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Comment by WanderPanda | Hacker News Reader

The right to bear arms also seems to fit your framework quite well. If the police knocking on your door has to fear that you appear naked that is unpleasent but merely a nuisance. If you could be armed they will probably think twice if it is worth the risk.

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And this is the foundation of the Second Amendment despite the intense opposition to it. The Second Amendment creates lines that even the government will be unwilling to cross.

And yet government agents shooting unsuspecting non-criminals in their own home, after mistaking the address or responding to a malicious fake emergency call, is a line that is only crossed in the country with the Second Amendment.

Yeah, plus they're practically the only country that hasn't had serious government threatening civil unrest for 160 years and they still brag about guns.

Heck, the only real recent unrest of that magnitude, the takeover of Capitol, was without guns as far as I remember. As in, no standoff.

>Yeah, plus they're practically the only country that hasn't had serious government threatening civil unrest for 160 years and they still brag about guns.

There was that miners strike which got bombed.

Do you mean this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

Or something else? I guess that's the closest thing that would qualify.

But compared to the anti-government protests that have probably happened in half the countries in the world during the same time period, it's peanuts.

Example from Romania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932019_Romanian_pro...

Half a million people protesting out of ~18 million or so. For reference, that would mean 10 million people protesting at the same time in the US. I wonder if even the civil rights movement during the 60's ever got that many people out on the streets at the exact same time.

No, I meant this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

I agree tho. In general the US is rather good at keeping down any kind of protests that pose an existential threat or undermines it's major goals.

>Heck, the only real recent unrest of that magnitude, the takeover of Capitol, was without guns as far as I remember. As in, no standoff.

Condescending to other countries with smug quips by the American founding fathers turns out to be much easier than taking those principles seriously on your own soil when facing the prospect of armed Federal police.

I think in practice (from the US) they come in with 10 people, guns drawn, in bulletproof vests ready to fire at anything moving just in case which leads to unfortunate deaths which is why 'Swatting' is so dangerous in the US

They also murder unarmed people with a frequency I'm not comfortable with, so any argument that guns is what makes the police trigger happy has plenty of counter examples of clearly unarmed people getting killed.

Yeah but they always think they have a gun, or so they say. It's not always having a gun pointed at you, it's the threat that it could happen. Very real to American police that keep them on edge, where in other countries that risk is lower so there is less sensitivity to a suspect moving there arm near a pocket or behind their back if they are far away from the officer (which makes it naturally harder to see what they are going for). Not saying it's a good thing, it's just a large contributing factor.

There was recently a video of US police attacking a lady in a wheel chair with a stun gun because she was filming them detaining and being rough with her pregnant daughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9piU6_8y61Q

Here's a recent video of a cop throwing a woman to the cement who was in a fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCKu-0oAaOk

Here's a compilation of nearly 1000 incidents of police brutalizing BLM protestors and reporters.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/29/us-police-br...

In these incidents the victim was clearly either unarmed or in no way was threatening the police with a firearm. I think that is just yet another excuse the police use to evade prosecution when brutalizing citizens.

This is nothing new, here's the police brutalizing citizens protesting in Chicago in 1968.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XzdltsTfvE

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