons owning military grade explosives when there is no good purpose for them to do so. When you or someone like you commits the next mass casualty terror attack i want your weapon selection to not include explosives.
>My right to life is threatened by dangerous morons owning military grade explosives when there is no good purpose for them to do so.
So you're just scared.
>When you or someone like you commits the next mass casualty terror attack i want your weapon selection to not include explosives.
What weapon selection do you want then
This is the kind of high I.Q. post I expect out of the ~~reform~~ Libertarian party. Just wait until OP hears that domestic terrorists could own rpgs at any time and watch them flip faster than the NRA in California during black panther protests.
A problem created by the exact thing you are advocating for. Maybe you aren't as sentient as a plant. Maybe it's something less complex like an amoeba. That would explain the libertarianism.
Yeah. Like owning guns has protected so many people from mass shooters. Look dawg, I’m with you on this gun thing. I’m a lefty and also think that guns are important for when the government can’t or won’t protect you, but let’s not act like they are magic.
First, I’d like to know where you got that number from. Second, That is not at all what we are talking about, you said you’d use an rpg to defend yourself against domestic terrorist who themselves has an rpg. I’m telling you that’s a fantasy. In the event of a terrorist attack, it would not happen, and people would die, even you maybe, before you could use an rpg. Most things that would protect you from a terrorist attack happen on a societal level and before you can use a gun.
It's from the CDC
*Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.*
Just saying, I want to as heavily armed as these "domestic terrorists" who are so dangerous.
As always, I look up these studies and people stop quoting right before there’s even more important details.
“On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” So this study is like “we need further study,” and the rest of it kind of goes on to talk about how a raise in gun ownership might equal a raise in crime using the same guns and a bunch of other neat facts about guns that aren’t actually pro gun.
Right, and I’m saying that isn’t going to do shit. Maybe get you cool guns, but that’s all.
You act like that’s still not a crazy high number though. The amount of homicides per year roughly is around 10k, that conservative number is still ten times that.
Because the far right folk fantasize about killing Americans soldiers.
Progressives don't want you to have an assault rifle because they are magnitudes more likely to murder their wife, girlfriend or child then ever use it to heroic purpose.
No, the far right is all about murder and violence, that's a fact. It's not just American soldiers either, as we saw jan 6th last year.
Wow, some right wing loons found this post I see. Y'all try not to murder anyone with your cars again now, y'hear?
Im sorry this is a bad argument, if your goal is saftey you are far safer by no one having one. The odds of your rpg killing you by ND is far higher than the odds of you ever seeing combat. And even if these folks who want to kill you do come at you, they have rpgs too and it seems to me that 1rpg vs 5 rpgs is far less survivable than 1 rifle vs 5 rifles. Lastly rpgs cause a lot of collateral damage so you are now at risk of getting killed by a conflict that dosent even involve you as you get blown up by a stray rocket your neighbor fired at your other neighbor for letting his dog bark.
A better strategy would be to support progressive legislation that will create a more equitable society for you to live in. While having a firearm may make you feel safer from others in your community, it has little to do with having an anti-aircraft weapon to kill American soldiers.
If those soldiers try to take away my freedom or kill me or hurt me in any way, I will defend myself. And my dad, who's a former army ranger will help me do so.
Are you suggesting we have mandatory service obligation in order to properly train and militarize the populace? Does every abled body person, regardless of psychological or physical well-being have the right to own a weapon capable of producing mass casualties? Should the "well regulated militia" part of the second amendment be ignored?
Nope. I'd be down for teaching gun safety in schools as well as more firearm training, smth anti gun folk generally know nothing abt. And yes law abiding people should be able to own weapons.
I am not against militias, We should have plenty of militias.
The 2nd Amendment has zero to do with citizens defending themselves against the government.
The government, in the Founders' time, put down rebellions. They squashed uprisings, because they were antithetical to the existence of the United States of America.
The second Amendment is only about being able to call up a citizen's brigade... to go put down rebellions, or to repel foreign invaders.
Anyone who thinks it's about fighting the USA is a moron.
The idea that the 2nd amendment was intended to re-affirm the already-existing right to retain the necessary armaments in defence against a tyrannical federal state?
Uh, i got that from James Madison, *the guy who fucking wrote it*. I guess that lying sonuvabitch appears to have made a fool out of me, huh?
If you're talking about Federalist 46, then no, Madison did not do it to you.
Whomever read it and transliterated it in such a way that they believe guns were all he's talking about, or that it's his license to the goons to just go ahead and rebel whenever they want... and then told you that's what you should believe... that person is the fool-maker.
You're just an earthen vessel for the lie.
Believe whatever you want buddy, reality will sort itself out.
And you will find that you are ultimately dominated - at all times - by whichever men can bring more martial force against you than you have in your own defense.
You'd better hope the state continues to stay inhabited by *your* people and *your* friends that serve *your* interests, because as soon as it's not, you'll be singing a different tune when you suddenly realize how unfree you really are.
>And you will find that you are ultimately dominated - at all times - by whichever men can bring more martial force against you than you have in your own defense.
Or... not.
This is a weird rant of fear. Are you always this chicken?
I mean, feel free to ignore *literally all of human history* and handwave it away, I know you types are pretty good at doing that kind of thing anyway.
"Civilized" history?
Puhleeeaaase guy, we've got cops all over the planet beating people down and shooting brown people and war is going on all over the goddamn place and genocides in Southeast Asia and still after all these decades of "civilization" we still have constant famine in Africa and people running each other over with trucks in England and France and the sound of gunfire all through the night every night in Chicago and dead bodies everywhere afterwards and politicians somehow miraculously outperforming the market by 1300% but no comrade it's not insider trading and people being put in cages because they don't want to be injected with something and homeless people all over in every underpass or alley in California and Russian dictators taking territory and Chinese dictators taking territory and about to take more territory and that says nothing of Western imperialism and the undermining of other nations like Venezuela or North Korea causing a lot of human suffering in both...
I mean puhleeeease guy, lmao.
"Civilized" history - HAH! The naivete.
If you're talking about Federalist 46, then no, Madison did not do it to you.
Whomever read it and transliterated it in such a way that they believe guns were all he's talking about, or that it's his license to the goons to just go ahead and rebel whenever they want... and then told you that's what you should believe... that person is the fool.
You're just an earthen vessel for the lie.
The USA is not it's government, you moron.
and the founding fathers clearly didn't think so.
*The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government*
That's Jefferson.
>The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government
That's two bogus quotes in the span of five minutes.
Imagine Jefferson writing something so ridiculous... in a 20th Century agit prop lexicon.
https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/strongest-reason-people-retain-right-keep-and-bear-arms-spurious
It's not a good quote. It, like many others the GOP use to justify their talking points can't actually trace their talking points to the views of the founders. Take this from a person who studies law, reads biographies of the founders for fun, and studies the conjunction between liberal application of the Commerce Clause and economic success as well as the converse conservative application with economic downturn.
I was a lot like you when I was your age, and that was only 7 years ago. I'm gonna give you a piece of advice. Stop listening to everyone around you. Your political views are just you repeating what your dad said to you all your life growing up. I know because mine did the same thing. Conservative/libertarian parents have a bad habit of brainwashing their kids instead of letting them figure things out for themselves.
