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Comment by trident1000 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but governments (all of which eventually become corrupt and oppressive) take their citizens more seriously when they are armed. And governments taking their citizens seriously typically results in more freedom. I know Ill get downvotes on this platform for this opinion but thats how I feel about it.

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The world is full of unfortunate places where armed people are plentiful and effective government is scarce.

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

A good overview of the first category for anyone interested.

Looks about what I would have expected

That's probably why they said "it's harder to oppress people with guns, so they do it less" and didn't add "and if it is hard to oppress people that makes you effective".

Basic "necessary but not sufficient" thing here.

The counter-example would be places where armed people are kept under the boot by those in power anyway, where the government is very effective at oppression.

edit: unless you are equating "able to do things that make citizens want to shoot you" with "effective"? I'm assuming you misunderstood, which is the charitable reading.

But less than places where people don't have guns and goverments are oppressive.

Define "effective". Can a government do anything they want when they fear the people, no. Can they legislate in progressive ways that build an economy and keep people safe, absolutely.

I don't really have to define 'effective' because the thing I'm responding to is a bit of pat mythology to try to sort-of-explain something complicated and unclear like 'Why does the US Constitution have this weird 2nd amendment and what the hell does it mean?'. It's a shorthand, not a real thing, think of things like 'not a democracy, a republic', etc. There's obviously no simple direct connection, historically, statistically, whateverlly, between who has guns and how government works. People who get upset enough with their government to want to violently remove it with guns just get the guns or convince the people with the guns to join them, etc. Nobody sits around around pondering "boy, we'd start a movement of dissent but we won't because none of us are packin".

How did that work out for the people of Hong Kong? The govt laughed at them with their signs and umbrellas. Now they can be shipped off for posting a tweet the CPP doesnt like.

On a grander scope, notice how Taiwan has not been invaded by China despite their decades of rhetoric. They're armed, the price is high and the move would be risky.

And no you dont just pray at the time you need a weapon and it pops up in your hands. That's not how things logistically work. Also a big part of it is an ongoing cognitive deterrence. That doesnt happen when people dont have them at the present time.

None of this really has anything to do with an individual right to bear arms. Notice how you had to shift to sovereign states being armed to try to make something out of this. The thing is just bumper-sticker 2A fandom expression. It's fine as that, but it it isn't a serious argument about anything and, outside of 2A fandom, nobody thinks it is, whatever their views on gun ownership rights are.

Just like we don't use 'I brake for whales' or this old chestnut:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/20/last-tree-cut/

As a basis for any real discussion of environmental policy.

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