I wonder how the people putting "abortion seekers" on such lists would feel if I included "self-defense rights advocates" for people 3d printing guns or smuggling them in from abroad on similar lists.
In other words I'd suspect the classification of "self defense advocate" to be a self serving branding effort since there are legal ways to accomplish the same, but I wouldn't doubt the need of this person for a secure messaging platform.
Outside of the United States, that's usually not the case. Even if countries do allow private gun ownership, the restrictions on how to obtain them (and what they can legally be used for, what kinds are available, etc.) are exceptionally onerous.
And even within the United States, there are individual states that have attempted to severely curtail private firearm ownership. Were it not for certain Supreme Court decisions, handgun ownership would be outright illegal in the District of Columbia and likely in several other states.
A good and fair point. I'd fallen into the trap of being too US centric on HN.
> Were it not for certain Supreme Court decisions, handgun ownership would be outright illegal in the District of Columbia and likely in several other states.
Sure, were it not for the Supreme Court. But as there remains plenty of ways to legally obtain guns in the US, I'm still going to doubt that you've resorted to gun smuggling for "self defense"
Citation needed. I, and probably the majority of the citizens of those countries do not consider the standard test/psych eval/background check/random checks in the future to make sure you're following the rules to be "exceptionally onerous". And i think most non-Americans would agree that adding some friction to a fringe case (owning a personal firearm for protection or fun is not something most people do, even in the US) is worth it if it nearly eliminates blatant misuses of firearms - either making suicides easier and more terminal, enabling easier revenge murders, or making your average school/public place shooting easier.
What would you consider a just middle ground between "onerous requirements" and "everyone can buy any weapon without any requirements but paying for it"?
Just because you've accepted the boot on your neck doesn't make it not a boot. When (not if) a currently free and democratic Western nation decides to be not so democratic anymore (whether due to invasion, international pressure from economic partners like Russia and China, or just that the assholes in power decided to seize even more power) the citizens (or rather subjects) of those countries will have no means of fighting back. You can already see it with several countries' response to covid.
>What would you consider a just middle ground between "onerous requirements" and "everyone can buy any weapon without any requirements but paying for it"?
My feelings on gun control can be summed up as "I want mail order rocket launchers delivered to my doorstep." The state should fear its people, not the other way around, and the best way to ensure that is to give the people the means to put a bullet (or several) into any would-be tyrants.
And, regardless of what "the majority of citizens" feel about bootlicking and trampling on their own natural rights, advances in home manufacturing are quickly making any efforts to do so a pipedream.
So...I guess my point is that you don't _have_ to choose between masks and gun rights. I'm unsure of why you would bring it up.
> You can already see it with several countries' response to covid.
Perhaps the commenter was going for something else, but at least where I'm at we've had two straight years of people insisting they are muzzles, an infringement on our god-given rights, and the beginning of a slippery slope to tyranny. Perhaps the commenter meant something else, but since they didn't spell out what specifically about the "response to Covid" they intended to solve with a mail-order rocket launcher of all things, I was left to interpret for myself.
I also take issue with the idea of gun (or rocket launcher ownership) ownership as a means of prevention. I mean look at the top countries for (citizen) gun ownership. Sure you've got the US, Serbia, Canada, Uruguay, Finland up there, not bad, But you've also got Yemen at #3 and Lebanon and #11. If that's the kind of "freedom" private gun ownership ensures, then I'm not buying.
And again I'm not even that pro gun control. I think you should be required to get a background check to get one, I think you should be required to be trained on their use and safety, and I think you should be required to take reasonable measures to protect your firearms against theft. I'd say that's it, but I suppose I'm also against mail order rocket launchers. But for the most part, having met those requirements I think you should be able to buy what you want (within reason, again let's skip the rocket launcher). But as protection against government tyranny? Doubt.
I don't know. I'm a believer in extreme gun rights as well, but giving people the power to have rocket launching systems like MANPADS just seems a bit, dangerous.
It's not a "permit", though. And there are no special limits on who can own one - if you can legally own a gun, you can legally own a DD or any other NFA item. One doesn't even need to be a US citizen or a permanent resident for that, even people on student and work visas can do it.
ATF can be more thorough with NFA items because the law doesn't have a limit on how long they can look at you, unlike those regular NICS checks which have a hard limit - but the list of things that makes one ineligible to own is the same.
As far as residency, you have to be a resident somewhere in US, but you don't need to be a permanent resident / green card. A student or a work visa is good enough, combined with proof of current residency (such as utility bill with your name and address).
This isn't quite what OP asked for, of course - you can't have one "shipped to your doorstep" - but this is also true for most regular firearms (there's a collector license that enables this for some old guns).
You should look into France and it's protest culture. When the people are unhappy with the government's action, they go out on the street and protest. Without any weapons, this being a civilized country where violence is only a last resort. And you know what? Governments listen and adapt, even without the fear of direct death.
So i find your premise wrong to begin with. There is no natural right to murder, so i disagree that owning a weapon is a natural right.
And i find it extremely funny that the country that is so proud in their "everyone should be armed so the government is afraid of the people" culture has such shitty dysfunctional governments that act against the people's interests extremely often. Where are the armed uprisings against the Patriot act, civil asset forfeiture, racist abuse, abortion restrictions, failures to combat climate change or wasting money in useless wars abroad? No? When then?
There are almost always reasonable uses of many services and tools we tend to have knee-jerk-ban reactions to as a society.