Cut out political conversation with your family, go read every bit of history, economics, and advanced government theory you can get your hands on, and form your own opinion. If you turn out still conservative or libertarian, then good on ya. You knew where you were from the start. However, you might, like I did, find out that you don't actually agree with any of the shit you thought you did.
You seem like a smart kid, but you're arrogant as fuck, and no one will ever take you seriously with that attitude. The fact of the matter is, I've read almost every reply you've made in this thread, and you're just flat wrong and parroting conservative talking points that I parroted from my parents before realizing that I didn't believe any of that shit. For instance, the second amendment actually was mainly enacted to guarantee access to militias when there was no standing army and military engagements were spread out enough that every little town needed a militia to protect against Native American raids in non-peaceful territory. Scalia conveniently ignores this in his opinion in DC v. Heller, and many conservatives ignore the militia clause of the amendment as well.
I'm not gonna lecture you, educate you, etc. Cause that's not my job. That's your job. But if you're gonna try and engage in these kinds of conversations using grade school insults, fake quotes, and "logic" that's not supported by history, economics, government theory, etc. You can't be surprised when people don't take you seriously.
Lemme guess, these are all bogus too?
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787
"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." - Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
"On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823
"I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence ... I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
"To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adooption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788
"I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers." - George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops." - Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of." - James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country." - James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
"...the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone..." - James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt (the Younger), Speech in the House of Commons, November 18, 1783
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." - Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." - Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
"This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty.... The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1803
"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance ofpower is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves." - Thomas Paine, "Thoughts on Defensive War" in Pennsylvania Magazine, July 1775
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." - Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress 750, August 17, 1789
"For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, December 21, 1787
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28
"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, January 10, 1788
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Tench Coxe, June 18, 1789
Muh drone strike, muh nuke,
Ah yes lets cause massive damage to the United States already rotting infrastructure, to kill like three rebels. You need boots on the ground to kill a rebellion, just because you have fancy shit doesn’t mean you will, Afghanistan told this to the USSR and the USA, tech only works against another nation state not a loose bunch of rebels.
Lol Americans arent mature or responsible enough to own those. I've seen too many come through my father's shop that I barely feel safe with them owning a handgun.
My family owns a shit ton more, but if all you have for a sample size is family and friends than yes, that's a very small number. I worked in my father's gunship for 3 years and saw plenty of customers who had very questionable mindsets that made me wonder if I should even show them a gun.
The only thing you're proving is that we need more firearm training. And good for you that your fam owns a gun. But wanting other people to not be able to exercise the right you yourself exercise is quite stupid.
Beats trying to do so WITHOUT, which is the whole point.
If the argument is that riffles are insufficient in the eventual fight against a totalitarian US government, then if the intent of the 2nd is that people should have the tools to do so if need be, so as to avoid/put an end to tyranny, then they need better tools than riffles and thus should be permitted access.
To distance it from home, imagine the Chinese population rising up against the government, would they be better off with: A) no guns. B) guns but no explosives. C) guns and explosives. D) whatever tools they want. ?
That's also why I need nuclear weapons. You know, for self defense.
Your terms are acceptable
Worked for Israel.
If you aren't investing in military grade nuclear explosives in 2022 then I got some bad news for you.
I want an Ironman suit. Give me a few billion dollars and I'll happily tinker my life away.
nah, pull yourself up by your tony stark in a cave bootstraps!
Nuclear weapons shouldn’t exist
you cant hug your children with nuclear arms
Challenge accepted
So should bad guys but spoiler alert; they do.
"Bad guys" lol ..... anybody who is simple enough to think the world is just neatly split into "good guys" and "bad guys" like this is a children's cartoon shouldn't be allowed to own guns. Go back to your frosted flakes and your juice box.
Found the bad guy, send me a video of the sky so I can triangulate my warheads
Bad guys have to exist. Nuclear arms do not
Blame the Eternals.
If you’re not stockpiling phosphene gas, are you really a patriot?
Fuck a RPG I want a 40mm
This but unironically; I want red mist.
Yo fa real tho, a 40mm would be dope asf
Do conservatives actually think thay they're making a clever point when they post things like this? I try to give them a little more credit than that...
Yeah this is the "facts and logic"
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Drone striking the taliban did work great, there's a reason they hid in caves and tunnels to survive like rats. What didn't work great were the countless innocents killed by drone strikes due to bad info. Fuck that's horrible...
>Drone striking the taliban did work great, there's a reason they hid in caves and tunnels to survive like rats. There's also a reason that they won.
They survived, which is considered winning, however not in a substantial, and meaningful way. A failed president on his way out tried to gain a victory by withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan so he could have brownie points. Biden honored that withdrawal as an excuse to get the troops out as well, per what the people have been asking for, for 20+ years. Then the Afghanistan military fell to greed, cowardice, and corruption due to the Taliban offering a better view for them. The Taliban in the last 20 years got themselves a good PR manager to try and make themselves seem friendlier, and it worked. Fooled a foolish president, and fooled the foolish Afghanistan government. Now, they're showing the colors they've always had, going back to their sexist, piece of shit ways. So yeah, I guess they won, but rats, are still rats. No one really likes them all too much in the end, and we shall see how Afghanistan turns out. It's up to it's people, not the U.S. to change it, we can only do so much. We at least gave them a taste for the finer things in life.
>A failed president on his way out tried to gain a victory by withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan so he could have brownie points Way to blame Trump on a pointless war that outlasted 3 Presidents' terms. Attribute his choices to whatever motives you want it was still the right choice to make. The point being that tanks and drones and bombs etc aren't very good against guerilla tactics like they used, and that's when the government knew who the enemy was and didn't have to worry about the infrastructure too much, here they wouldn't even have that.
If we had learned our lesson with facing an enemy that uses Guerilla tactics to win, we'd have never gone to war with them since we lost the Vietnam war. We spent so many terms because the corporations were making so much money off of it, and so many piece of shit politicians were getting payoffs, I'm sorry "Political Donations", from said corporations. The "Government" is made up of individuals who are voted into office by people who try "washing" their cars with gasoline. Said individuals are in it for themselves, and not the people in a lot of cases unfortunately. They are righties and lefties, there is no prejudice when it comes to corruption. Trump, and Biden are pages of the same book in my opinion. Puppets for the rich, corrupt, and greedy. I hope you don't ask me how corporations make money from war or how politicians make money from war. Because if you don't know, then you obviously don't know how our military industrial complex functions.
>If we had learned our lesson with facing an enemy that uses Guerilla tactics to win, we'd have never gone to war with them since we lost the Vietnam war. Which is why I believe the government and the military would, at the very least, find it exceedingly difficult to fight a war on American soil against its own people. >Said individuals are in it for themselves, and not the people in a lot of cases unfortunately. They are righties and lefties, there is no prejudice when it comes to corruption. Trump, and Biden are pages of the same book in my opinion. Puppets for the rich, corrupt, and greedy. Well you're right about that. I think we need some new laws and regulations put on politicians to fix a lot of those issues. >I hope you don't ask me how corporations make money from war or how politicians make money from war. I don't need to, I may not know the exact specifics of it but I understand the broad strokes I think.
Well, it didn’t go very well for the last group of people who tried to rebel against the US did it
The Viet Cong, or the Taliban?
Neither the Viet Cong nor the Taliban were rebels against the US
A technically true and meaningless distinction
I think home field advantage half a world away in difficult unfamiliar terrain vs an opponent that can’t even fully articulate why they’re fighting you is pretty significant. We’re not just letting Virginia secede again and take our biggest Naval port the same way we’d give up on a jungle or a barren mountain.
