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Comment by DoofusOfDeath | Hacker News Reader

> The above is why there is a full-court press to ban guns in the USA.

I'm skeptical of this claim. I think many opponents of private gun ownership are motivated by concerns about their use for crimes against regular people, not because it lowers the ability to resist tyranny.

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Are there documented, successful uprisings any time in the last 100 years that hinged on private firearm ownership? People say "yeah well look at Iraq and Syria" and so on, but all the examples I know of of even a sort-of successful resistance involve one or more of: part or all of the military siding with the revolutionaries; foreign governments shipping in arms and/or providing assistance like no-fly zones; an opponent that for political (see: foreign intervention) or moral reasons won't do anything nasty enough to win (decimation, 500-for-1 reprisal killings, hostage taking, starvation, that kind of thing) which one supposes some hypothetical super-evil US government would do in a civil war.

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1345095-gun-control-debate

Yeah, but that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. How large a role did private firearms play in that war? Would they have all been replaced in short order by a few crates from a foreign government or two, had they been absent in the first place (I'm assuming there were any, in significant numbers, to begin with)? What I'm skeptical of isn't that the US military can be defeated, it's that a bunch of guys with a few AR15 clones and handguns would actually be a significant factor in such a defeat. I'm certain they're not necessary for most reasonable scenarios involving victory by the rebels, and kinda doubt they're key for any.

Exactly correct. I think most gun owners (or just people who have fired a fun) understand that they'd be dispatched quickly by anyone who's job is to be proficient with firearms.

There are many more cops, sheriffs and other LEOs than sovereign citizen types. It would be a short battle.

Also civil disobedience in the face of state violence tends to attract a different sort of reporting and public opinion than riots and violence, which usually - not always - generates the opposite.

Violent action usually ends up as a PR gift for the status quo.

Many gun owners train more than the average cop or sheriff. The army could beat them in war, but it is more about logistics (which the army is a master of) than ability with a gun. One on one at the range the edge goes to the gun owner over a trained soldier (it will be close, the best of both are equal, the worst soldier is better than the worst gun owner), but wars are never one on one, and never at a range.

Depending on your scenario, the army might or might not be a factor. The army is made of the people in a civil war situation many of them will defect.

Are cops in America really that proficient with guns tho? Most of them probably only spend as much time in a gun range as an average gun owner, and quite a few probably only spend whatever minimum time is required by their department. Also only a minority of them will ever fire their weapon in the line of duty, and unless they work in Baltimore or something it will probably only be once or twice in their entire career. Police involved shooting are actually quite rare, and half the time they're as likely to shoot each other along with everything else when they unload at whatever hostile they're confronting.

I'm not trying to denigrate cops over this, I don't particularly want a police force that's a trained paramilitary. And certainly sovereign citizen types wouldn't win in any kind of armed insurrection at this point, but I wouldn't put it down to LEOs weapons proficiency as the reason.

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