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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Let's talk in practical terms for a second, though. Do you truly believe that gun ownership in the US could result in a bunch of citizens overthrowing the US government should it become tyrannical? I just don't see it happening. The US military is far too well-trained and -armed, and of course a hypothetical tyrannical US government would turn the military against its citizens if there was an armed uprising. And they would win so laughably easily.

Now sure, there's the possibility that factions in the military would turn against this tyrannical government and save the day, but you don't need the 2nd Amendment for that to work out.

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Afghanistan. 16 years, still haven't won.

And us citizens have more weapons than the taliban; longer harder to protect borders than Afghanistan; and a population that would be sympathetic to the cause. I wouldn’t be so sure the us military would win.

According to current military doctrine[0], counterinsurgency requires a minimum of 1 counterinsurgent per 50 people in the population. If you assume ALL us military personnel can serve in combat simultaneously (ie: no troops required for supply lines, paperwork, management, etc), and you included all police forces in the US, you would only get to 1 per 100.

So you say they would "win so laughably easily".. but according to the military itself, it does not have enough troops to handle an insurgency in the US.

0. As written in the Army and Marine Corps field manual (and this doctrine was based on research of past (us and non-us) conflicts)

Also, 99 percent of the US military will defect to protect their own country against a rogue federal government. These are normal, good people who signed up to protect us.

Are you sure about that?

History shows us that typically, soldiers will fight for whoever guarantees their pay.

Combined with this;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

it shows that money, orders and chain of command are powerful motivators.

These are normal, good people who signed up to protect us.

I wouldn't put that number anywhere near 99%. Probably closer to 50%. Maybe even lower.

I'm sure the people in any given totalitarian regime once thought the same way about their armed forces.

I think there's also a very subtle line here as well in that guns don't necessarily have to defeat the military, but that guns can help protect citizens against corrupt local government. This happened during the civil rights era, in that armed African Americans were able to prevent attacks in many cases or even just police brutality simply by the presence of guns in the hands of the victims.

I think a complete government meltdown is often used as the defense for gun ownership, but given how our government is structured (more control given to states and local communities while trying to balance it with centralized power in the federal government), guns can help keep order when in the hands of citizens.

Of course, like the constant balance of local and centralized government, we will forever need to balance the rights of individuals vs. the safety of the collective.

In my opinion, it is not about overthrowing the government, it is about a right to self-defense. Not just from the government, but also from your average criminal.

It's true that a citizen or even a group of citizens is no match for the military. But the difference is between citizens being able to try defending themselves, and being completely defenseless.

It is the difference between soldiers being ordered to fire their own citizens, and the citizens being defenseless. It is the difference between individuals who swore to defend their countrymen having to reconcile killing them in battle. It is the difference between a confidence that you can do something and a feeling that you can be easily intimidated.

China, Russia, Iraq, Germany, in all of these places the general population was disarmed as one of the first steps towards totalitarianism. It is not a coincidence.

> Not just from the government, but also from your average criminal.

And yet the US has one of the highest homicide rates for developed countries in the world, while sporting the highest (by far) firearm per capita in the world.

So something with that nice argument you, and others, have is not working.

> The US military is far too well-trained and -armed, and of course a hypothetical tyrannical US government would turn the military against its citizens if there was an armed uprising. And they would win so laughably easily.

I doubt it. The US failed in Vietnam and has been struggling in Afghanistan since 2001. Tanks and planes do not win wars. Small arms do.

EDIT: Dystopian follow-on thought. I wonder if this paradigm changes as drones improve? Would civilians have any defense? Perhaps history just repeats itself.

> drones

this is why it's tough (for me) to listen to the courts say "that doesn't mean a right to carry any weapon at any time for any reason".

a decent resistance will need drones.

fortunately they're cheap

I wouldn't count on the US military necessarily siding with a tyrannical government that has stripped its populace of its Constitutional rights.

Here's the Oath of Enlistment with a few points of emphasis:

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

As someone who formerly served in the US military, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in it that still remembered the oath they took, much less nuanced details like what you pointed out, while half asleep at MEPS that one fateful day after hours of testing and medical prodding.

> Do you truly believe that gun ownership in the US could result in a bunch of citizens overthrowing the US government should it become tyrannical?

no. it's not about overthrow. it's about meaningful #resistance in the face of braindead authoritarian pepperspray cops without the spine to think for themselves.

gun owners aren't at the range practicing political science, and international business, and and learning to be lawyers (though some probably are)...

they're protecting their inalienable right to resist authoritarians

It scares me that there are people who think any type of resistance against the government would be hopeless, and would prefer to disarm the public for a false sense of security.

One thing I don't get is that those who are anti-gun don't seem to have much faith in the government to begin with, what makes them think that they won't continue to take away rights as soon as the public is disarmed, given that it has happened time and time again all over the world.

So you are suggesting we just accept enslavement? Can you explain to me how that isn't stockholm syndrome? I'm sorry but even if the odds are zero, I among many others would rather go down fighting to protect our liberties. These are rights given to us by our creator, not government.

We should not need to rely on the morals of the military.

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