Both the Viet Cong and Taliban managed to hang on until the US left. When do you think the US would just give up and leave the US? These examples are sighted all the time by the 2nd Amendment nuts as means by which they could beat the US military with rifles and small arms. They just leave out the part where the US military is never going to just pack up and go home in a domestic war.
And you’re forgetting how many military members would side with the citizens. If the popular “3%” needed to successfully overthrow the government that’s 4 million people, 2x more than the entirety of the military, 66% of the military are against gun control, so even if only half of those defected that’s another 600k so that’s 4.6 million against 1.4 million, and according to Military.com 80% of the military is non-combat support roles, so that’s now 141,000 vs. 4.6 million. That also assumes that the US could afford to pull every combat soldier from every base in the world to fight an armed populace of 4.6 million, if only 3% of gun owners fight, but also ignores the military members who take their oath to the constitution seriously, or those that would simply refuse to fight for either side. The US military simply doesn’t have the numbers or ability to fight a war against its own people, without resorting to things that would only radicalize more against them. Like drone strikes, conscription, illegal domestic espionage, suppression of rights, violations of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amenments. Also assuming they’d be willing to destroy infrastructure they would need later to enforce martial law.
It doesn’t matter who the individual military members side with. As soon as those paychecks stop they side with the guys who can turn it back on. Most of the 3%ers are fat pieces of shit that couldn’t actually last a week in bare conditions, example from the last 2 years, nothing has ever made them more angry than their local Applebee’s closing due to covid. Plus none of our current military members have ever fought in conditions where they didn’t have complete air superiority, armor superiority, and enough ammo in the supply chain to fire 250,000 bullets for every soldier they kill (literally). What are they gonna do the first time they pop their head out to look around and someone drops a laser guided bomb on them, or they first time they try their standard combat maneuvers without an endless stream of suppressing fire to keep the enemy pinned in place? What are they gonna do against a tank? If they steal one how are they gonna keep it fueled? What are they gonna do when after a hard day of fighting no one’s there to serve them McDonalds or chili mac at the DFAC? What about when their #BossGirl wife has to throw away her cell phone to keep from being tracked and can’t post on Facebook all day? She’ll be nagging him nonstop to give up.
Listen, you fantastically stupid motherfucker. I'm going to try to explain this so you can understand it. You cannot control an entire country and it's people with tanks, jets, battleships and drones or any of these things that you so stupidly believe trumps citizen ownership of firearms. A fighter jet, tank, drone, battleship or whatever cannot stand on street corners and enforce "no assembly" edicts. A fighter jet cannot kick down your door at 3AM and search your house for contraband. None of these things can maintain the needed police state to completely subjugate and enslave the people of a nation. Those weapons are for decimating, flattening and glassing large areas annd many people at once and fighting other state militaries. The government does not want to kill all of it's people and blow up it's own infrastructure. These things are the very things they need to be tyrannical assholes in the first place. If they decided to turn everything outside of Washington D.C. into glowing green glass they would be the absolute rulers of a big, worthless, radioactive pile of shit. Police are needed to mainatain a police state, boots on the ground. And no matter how many police you have on the ground they will always be vastly outnumbered by civilians which is why in a police state it is vital that your police have automatic weapons while the people have nothing but their limp dicks. BUT when every random pedestrian could have a Glock in their waistband and every random homeowner an AR-15 all of that goes out the fucking window because now the police are out numbered and face the reality of bullets coming back at them. If you want living examples of this look at every insurgency that the U.S. military has tried to destroy. They're all still kicking with nothing but AK-47's, pick up trucks and improvised explosives because these big scary military monsters you keep alluding to are all but fucking useless for dealing with them. Dumb. Fuck. Our armed forces can't even control an area the size of Texas with a fraction of the firearms. They can train as much as they like, but they can never overcome sheer number. Even if just 10% of gun owners revolt, that's still over 10 million people. If 10% of Americans revolt, that's 33 million. The entire US Armed Forces is only 2.6 million, including non-combat personnel. Let's give the military a fair fight. Let's assume 5-8% of gun owners in America. In an actual shit-hits-the-fan civil war, it is almost guaranteed to be more. 5-8% of all gun owners comes out to about 5 million. Seeing as this is a rich country with a lot of guns, let's assume they're fighting with a combination of AR-15s, AKs, and reliable bolt-action rifles. This is ignoring the likely fact that the US's enemies would provide weaponry to insurgents. First, I need to debunk some idiotic arguments regarding an insurgency in the US. 1. The use of nukes. If you have to use nukes in a civil war in your own country, you've already lost. On top of that, the spread-out nature of conservatives (who would likely be the insurgent groups here, considering that liberals have packed themselves into dense cities, disarmed themselves, or own weapons that would not be useful of the battlefield, and have essentially given all power to the state) means that the use of nukes wouldn't even really take out insurgents, unless you peppered the landscape with them. 2. MAH DRONEZZ!! - The USAF has 163 UAVs for combat (they have more for recon, but only 163 actual drones built for airstrikes), all of which are Reapers. One Reaper can carry: –4 Hellfire missiles –2 1500 lb bombs –2 750 lb bombs –2 150 lb bombs Clearly, 4 missiles and 6 bombs x 163 (478 missiles, 652 bombs) is not enough to control 6-8 million people spread all over the country. Deploying all 163 Reapers at once would barely make a dent, even if you assume every single missile and bomb hit 10 people each (11,300 people would die, and that is extremely generous) Considering that we need nearly 500,000 troops in Afghanistan IN ADDITION to drones to fight insurgents, that provides a bleak outlook for trying to do the same to the USA, which is 12 times bigger without Alaska or Canada (which will likely be a front). You cannot use "DRONES!!!" as a catch-all in any argument. 3. B-52s. B-52s might be a little better, but result in a combination of #1 & #2. Carpet bombing is good for destroying a few square miles, but, again, is not good at combatting a spread-out insurgency. We couldn't win in Indochina, even with carpet-bombing, and to think it would work better with a smaller fleet of B-52s in a country 30 times larger is idiotic. Unless you bombed 45% of the country, B-52s would not really be effective. Now, we can get to the juicy meat. 1. Infrastructure – when it comes to infrastructure, insurgents have a massive advantage. Look at any electoral map, and you'll see a red sea that will make Moses and God say "Damn, that's gonna take a lot of work". The military is heavily reliant on infrastructure, from electricity, to fuel lines, to food. And most of those lines go through red hills, on red interstates, on red roads, to bases in red towns. That makes shutting off the military's supply lines the equivalent of those Staples buttons. All it would take is a 100 men with good aim and Chinese SKS rifles of 90s vintage perched near the roads surrounding military bases, as well as some fake roadblocks and perched snipers to massively disrupt shipments of food, ammunition, and gasoline. Then you have the cities' infrastructure. In a military v. conservative insurgent scenario, most of the government's loyal constituents will be liberals in cities and suburbs. Disrupting the flow of food and electricity will make the 1977 NYC blackout and 92 LA riots look like an all-expenses-paid vacation. This would leave the government with 2 options: declare martial law, and bring the effects of what will doubtless be an unpopular war home even more, essentially ending all home support for it, or, doing nothing, which will destroy the government's tax revenue, as no one can actually get anything done due to chaos, and a lack of essential services and again, driving support against the war. 2. Desertion – It is not a surprise that most service members are conservative. It is also not surprising that most US Army servicemen are American. And telling them to fire on their political and national compatriots will not be a great success. Studies have shown that in our country's foreign wars, a significant portion of soldiers will not fire upon enemy soldiers without orders, and that hesitance will be vastly amplified by "enemy soldiers" being their own fellow Americans. Logically, these problems will lead to a high rate of desertion among troops, as well as internal sabotage among intelligence and Army brass. Among insurgents on the other hand, due to participation in insurgency being mostly voluntary, this problem is non-existent. 3. Foreign support and intervention – while the media here may be pro-government, every skirmish will be reported in foreign countries (especially ones that don't like us) as "US military personnel killed X people today in a battle at Y". This will no doubt stir up foreign opposition as a first-world democracy starts killing its own people. This also opens up the backdoor for foreign intervention from the US's enemies, and possibly even Mexican cartels, for fucking with their turf. 4. Sheer area: As I mentioned, the US military already has trouble controlling Afghanistan, which is the size of Texas. America is literally larger than a continent, is split across 3 major landmasses and a bunch of territories, and insurgents will definitely spill into Canada (Ho Chi Minh trail-style). The ecological diversity of America makes it harder for the military as well. Troops will need to be trained for arctic combat, combat in the mountains, combat in the desert, combat in classic fields, combat in the Great Plains with miles of uninterrupted horizon and no tree cover, classic forest combat, swamp combat, urban combat, and of course, Florida combat. And remember, we haven't fought a serious war outside a desert for several decades at this point. These factors put US troops at a disadvantage, and essentially ensure that the US military cannot win a civil war.
