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Comment by seanw444 | Hacker News Reader

I just think it's odd that you think that the solution to being picked on is to remove your right to defend yourself from being picked on. The 2A wasn't supposed to be just for "bigots". Use your rights. Relying on the government to protect you from bigots only works when the government itself isn't comprised of bigots. Then you'll really regret not having rights to effective individual defense.

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It's a right to have a gun, not to use it.

Even then, it's not a very strong right, since for the past 30 years at least, the common reason for cops to shoot people is "I thought he had a gun" with suggestions that people carry bright orange wallets to avoid being mistaken for having a gun

And what is the point of "arms"? Why would the second most important right enumerated, be only placed there merely for keeping weapon-shaped trinkets in the household?

Given the state of things at the time the country was formed, “we need you at the ready to handle Injuns” may well be the answer.

We have limits on all rights: the rights against unreasonable search and seizure (exigent circumstances), the right of freedom of expression (imminent lawless action), the right to freedom of association (imprisonment, parole), etc. For some reason we accept these but not on 2A, as we think it's this fundamental right to secure freedom.

But I think this overlooks how we've won our freedoms over the last century. Suffragettes didn't take mayors ransom. Labor unions didn't march on DC with firearms. Civil rights activists didn't surround police departments with shotguns. Protests against the draft were literally flower power.

The idea that rights flow from violence in today's world just doesn't track. It's way more likely you secure your rights with strikes, marches, and protests than with armed resistance. The truth is the idea of a noble rebellion violently struggling for freedom is a Confederate fantasy, which is the aesthetic preference of a certain demographic. It's maybe less romantic to them to run boycotts and strikes (and actually win the popular vote), but that's how things work these days.

Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? It's a backup. It's like saying "yeah my server runs super stable and I haven't had any power outages in the last few months, so I don't need a UPS, so I'll throw mine away." Which is great, until your data is irrevocably corrupted and you regret your decision.

You're right, marching with guns doesn't resolve civil issues most of the time. That's not the point. It's for when all other options are exhausted. And we won't truly appreciate it for what it is, until that time comes, by which point I hope we haven't complacently thrown it away because we couldn't learn from history (again).

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." ~ JFK

It's really based on "hasn't happened to me, so it probably won't happen to me" logic. Which is stupid when you're setting rules for generations to come. All good things come to an end, and the US will too. It will be a slow boil until we realize we're in a seriously corrupt and unrepresentative state that can only be fixed through force. It has happened time and time again, and to think we won't meet the same fate is incredibly naive. At least we have an enshrined fighting chance to reset the way we want.

Yeah but in this case your UPS causes tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths a year and lots of knock on effects like cops always having to worry about a suspect being armed to the teeth, metal detectors in schools, etc.

> It will be a slow boil until we realize we're in a seriously corrupt and unrepresentative state that can only be fixed through force.

There's no evidence this is happening, certainly not to the degree we should suffer the current level of gun violence to combat.

All of those things will happen whether we ban legal ownership of firearms or not.

Metal detectors in school can still come in handy for things like knives, unless you intend to ban those too. Way more people die from car accidents and drug overdoses, and those numbers don't have millions of legal self defense encounters to balance them out. Cops will always be concerned about their safety. You can kill someone if you simply gain physical control over them. An unarmed person charging you is just as dangerous as an armed one, in terms of use-of-force continuum.

These all have simple counterfactuals in other countries, like EU countries. The idea that violence won't decrease if we ban guns is completely disproven, empirically.

You've drastically altered the reality of US history. Violence and guns were a huge part of it. Labor unions had actual shoot outs with union busting officers, Malcolm X was absolutely using guns (King also had them), some draft protests were intentionally violent. If you really look, almost every "peaceful" movement had violent parts or another similar movement that was violent.

Perhaps the greatest example is the race riots, specifically LA where the police completely abandoned areas and local shop keepers used their own weapons to protect their livelihood.

Furthermore, the right to bear arms is heavily limited, automatic weapons have been banned for around 50 years at this point, getting any gun is subject to background checks in basically every case, age limits are also in place, "dangerous" things like suppressors require additional fees and paperwork in order to own.

None of this stuff looks like the Taliban's resistance or the Bolshevik Revolution. Besides a magnitude difference, the victory won was a moral one. No policymaker was afraid that they'd meet the guillotine unless they went along with the Wagner act. They were convinced, not coerced.

I'm a materialist, and as such I see that the "right" to own and use weapons in this way is conditional on things outside the control of individuals. What do you think happens to a black man who shoots a cop in self defense?

We depend on us to protect us from bigots. And it's more effective and less morally compromising to do this when the bigots don't have guns. As it is an honest self defense class for my people starts with "have someone who knows how prison commissary works" and ends with "get right with the lord" because that covers the full spectrum of likely outcomes when a nonwhite person defends themselves with a weapon in the US.

But the fact remains that by defending yourself, at least you'll minimize the chances of meeting your god(s).

As the saying goes, better to be judged by 12 than burried by 6.

“rights to effective individual defense” isn't going to cut it against a government armed with nuclear weapons, tanks, and what not. The notion that a few guns will protect you against government overreach is outdated by at least a hundred years.

1. The largest military industrial complex / empire the world has seen to date, struggles with underequipped, undereducated insurgents fighting for their beliefs already.

2. You assume the whole military would be unified in drone striking their fellow countrymen. I wager a large chunk, likely more than half, would splinter.

3. There's not much point in nuking the place you wish to rule. There won't be much left to rule.

Still, I'd bet that a bunch of lawyers and huge funds for campaign contributions would give you better chances than the contents of your armory. Or does everything look like a nail because all you have is a hammer?

It's unfathomable to me how you people are completely incapable of seeing how both are useful, and one doesn't need to exist on its own without the other.

Yet we lost to the Taliban, who had none of those things.

But we won against the Iraqi insurgence and ISIS. We probably would've beaten the Taliban too but JB personally hated being there, so here we are.

We didn't lose to the Taliban for any other reason beside not having a clear picture of what victory would look like.

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