One of the founding principles of the US was the right of its citizenry to protect itself from the overreach of the government, which was enabled partly through the right for citizens to own firearms and other weapons. They're a means of self defense, but more importantly as a way to keep the gov in check. No government can control millions of armed citizens--which is exactly the point.

Killing in response to being disarmed is probably one of the most "American" things its citizens could do.

Gun ownership is a right in the US.

I'm not sure where you got 1000 rounds per minute from, even a fully automatic rifle generally cannot fire that quickly (it would probably need to be belt-fed or you would be changing magazines more than thirty times per minute).

A semi-automatic rifle like the AR-15 is unlikely to surpass 100 rounds per minute.

> From a more protectionist standpoint, you could say that an AR-15 or an AK-47 will allow you to stand up against your government. This isn't really realistic, however - no civillian weapon, especially not a semi-automatic rifle, will reliably take care of a tank, fighter jet, drone or military robot. [0]

It gives you some leverage however if you need to get some ingredients for your IEDs.

A few guns might make the difference between efficient large scale killings like Auschwitz and a case where a large number of civilians get away and hide until the international community can come and help.

Yep, people with rifles and improvised explosives are completely ineffective against a modern military force. That's why the US was in and out of Afghanistan in less than a year!

Oh wait.

Libya and Syria are probably good examples of this not being the case. Libya had the benefit of NATO coming to the aid of the rebellion and stopping the airstrikes, Syria also had outside involvement. When a government goes to war with it's civilians other nations tend to get involved.

Even if that isn't the case, all those weapons are on the ground or in port at some point. Meaning an attack with small arms to get in there and preemptively blow them up will work. These weapons also have to be maintained meaning they need a base. You have millions of citizens with weapons and a military that's a much smaller fraction of that, with bases that have a much smaller fraction of personnel. The base is going to be overrun. There is also the chance of military personnel defecting, so that some of these weapons never get fired.

Chemical and biological weapons are a really bad idea. The problem is a civil war isn't going to be geographically defined in this case. There is no polarization along something like a Mason-Dixon line. You will end up killing people that don't revolt, which will probably make them rethink their not revolting. How would you feel if your family and friends were killed in an attack, and they weren't on the rebel side?

The other problem is even if you increase the military's size to win the civil war, you have the second problem of the very people that you could grab immediately to fight are probably going to be a majority of people who have been opposed to gun ownership, don't have weapons and don't know how to use them. It will take time to become proficient and the other side has both the weapons and training.

Even with advanced military tech, the numbers game combined with a guerrilla approach, and the fact these are civilians and it would be hard to identify civilian combatants from non-combatants, will make it a losing battle. We already haven't done well in Afghanistan or Iraq for similar reasons, and despite the enemy being technologically inferior, we have never been able to secure those regions.

You would have probably been against the American Revolutionary War then? Meh, let's let the British tax us. They're big and powerful. They're the Government.

And what about something like Vietnam? Who won that one?

And even if you're right, that the US government is just that big and bad. What if half the military defects and joins the revolt?

People have the right to defend themselves, and must be trusted to do so. Otherwise you get something like England. Say the wrong thing and you go to jail. The 2nd Amendment keeps the government in check. Eventually, given enough time, it will need checking.

Soviet and later USA didn't crush Afghanistan easily in a few months.

The Nazis had quite a lot of soldiers tied up in already occupied countries because of sting operations.

Edit: remove stupid snark

Can't win if you don't play.

Police in United States do not have to protect you:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-pol...

Average national response time is 10 minutes, even in cities the median is 5min, but can be as high as 30min for some remote areas.

In certain situations there may be no police response at all, as was the case in 1992 Los Angeles riots or practically any major natural disaster.

The ‘let the police do it’ argument would only logically work with incredibly pervasive and invasive surveillance technology and/or police robots (https://goo.gl/wpMV8).

Even so, 2nd amendment would be even more relevant to balance the killer robots.

That might be a good argument in theory, if it wasn't for the part where US police don't have to protect citizens and all the population that are outside of effective police coverage. It's not the argument gun control campaigners seem to be making right now. They mainly seem to have gone for the approach of supporting police officers standing by and doing nothing as kids are murdered one by one. Given that, I suspect you're going to have a hard time convincing people who don't already agree with you that they should give up their guns and let the police take care of everything.

This isn't like organizing roles at a startup company. We're talking about an individual's right to defend themselves against someone bigger and stronger, someone with a weapon who wants to take your shit or fuck you or just fuck you up.

You put much faith in the Government, and I put it in the individual.

What happens when your police force is turned against you, becomes incompetent, gets lazy, or just doesn't show up?

It's idealistic. Life is a struggle for the individual, no matter how much we'd like to forget it or offload our worries.

So ask the threat to wait a 5+ minutes while you call the cops?

Should we DRM 3D printers (DMLS@home is coming) to a walled garden of things? The 2nd Amendment is not separable from general purpose computing. Who needs "assult crypto" anyway?

It's a valid question. If we had something like phasers instead of firearms, I'd be more than happy to use those exclusively. The problem is we don't really have a good alternative. Tasers that shoot tend to be one shot solutions, and even then they don't always bring down targets, or they might prove as lethal. Rubber bullets you can fire multiple of, but they could cause serious damage too, especially if shot in succession, and there is no guarantee of taking the target down. There just isn't a solid alternative right now.

Why not defend yourself with a towel??

Can't wait for the citation from an actual study (try the CDC, they've put out at least 3 since 2013)!

You should be able to easily show that rural USA with it's murder rate on part with Europe is definitely not the place where all our guns are... oh wait...