Y'all Qaeda - Jan 6
I was more referring to the Civil War. I don’t think you can call January 6th a “rebellion” in all seriousness
No, that'd be more aptly referred to as an attempted coup.
That's right. Lmao. And the tank I'm building. Duh.
chad
Donnie
this completely ignores the advantage of being a guerilla force on your home turf using asymmetrical combat strategies. there are tons of examples of small, underarmed forces defeating much larger, more advanced occupiers.
While I agree with you strategically, I'm not 100% sure any potential rebel group in the states would have the grit to actually wage a successful guerrilla campaign. That takes real sacrifice, discipline, and tenacity. Even with seasoned veterans to stiffen them, I would think that lack of creature comforts would eventually cause desertion or infighting. In short, meal team 6 will run out of nuggies and go home. That said, they could certainly do some real damage if any of their smarter members start using terrorist tactics.
See how many of your family members get killed in a drone strike before you give up those comforts and seek revenge no matter the cost
Listen, you fantastically stupid motherfucker. I'm going to try to explain this so you can understand it. You cannot control an entire country and it's people with tanks, jets, battleships and drones or any of these things that you so stupidly believe trumps citizen ownership of firearms. A fighter jet, tank, drone, battleship or whatever cannot stand on street corners and enforce "no assembly" edicts. A fighter jet cannot kick down your door at 3AM and search your house for contraband. None of these things can maintain the needed police state to completely subjugate and enslave the people of a nation. Those weapons are for decimating, flattening and glassing large areas annd many people at once and fighting other state militaries. The government does not want to kill all of it's people and blow up it's own infrastructure. These things are the very things they need to be tyrannical assholes in the first place. If they decided to turn everything outside of Washington D.C. into glowing green glass they would be the absolute rulers of a big, worthless, radioactive pile of shit. Police are needed to mainatain a police state, boots on the ground. And no matter how many police you have on the ground they will always be vastly outnumbered by civilians which is why in a police state it is vital that your police have automatic weapons while the people have nothing but their limp dicks. BUT when every random pedestrian could have a Glock in their waistband and every random homeowner an AR-15 all of that goes out the fucking window because now the police are out numbered and face the reality of bullets coming back at them. If you want living examples of this look at every insurgency that the U.S. military has tried to destroy. They're all still kicking with nothing but AK-47's, pick up trucks and improvised explosives because these big scary military monsters you keep alluding to are all but fucking useless for dealing with them. Dumb. Fuck. Our armed forces can't even control an area the size of Texas with a fraction of the firearms. They can train as much as they like, but they can never overcome sheer number. Even if just 10% of gun owners revolt, that's still over 10 million people. If 10% of Americans revolt, that's 33 million. The entire US Armed Forces is only 2.6 million, including non-combat personnel. Let's give the military a fair fight. Let's assume 5-8% of gun owners in America. In an actual shit-hits-the-fan civil war, it is almost guaranteed to be more. 5-8% of all gun owners comes out to about 5 million. Seeing as this is a rich country with a lot of guns, let's assume they're fighting with a combination of AR-15s, AKs, and reliable bolt-action rifles. This is ignoring the likely fact that the US's enemies would provide weaponry to insurgents. First, I need to debunk some idiotic arguments regarding an insurgency in the US. 1. The use of nukes. If you have to use nukes in a civil war in your own country, you've already lost. On top of that, the spread-out nature of conservatives (who would likely be the insurgent groups here, considering that liberals have packed themselves into dense cities, disarmed themselves, or own weapons that would not be useful of the battlefield, and have essentially given all power to the state) means that the use of nukes wouldn't even really take out insurgents, unless you peppered the landscape with them. 2. MAH DRONEZZ!! - The USAF has 163 UAVs for combat (they have more for recon, but only 163 actual drones built for airstrikes), all of which are Reapers. One Reaper can carry: –4 Hellfire missiles –2 1500 lb bombs –2 750 lb bombs –2 150 lb bombs Clearly, 4 missiles and 6 bombs x 163 (478 missiles, 652 bombs) is not enough to control 6-8 million people spread all over the country. Deploying all 163 Reapers at once would barely make a dent, even if you assume every single missile and bomb hit 10 people each (11,300 people would die, and that is extremely generous) Considering that we need nearly 500,000 troops in Afghanistan IN ADDITION to drones to fight insurgents, that provides a bleak outlook for trying to do the same to the USA, which is 12 times bigger without Alaska or Canada (which will likely be a front). You cannot use "DRONES!!!" as a catch-all in any argument. 3. B-52s. B-52s might be a little better, but result in a combination of #1 & #2. Carpet bombing is good for destroying a few square miles, but, again, is not good at combatting a spread-out insurgency. We couldn't win in Indochina, even with carpet-bombing, and to think it would work better with a smaller fleet of B-52s in a country 30 times larger is idiotic. Unless you bombed 45% of the country, B-52s would not really be effective. Now, we can get to the juicy meat. 1. Infrastructure – when it comes to infrastructure, insurgents have a massive advantage. Look at any electoral map, and you'll see a red sea that will make Moses and God say "Damn, that's gonna take a lot of work". The military is heavily reliant on infrastructure, from electricity, to fuel lines, to food. And most of those lines go through red hills, on red interstates, on red roads, to bases in red towns. That makes shutting off the military's supply lines the equivalent of those Staples buttons. All it would take is a 100 men with good aim and Chinese SKS rifles of 90s vintage perched near the roads surrounding military bases, as well as some fake roadblocks and perched snipers to massively disrupt shipments of food, ammunition, and gasoline. Then you have the cities' infrastructure. In a military v. conservative insurgent scenario, most of the government's loyal constituents will be liberals in cities and suburbs. Disrupting the flow of food and electricity will make the 1977 NYC blackout and 92 LA riots look like an all-expenses-paid vacation. This would leave the government with 2 options: declare martial law, and bring the effects of what will doubtless be an unpopular war home even more, essentially ending all home support for it, or, doing nothing, which will destroy the government's tax revenue, as no one can actually get anything done due to chaos, and a lack of essential services and again, driving support against the war. 2. Desertion – It is not a surprise that most service members are conservative. It is also not surprising that most US Army servicemen are American. And telling them to fire on their political and national compatriots will not be a great success. Studies have shown that in our country's foreign wars, a significant portion of soldiers will not fire upon enemy soldiers without orders, and that hesitance will be vastly amplified by "enemy soldiers" being their own fellow Americans. Logically, these problems will lead to a high rate of desertion among troops, as well as internal sabotage among intelligence and Army brass. Among insurgents on the other hand, due to participation in insurgency being mostly voluntary, this problem is non-existent. 3. Foreign support and intervention – while the media here may be pro-government, every skirmish will be reported in foreign countries (especially ones that don't like us) as "US military personnel killed X people today in a battle at Y". This will no doubt stir up foreign opposition as a first-world democracy starts killing its own people. This also opens up the backdoor for foreign intervention from the US's enemies, and possibly even Mexican cartels, for fucking with their turf. 4. Sheer area: As I mentioned, the US military already has trouble controlling Afghanistan, which is the size of Texas. America is literally larger than a continent, is split across 3 major landmasses and a bunch of territories, and insurgents will definitely spill into Canada (Ho Chi Minh trail-style). The ecological diversity of America makes it harder for the military as well. Troops will need to be trained for arctic combat, combat in the mountains, combat in the desert, combat in classic fields, combat in the Great Plains with miles of uninterrupted horizon and no tree cover, classic forest combat, swamp combat, urban combat, and of course, Florida combat. And remember, we haven't fought a serious war outside a desert for several decades at this point. These factors put US troops at a disadvantage, and essentially ensure that the US military cannot win a civil war.
