Saying “it’s all fine and dandy until the democracy falls down” is a pretty circular argument to the fact that America stands uniquely in the democratic free world in its liberal control of guns, amoung peers who have lasted several times longer than America's total existance.

In fact it’s a completely nonsense response, and one might point out that America is also fairly unique in its seemingly ill-functioning and over reaching government. Nobody reached for their guns after any of the post-9/11 constitution slashing, nor over any of the hundreds of documented abuses of power, corruption or citizens-United bribery that happen all of the time.

But sure, if cradling your firearms at night imagining a time when you gloriously rise up in unison against some big-brother style figurehead (while your other freedoms are eroded bit by bit) is an effective coping mechanism I guess that’s a good thing for the controlling oligarchy.

I can see why the promote it so heavily.

I don't think we should have no recourse against a tyrannical government, but I just don't see how anyone is going to realistically go up against the US military and make even a tiny dent.

To your latter point, there are constant human rights abuses/crackdowns on dissent in China, but does anyone intervene? Now consider that the US has military might many times China's. Who's going to intervene?

I, too, would hope for defection if the US military was told to start attacking US citizens. It's important to note, though, that the military goes to great lengths to break recruits down and rebuild them into "warriors" aka unquestioning killing machines.

Sherman's March to the Sea is a nice example of how this plays out.

I don't think the military are mindless drones, but yes, it would surprise me to see large-scale defection because history is littered with incidences of military being used successfully to repress citizen populations. This happens, in my opinion, for two reasons: 1. Militaries spend a lot of time breaking down and rebuilding recruits into order-following killing machines. 2. Target populations are demonized to the point that your neighbors/friends can be made to look enough like an enemy "other". Add groupthink to that and you've got a deadly situation that's not really a moral failing on the part of the soldier but a corruption of their motives by propaganda.

This is the key point, more or less every revolution in human history happened when the military switched sides and didn't want to shoot at civilians anymore.

Trying to come with 2nd amendment is bullshit, you have to get the sympathy by the military. This could be by inflicting damage, but more likely by having high enough casualties that the military thinks it is too much.

The ratio of casualties would certainly be the closest in house-to-house combat, but who's to say that's how it would go down? Civilians don't have air power or much of anything that would be effective against armored vehicles. Theoretically a few tanks could cruise through a neighborhood and level it.

Generally speaking: "There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Please use in that order."[0]

Where to draw that line is a personal choice. There are no simple answers. "You can never make that choice" is just as extreme and absolute an answer as "any time you are unhappy about anything the government does, start shooting."

[0]-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty

Nothing about those situations are comparable. The president of the USA is democratically elected. The USA is ruled by its own government, not the government of a foreign country (which a huge amount of Hong Kong citizens view China as), the citizens of Hong Kong don’t want to overthrow their government, they want to protect themselves from clearly oppressive regime, the USA has a rather impressive set of constitutionally guaranteed rights, citizens of the USA have access to a robust legal system.

There is nothing about the situation in Hong Kong that compares to any level of dissatisfaction you believe may exist with a democratically elected government.

Vietnam. US won every single battle, but failed to achieve anything.

Civilian militias have an enormous advantage over organized militaries. Guerilla tactics.

Yes, special forces employ them, but never the less, you’ll never see a special forces groups throwing IEDs on insurgent convoys.

Unlike civilians, organised militaries have rulebooks to follow.

This is true especially in authoritarian states with centralised decision making. See: the six day war. When communications were out, Arabs became mindless drones and the morale was in the toilet. Perhaps not the best example because that was organised military vs organised militaries. However, for Israel, everything was at stake. It was either victory or total annihilation.

> Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgents

I'm curious. What was the last anti-insurgent war we won? I'll list the ones where we lost: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Afghanistan and iraq would like to talk to you

To your first point, there are numerous historical examples to the contrary. To the second, HK has millions of protesters out, something like a quarter to a third of the population. You can't simply liquidate an entire generation of young people if you want to maintain a grip on anything more valuable than a smoking crater.

> Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgents.

In both cases, you'd read what the oppressor wants you to read.

Oh absolutely but when you phrase it like that you risk getting bogged down in the minutiae of irrelevant details like the exact impact removing/adding more guns would have on a society's homicide rate, like that's at all relevant to what is at it's core a disagreement on principles. Best to express your stance in the most extreme way possible so you don't get stuck in detail quibbles.

A disarmed society is an enslaved society.

It's arguable the Appalachian coal industry wouldn't have been unionized without armed agitation, but that may be unique to the region and the mine owners' eagerness to employ Pinkerton gunmen.

I'd say the last time armed resistance had direct impact on law was the abolition of slavery. Most specifically John Brown's taking of a federal armory in 1859. It didn't end well for Brown, his sons, or the freed slaves involved. It did, however, cause a polarization of public sentiment that accelerated the approach of civil war. Only after the other side was ground to paste was legislation changed nationwide.

To the commentors making a Vietnam analogy - short of storming federal installations ourselves, from whom are we to get the military-grade weaponry to put up any kind of resistance? Russia?

>When was the last time a law or policy was successfully fought and turned around in the U.S.?

Prohibition

Civil rights act

Roe v Wade

Gay marriage

Marijuana legalization

Like, a couple of weeks ago? Unpopular or unconstitutional laws and policies are frequently overturned in the US at the national and state level.

> Sure they "could" but will they. Right now the mainland populace knows nothing of this. If you let it turn into a bloodbath that could create a big enough international incident that people could find out. Is it worth the risk?

Sorry it wasn't clear, I was talking about the police in the USA and the second amendment. I was explaining why I think civils having weapons just doesn't mean much against the current government.

> the police need to want to prevent violent retribution if the locals want to inflict it

Sure, we all agree. Here the gov/police is orchestrating the violence, so I guess we also agree they don't want to prevent it.