Comment by nzp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nzp | Hacker News Reader

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That's a fantasy view of how military engagement works. The whole argument that the US military has advanced tech, particularly air power, therefore “your guns” are useless is demonstrably false. If it were true, you wouldn't have Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Having millions of people armed with things like AR-15 or AK-47 is an effective form of dictatorship prevention.

The problem, however, is that you have to have those people actually want to fight a dictatorship. I don't live in the US, so I might be wrong, but it seems to me that most people, not all, most, in the so called gun culture there are more than willing to bend over and be servile to authorities, with dictatorship prevention being just a noble sounding excuse to have fun shooting soda bottles in their backyards (nothing wrong with that).

The government still does have better resources, though. Times have changes a bit from the 1700s in that the most modern things available to the two parties are not the same for both sides anymore.

Governments always had better resources. Until they didn't. The only way a government has resources is by people providing the resources by doing work. Once people collectively deny work, it's game over for the government.

As for the 1700s, all of the wars I mentioned happened in the second half of 20th, and early 21st century, with a gigantic asymmetry in almost every relevant resource. Yet, in all three examples it took the US a whole decade of trying to win and then get a graceful exit, if that, against, basically, people with AK-47s and improvised bombs.

The government would be seriously behind in one very important resource - troop count.

natural disasters, riots, and home invasion are far more realistic and likely threats, funny nobody talks about these, because they happen all the damn time here in the US.

I'm under the impression that “gun culture” people mostly obsess with exactly these things? This is in a way a dual of what I was saying, they far more fear and obsess over the threat of their metaphorical neighbor then they do about the government. I think that is the problem with the gun culture in the US, not the guns.

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