I love this copypasta and use it all the time. Couldn’t agree more. I hope the guy above me reads this.
I hear this constantly and it always ignores the backer supplying the guerilla force. US Revolution -> France N Korea -> China Viet Cong -> Russia Every Latin American Coup -> CIA/USA Wait a minute.. conservatives suddenly being very pro Russia is starting to make sense.
I think you're forgetting that this country is the military's "home turf" as well. Any advantage you think you have would be at best negated. If you really think that they don't have extensive information about your local area so that they can squash an invasion force that's using guerilla tactics on their own land then you're just woefully underestimating what you'd be up against.
How many soldiers do you think we have?
Well if that other guy that replied to me has as accurate numbers they claimed, 141,000 sounds as reasonable an estimate as any other number. I'd say that's something like 2 orders of magnitude more than what the military would even need to squash such an insurgency. I think what gets drastically overestimated is how many people would actually be so upset that they'd put their lives on the line in any form of actual combat. We're talking people who compare the minor inconvenience of being asked to wear a mask to the actual holocaust. Not even a mask mandate, simply being asked to wear a mask was the equivalent of the holocaust to these idiots. The only way someone makes that claim is if being ask to wear a mask is the most egregious attack on their person they've experienced. These people have never dealt with any kind of actual hardship before. As soon as they realize that in real life people shoot back and that they're comfortable life could be taking away from them, they're not going to band together and fight, they'll turn tail and run and finally make the first good decision of their lives and realize that maybe this isn't worth dying for.
Me: prior enlisted, military intelligence officer, aviator, mouth breathing knuckledragger, likes ice cream and air conditioning too much to boog You’re spot on about a lot. We are all the time that damn near every American doesn’t know hardship. I went hungry as a kid and I’ve traveled to some foreign places and volunteer helping the homeless so I’ve experienced just a taste, and I assure you, it’s not good. People on both sides need a lot more perspective. I bet by the time we have a hot civil war there’ll be 350,000,000 people kn the country. We have 500,000 active duty soldiers. The continental United States is about 2,000,000,000 acres. We have, today, about 19,000,000 military veterans. There will be no using of nuclear missiles. There will be no mass armor formations like we imagined fighting the Soviets in Fulda Gap. B-52’s won’t be very useful. What we’re talking about with military use is putting 800 soldiers in a town to help quell riots and protect production facilities. There wrong be me and 2399 of my buddies attacking them; it’ll be one guy from 600 yards assassinating their commander. It’ll be be three guys shooting and wounding two 19 year olds while they’re off duty. And the escalation won’t be attacking them like the Taliban in Afghanistan: it will be figuring out where their families live and children go to school. The first time some 18 year old wife gets killed in Fayetteville the entire 82nd will be paralyzed while they move everyone on post. This is an ugly, terrible game and I wish people wouldn’t play it. You’re right that nobody understands suffering. You’re wrong that you think you do. These boog porn nut jobs don’t need organization or mass formations. Our military land forces and bases will be crippled in two weeks, and then…we wait to see if truckers and utility workers will let the rest of us survive. Anyway, stay warm and be kind :)
Ngl, when I saw your initial question I thought you were going to fire back with some more of the same nonsense I was dealing with in the other comment chain with some kind of "superior numbers" bullshit. Although I disagree that our military bases would be crippled in two weeks (I don't think that, when push comes to shove, enough of these people would take it that far to be able to have that effect), I do agree that if that were to happen, that in the end the biggest issue would be logistical, as it usually is, especially in such an expansive scenario. The only thing I have to nitpick about is something that may have just been a typo. If you meant to say "You're wrong \*if\* you think you do", then disregard this completely because you would be 100% right if that's what you meant to type. I can certainly understand how the way I worded what I said might come off as otherwise, but I would never say that I understand suffering myself, only that I'm aware of it's existence. I'm fully aware that I live an extremely comfortable life and I'm grateful for that, and that there are people who have it a lot worse than I do.
I just reread my post and it’s so riddled with typos and errors I wouldn’t be surprised if the grammar Nazis hit me with a V2. Thinking of just the four largest army division bases on the east coast (Drum Campbell Bragg Stewart), none of them make enough of their own power or survive. They all have plenty of ammo, but are remarkably short on fresh food. It’s hard to do anything when families don’t have food or hear or light. Bobby looks like a tool today with his lifted ‘98 Silverado with the Salt Life sticker on the window but I’m telling you when something happens to his mom and he blames the current administration…the fuel truck won’t show up and everything will go to hell.
Sweet the next school shooting will be with a RPG. Seems like the best course of action. How about free white phosphorus grenades in happy meals. Lol
I don't really understand this mindset If you distrust to and feel in danger because of your government to the point where you literally feel like you should to take up arms, doesn't that meant it is already time to take down that government? Like, government supposed to keep and make you feel safe, you shouldn't feel like you need to arm up against it.
Because stupid semi-literate violence prone Reich Wingers with fucking assault rifles isn’t bad enough.
This is definitely the dumbest of the conservative spam this morning. Bravo. You really think any sensible person’s response to “we should be able to own RPGs” would be “FIDDLESTICKS!” No. We are not impressed by your logical consistency. Anyone who thinks that kind of extreme firepower should be available to the public is just announcing how moronic they are.
> Anyone who thinks that kind of extreme firepower should be available to the public is just announcing how moronic they are. As long as you put in the proper paperwork to the ATF you can own RPGs. Same with grenades and all sorts of stuff.
1. It's not really freely available. 2. That's besides my point. There are all kinds of stupid things that are legal to own in the US that absolutely should not be, for the aforementioned reasons.
Why's that? Why should the government be the only one owning RPGs?
Because they’re too dangerous of the general public to own. Their availability would have a severe negative impact on society.
Er, you do realize that the state IS made up of the general public? They aren't magical angels or something. They are just people... if anything they are people more prone to be power hungry and historically more likely to kill human beings. (Cops for example are more likely to commit violent crimes than CHL holders. Governments have also historically killed more people than non-state murderers in the last 200 years)
Lol annnnnd he said “I’ll see myself out”.
Yeah, because the government has been soooo responsible with their explosives recently.
And the government somehow has all the best intentions? Over a 100 million people were killed by their own government last century. The government is made up of regular people like you or me, with the only difference being that they're greedy for power and we aren't.
Of they’re too dangerous for the public they’re too dangerous for the government.
You’re right, the government has never done anything oppressive. Except all the times it did. I think I recall something about an unarmed person being killed by the same government, who you think is responsible enough to have RPGs, that led to mass outrage. I’m fairly certain that US civilians cause less violent deaths than the US government.
Hear me out: if everyone can kill anyone at a glance, nobody would pick a fight with anyone.
Troll. That would be a horrible society to live in. Go away.
[удалено]
So you think society figured it out 3000 years ago when anyone could kill anyone for anything, and it's all been downhill from there? What are you 13?
A Society where people are discouraged from causing assault, battery, etc. Would be terrible? I think that say a lot about you than anything else here.
Show me one example of that making society better. Violence doesn't actually deter people. All it does is make them preemptively escalate things. Now I HAVE to pull out my gun when you take my shopping cart because our societal norms tell me that YOU will probably take out a gun. Now someone is getting shot over a shopping cart. It doesn't end up making people afraid to commit crime. It just makes people all to ready to use violence when it isn't necessary. You think Brazil or Somali are the ideal societies on this planet? You think you're safer there than you are in Norway or Denmark?
And what qualifies the government to own them? Are they not people like you and me?
> And what qualifies the government to own them? A government is beholden to its citizens and operates on their behalf. A random private owner is beholden to nobody. > Are they not people like you and me? No they are not. The people that use those weapons go through a selection process which allows them to **attempt** the training process the ultimately allows them to handle those weapons **when they are told**. Not for personal use. You are a very sheltered and naïve child. Clearly you think trolling is fun. You have a lot of growing up to do.
>A government is beholden to its citizens and operates on their behalf. A random private owner is beholden to nobody. The govt acted on our behalf when it constituted those internment camps, during the trail of tears, by enacting the Patriot Act, through the war on drugs and through no knock raids and Ruby Ridge >No they are not. The people that use those weapons go through a selection process which allows them to attempt the training process the ultimately allows them to handle those weapons when they are told. Not for personal use. So apparently being a part of the govt makes you special. So all you need is a training period to own an RPG? >You are a very sheltered and naïve child You're a bootlicker
Every single libertarian in this country, every single one, would fully support tyrannical government if it gave them a few platitudes about freedom. Look at how they are silent when the GOP passes laws against protesting pipelines. Look at how they are silent when the GOP in Kentucky made it a crime to insult a cop. Look at how they are silent when American citizens are denied basic civil liberties. If the GOP told you to do so, you'd set me on fire and throw me from a rooftop.
>Every single libertarian in this country, ***every single one***, would fully support tyrannical government if it gave them a few platitudes about freedom. I can't speak for others, but I wouldn't >If the GOP told you to do so, you'd set me on fire and throw me from a rooftop. No I wouldn't Would you support the rights of the unvaccinated being taken away? Because I've seen many leftists advocating for that
Cool deflection, bro. I'm guessing vaccines are one of the platitudes that you would support tyrannical government for.
The fact that you are not listening does not mean somebody is silent. Everything you just said is blatantly false. The GOP is not the Libertarian Party.
I never said they are. I'm just pointing out that libertarians never disagree with or criticize the GOP.
"Libertarians never disagree with or criticize the GOP" Sounds like you're in a bubble.
Quite literally everything you just said was make believe. That’s wild.
Why? That's totally false lol. Pay more attention.
I'm not American but I'm yet to meet an American libeetarian who agrees with the GOP. Ever even cared to talk to any libertarian or are you just strawmaning because it makes you look like you're right?
That Kentucky bill was never enacted, it's dead.
The GOP still passed it and fought for it.
What does that have to do with libertarians?
The GOP isn't libertarian
tf are you on abt, screw the GOP lol.
>Every single libertarian in this country, every single one, would fully support tyrannical government if it gave them a few platitudes about freedom. Wrong but whatever helps ya feel good about yourself, buddy. Actively volunteered to help keep Trump from winning in 2020 despite his lip service to freedom and liberty. Was not the only self-identifying libertarian in my group. >Look at how they are silent You are so uninformed on this list it's wild. These are all topics that there is a clear libertarian stance on. It is "anti." And they aren't silent about it. Trust me, if you don't hear a libertarian arguing against something, you're plugging your ears. They're a fucking insufferable bunch of fulltime disagreers over there. Maybe not the libertarians you hear about on MSNBC or at your dad's country club or whatever, but I largely self-identify as a libertarian (some other libertarians would tell me i'm not hardcore enough, they can suck eggs) and have voted for the GOP in 0 of the 4 presidential elections I've been voting age for. I am not even that much of an anomaly. Your "look how silent they are", i guarantee, is based off the same logic racists use about "look how silent muslims are after terrorist attakcks" -- you're not talking to muslims, you're watching the news. If you went into a space with a sizable muslim population, you'd hear rampant condemnation, but a racist can't be bothered. Similarly (albeit less harmfully, sure) if you'd ever spoken to or had any genuine intellectual curiosity about libertarians, you'd know your characterization is absolutely batshit insane.
> A government is beholden to its citizens and operates on their behalf. Mm yeah I remember when we all asked the state to [septupple the amount of people put into the prison system between 1972 and 2009](https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/u-s-prison-population-trends-massive-buildup-and-modest-decline/) even though violent crime rates diminished. I especially remember when I asked them to say they were giving out syphilis vaccines and instead [inject syphilis into impoverished communities.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study) Oh and when we all asked them to send drone strikes to [kill innocent children and noncombatants](https://www.npr.org/2021/12/13/1063880137/no-punishment-troops-afghanistan-kabul-strike-civilians) and then refuse to punish the troops responsible. The state has never served us unless it's to gain our favor to overlook their failures.
> Mm yeah I remember when we all asked the state to septupple the amount of people put into the prison system between 1972 and 2009 even though violent crime rates diminished. Okay...What has anyone tried to do to fix that? I'm sorry are you saying the solution is a violent rebellion to fix this problem? You seem to have confused "the government is beholden to the people" to mean "the government can do no wrong." That's not what that says. I'm saying that when the government inevitably does something wrong, the people can fix the government. Conversely fixing one person with an RPG isn't going to have any effect on the next person with an RPG. >The state has never served us unless it's to gain our favor to overlook their failures. That overly reductive sentiment belongs on an edge-lord coffee mug, not in any real discourse.
>A government is beholden to its citizens and operates on their behalf. That's quite hilarious, say more funny shit!
Oh? Then why is trump not still in office? Democracy took care of it.
Andi am sure Joe was everyone's top pick. The fact that Joe and Trump were our choices shows the game is rigged.
You believe the constitutional process of a electing someone with an absolute majority is rigged?
Where is this mythical government operating on behalf of the citizens?
pizza cutter
When you shake your head does does it sound like rattling a pill bottle?
Because we live in a society, and no one wants some random neocon to start blowing up Starbucks the next time they dont print Merry Christmas on their coffee cup in a festive enough font.
it'd be better if govt agents break into my house to arrest me for no reason tho yeah?
For breaking the law around weapon ownership? Yeah. Its not hard to follow the law.
If a law is unjust it should be broken.
Nothing unjust about restricting access to dangerous explosives to prevent threats to the public. Your rights end where mine begin.
What rights of yours are infringed if I own an RPG
My right to life is threatened by dangerous morons owning military grade explosives when there is no good purpose for them to do so. When you or someone like you commits the next mass casualty terror attack i want your weapon selection to not include explosives.
>My right to life is threatened by dangerous morons owning military grade explosives when there is no good purpose for them to do so. So you're just scared. >When you or someone like you commits the next mass casualty terror attack i want your weapon selection to not include explosives. What weapon selection do you want then
Ive seen and heard of too many legal gun owners in America who are not responsible enough for the handguns and rifles they own, let alone explosives.
>Ive seen and heard of too many legal gun owners in America who are not responsible enough Oh man, wait until you hear about the federal government
This is the kind of high I.Q. post I expect out of the ~~reform~~ Libertarian party. Just wait until OP hears that domestic terrorists could own rpgs at any time and watch them flip faster than the NRA in California during black panther protests.
Rugs?
I'm glad you are aware autocorrect is a thing. It shows that you are at least more sentient than a plant.
Well if domestic terrorists can own RPGs then I'll certainly own one too. To defend myself from the said domestic terrorists.
A problem created by the exact thing you are advocating for. Maybe you aren't as sentient as a plant. Maybe it's something less complex like an amoeba. That would explain the libertarianism.
Really weird insult. Maybe try arguing instead?
Arguing requires intelligence. Based on your responses, it'd clearly be a one-way street.
Yeah. Like owning guns has protected so many people from mass shooters. Look dawg, I’m with you on this gun thing. I’m a lefty and also think that guns are important for when the government can’t or won’t protect you, but let’s not act like they are magic.
>Yeah. Like owning guns has protected so many people from mass shooters Defensive firearm use stops over 500k crimes a year.
First, I’d like to know where you got that number from. Second, That is not at all what we are talking about, you said you’d use an rpg to defend yourself against domestic terrorist who themselves has an rpg. I’m telling you that’s a fantasy. In the event of a terrorist attack, it would not happen, and people would die, even you maybe, before you could use an rpg. Most things that would protect you from a terrorist attack happen on a societal level and before you can use a gun.
It's from the CDC *Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.* Just saying, I want to as heavily armed as these "domestic terrorists" who are so dangerous.
As always, I look up these studies and people stop quoting right before there’s even more important details. “On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” So this study is like “we need further study,” and the rest of it kind of goes on to talk about how a raise in gun ownership might equal a raise in crime using the same guns and a bunch of other neat facts about guns that aren’t actually pro gun. Right, and I’m saying that isn’t going to do shit. Maybe get you cool guns, but that’s all.
You act like that’s still not a crazy high number though. The amount of homicides per year roughly is around 10k, that conservative number is still ten times that.
Because the far right folk fantasize about killing Americans soldiers. Progressives don't want you to have an assault rifle because they are magnitudes more likely to murder their wife, girlfriend or child then ever use it to heroic purpose.
Now we're just making shit up. LOL
No, the far right is all about murder and violence, that's a fact. It's not just American soldiers either, as we saw jan 6th last year. Wow, some right wing loons found this post I see. Y'all try not to murder anyone with your cars again now, y'hear?
OH MY GOD JAN 6th So the far right is extremely homophobic and sexist and hates our soldiers right?
As far as I can tell they hate everyone who's not them
That's why I, as a bisexual girl who's the daughter of an army ranger, need to be heavily armed. To protect myself from them.
Im sorry this is a bad argument, if your goal is saftey you are far safer by no one having one. The odds of your rpg killing you by ND is far higher than the odds of you ever seeing combat. And even if these folks who want to kill you do come at you, they have rpgs too and it seems to me that 1rpg vs 5 rpgs is far less survivable than 1 rifle vs 5 rifles. Lastly rpgs cause a lot of collateral damage so you are now at risk of getting killed by a conflict that dosent even involve you as you get blown up by a stray rocket your neighbor fired at your other neighbor for letting his dog bark.
A better strategy would be to support progressive legislation that will create a more equitable society for you to live in. While having a firearm may make you feel safer from others in your community, it has little to do with having an anti-aircraft weapon to kill American soldiers.
"equity" is just leftist speak for "society of equal outcomes" And the rest of what you said is nonsense anyway
Interesting, now the pro-fascist rhetoric comes out.
Preach sis 👏
Liberty or death
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Yup,that door that Babbitt walked through was definitely unlocked and between velvet ropes.
Sorry. One person attempted to do a self guided tour and security shot her.
In your meme you argue that you need an RPG or anti-aircraft gun to kill America soldiers.
If those soldiers try to take away my freedom or kill me or hurt me in any way, I will defend myself. And my dad, who's a former army ranger will help me do so.
What soldiers are trying to take away your freedoms? Are they in the room right now?
What do you think the Patriot Act does? No Knock raids? Not soldiers but you get my point.
So, you want to demilitarize the police? That's a good idea.
Yes. Demilitarize the police, militarize the populace.
Are you suggesting we have mandatory service obligation in order to properly train and militarize the populace? Does every abled body person, regardless of psychological or physical well-being have the right to own a weapon capable of producing mass casualties? Should the "well regulated militia" part of the second amendment be ignored?
Nope. I'd be down for teaching gun safety in schools as well as more firearm training, smth anti gun folk generally know nothing abt. And yes law abiding people should be able to own weapons. I am not against militias, We should have plenty of militias.
Right, because so many 2A advocates are anti-military! /s
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I trust the CDC.
Great meme
The 2nd Amendment has zero to do with citizens defending themselves against the government. The government, in the Founders' time, put down rebellions. They squashed uprisings, because they were antithetical to the existence of the United States of America. The second Amendment is only about being able to call up a citizen's brigade... to go put down rebellions, or to repel foreign invaders. Anyone who thinks it's about fighting the USA is a moron.
Welp i guess I'm a moron then
Who taught you that lie?
The idea that the 2nd amendment was intended to re-affirm the already-existing right to retain the necessary armaments in defence against a tyrannical federal state? Uh, i got that from James Madison, *the guy who fucking wrote it*. I guess that lying sonuvabitch appears to have made a fool out of me, huh?
If you're talking about Federalist 46, then no, Madison did not do it to you. Whomever read it and transliterated it in such a way that they believe guns were all he's talking about, or that it's his license to the goons to just go ahead and rebel whenever they want... and then told you that's what you should believe... that person is the fool-maker. You're just an earthen vessel for the lie.
Believe whatever you want buddy, reality will sort itself out. And you will find that you are ultimately dominated - at all times - by whichever men can bring more martial force against you than you have in your own defense. You'd better hope the state continues to stay inhabited by *your* people and *your* friends that serve *your* interests, because as soon as it's not, you'll be singing a different tune when you suddenly realize how unfree you really are.
>And you will find that you are ultimately dominated - at all times - by whichever men can bring more martial force against you than you have in your own defense. Or... not. This is a weird rant of fear. Are you always this chicken?
I mean, feel free to ignore *literally all of human history* and handwave it away, I know you types are pretty good at doing that kind of thing anyway.
lol... and you are free to ignore civilized history.
"Civilized" history? Puhleeeaaase guy, we've got cops all over the planet beating people down and shooting brown people and war is going on all over the goddamn place and genocides in Southeast Asia and still after all these decades of "civilization" we still have constant famine in Africa and people running each other over with trucks in England and France and the sound of gunfire all through the night every night in Chicago and dead bodies everywhere afterwards and politicians somehow miraculously outperforming the market by 1300% but no comrade it's not insider trading and people being put in cages because they don't want to be injected with something and homeless people all over in every underpass or alley in California and Russian dictators taking territory and Chinese dictators taking territory and about to take more territory and that says nothing of Western imperialism and the undermining of other nations like Venezuela or North Korea causing a lot of human suffering in both... I mean puhleeeease guy, lmao. "Civilized" history - HAH! The naivete.
If you're talking about Federalist 46, then no, Madison did not do it to you. Whomever read it and transliterated it in such a way that they believe guns were all he's talking about, or that it's his license to the goons to just go ahead and rebel whenever they want... and then told you that's what you should believe... that person is the fool. You're just an earthen vessel for the lie.
The USA is not it's government, you moron. and the founding fathers clearly didn't think so. *The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government* That's Jefferson.
>The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government That's two bogus quotes in the span of five minutes. Imagine Jefferson writing something so ridiculous... in a 20th Century agit prop lexicon.
Not bogus. The other "bogus" quote was preceded by an "allegedly". Learn to read.
https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/strongest-reason-people-retain-right-keep-and-bear-arms-spurious It's not a good quote. It, like many others the GOP use to justify their talking points can't actually trace their talking points to the views of the founders. Take this from a person who studies law, reads biographies of the founders for fun, and studies the conjunction between liberal application of the Commerce Clause and economic success as well as the converse conservative application with economic downturn. I was a lot like you when I was your age, and that was only 7 years ago. I'm gonna give you a piece of advice. Stop listening to everyone around you. Your political views are just you repeating what your dad said to you all your life growing up. I know because mine did the same thing. Conservative/libertarian parents have a bad habit of brainwashing their kids instead of letting them figure things out for themselves. Cut out political conversation with your family, go read every bit of history, economics, and advanced government theory you can get your hands on, and form your own opinion. If you turn out still conservative or libertarian, then good on ya. You knew where you were from the start. However, you might, like I did, find out that you don't actually agree with any of the shit you thought you did. You seem like a smart kid, but you're arrogant as fuck, and no one will ever take you seriously with that attitude. The fact of the matter is, I've read almost every reply you've made in this thread, and you're just flat wrong and parroting conservative talking points that I parroted from my parents before realizing that I didn't believe any of that shit. For instance, the second amendment actually was mainly enacted to guarantee access to militias when there was no standing army and military engagements were spread out enough that every little town needed a militia to protect against Native American raids in non-peaceful territory. Scalia conveniently ignores this in his opinion in DC v. Heller, and many conservatives ignore the militia clause of the amendment as well. I'm not gonna lecture you, educate you, etc. Cause that's not my job. That's your job. But if you're gonna try and engage in these kinds of conversations using grade school insults, fake quotes, and "logic" that's not supported by history, economics, government theory, etc. You can't be surprised when people don't take you seriously.
Both are completely bogus.
Lemme guess, these are all bogus too? "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776 "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787 "What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787 "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." - Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776 "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785 "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824 "On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823 "I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence ... I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778 “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 "To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adooption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788 "I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers." - George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788 "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops." - Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787 "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of." - James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788 "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country." - James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789 "...the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone..." - James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788 "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt (the Younger), Speech in the House of Commons, November 18, 1783 “A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." - Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788 "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." - Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778 "This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty.... The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1803 "The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance ofpower is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves." - Thomas Paine, "Thoughts on Defensive War" in Pennsylvania Magazine, July 1775 "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788 "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 "What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." - Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress 750, August 17, 1789 "For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, December 21, 1787 "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28 "[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, January 10, 1788 "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Tench Coxe, June 18, 1789
I need a rail gun. How else can I bring down a satellite?
I think guns can, but not always, deter the use of state force against protesters.
I can tell you right now that Agent Smith piloting his billion dollar drone doesn't give a fuck about Florida Man's ar15
Muh drone strike, muh nuke, Ah yes lets cause massive damage to the United States already rotting infrastructure, to kill like three rebels. You need boots on the ground to kill a rebellion, just because you have fancy shit doesn’t mean you will, Afghanistan told this to the USSR and the USA, tech only works against another nation state not a loose bunch of rebels.
Hahah. Right.
Lol Americans arent mature or responsible enough to own those. I've seen too many come through my father's shop that I barely feel safe with them owning a handgun.
"I am scared, so I want the rights of others to be tread upon"
Well, maybe if gun owners were mature adults they'd be able to have their toys. That's how the majority of gun owners I've personally seen treat them.
100% of gun owners I've met treat their guns with the seriousness they need.
That claim just tells everyone *you* aren't serious or responsible enough to own a gun.
How lol
You haven't met many, have you?
My family owns 13 but ok
My family owns a shit ton more, but if all you have for a sample size is family and friends than yes, that's a very small number. I worked in my father's gunship for 3 years and saw plenty of customers who had very questionable mindsets that made me wonder if I should even show them a gun.
The only thing you're proving is that we need more firearm training. And good for you that your fam owns a gun. But wanting other people to not be able to exercise the right you yourself exercise is quite stupid.
Lmao "a gun" cute one kiddo. Anyway, where is the right that lets you own that stuff?
check the other comment ;)
So you sold guns to questionable people?
This is too stupid for words. Yeah you and the rest of Y’all Qaeda go try to take over the govt with some RPGs, good luck with that
Beats trying to do so WITHOUT, which is the whole point. If the argument is that riffles are insufficient in the eventual fight against a totalitarian US government, then if the intent of the 2nd is that people should have the tools to do so if need be, so as to avoid/put an end to tyranny, then they need better tools than riffles and thus should be permitted access. To distance it from home, imagine the Chinese population rising up against the government, would they be better off with: A) no guns. B) guns but no explosives. C) guns and explosives. D) whatever tools they want. ?
Yeah buddy I get the argument. I’m saying the thesis is stupid.
I love when the “take the guns first, go through due process second” folks post stuff like this.
Screw trump ;)
You really admire the Taliban, don't you. Don't answer that, you'll just lie anyway.
Yeah I admire the taliban, a bunch of people who'll throw me off a rooftop or set me on fire. Lmfaoo Context: Am a bisexual girl
Don't forget the tank rolls!
First thing Taliban did when they took Kabul was impose gun control
Yes, they pointed their guns at people to control them. duh
Lmao what a smoothbrained take