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Comment by BadassFractal | Hacker News Reader

Owning guns to fight an oppressive govt is all good until the govt rolls in with tanks into your cul-de-sac.

Yep. To illustrate your point, see these photos of the standoff with Ron Haskell, just over a month ago in a neighborhood near Houston, Texas. I can't comment on the appropriateness, but the imagery is unsettling.

http://newsnyork.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/FjoXC3Immx.j...

http://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-sho...

http://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/221.jpg?w=...

http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/ktrk/images/cms/070914-kt...

http://dailyentertainmentnews.com/wpgo/wp-content/uploads/20...

http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/ktrk/images/cms/071014-kt...

http://www.adn.com/sites/default/files/styles/ad_slideshow_n...

A bit more info.

http://heavy.com/news/2014/07/ron-haskell-spring-texas-shoot...

https://www.google.com/search?q=Ronald+Haskell+standoff&clie...

It makes it infinitely more difficult when the population is armed. It's a silly argument to say that the 2nd Amendment isn't about preventing an oppressive government because the government has tanks and fighter jets. Unless they decide to indiscriminately kill large populations, armed citizens are going to become insurgents and it will become a brutal battle.

Too bad that you didn't say it earlier. With this insight Iraq occupation could turn out better for the US army.

People who oppose both this police campaign in Ferguson and civilian gun rights need to remember the former the next time the latter is in the news.

Since I oppose this campaign and am in favor of various civilian gun control measures I thought I should ask you to clarify. Do you mean to suggest that Americans should carry guns so that they can fight back against the police when they get out of hand?

I believe he's saying that if you're in favor of disarming citizens as a means to reduce violence, then you should also be in favor of disarming police - or at least in favor of drastically changing the role armed police play in American law enforcement.

> Do you mean to suggest that Americans should carry guns so that they can fight back against the police when they get out of hand?

Maybe not carry, but own. And they point isn't to actually fight back against police, it's to deter the police from causing that to be necessary.

I see. I hope you would forgive me for assuming something so extreme. I would be curious to see some statistics on quantifying of police aggression (however quantified) versus civilian armament as covariates wrt total gun violence. One of the marginals of such a distribution are documented here:

http://mark.reid.name/blog/gun-deaths-vs-gun-ownership.html

but this doesn't say anything about the police side of the story.

They both seem like very bad things to me, and I don't see how one helps with the other. Actually, they're probably two self-reinforcing parts of the same problem…

> I don't see how one helps with the other.

Why not? If for every SWAT team member there were 20 armed civilians, do you really think there would be such a cavalier show of force from police? I suspect there are towns even in the US where the police would think twice about occupying the entire town, arresting journalists, etc.

Put this way, the solution now seems obvious: all these police problems that are happening in poor, black areas can be solved just by distributing more guns in inner cities!

Despite the ease with which I could turn that sarcasm directly around, I will resist, and instead point out that your sarcasm is mocking a view I did not express and do not hold.

The problem with this, for me, lies in the assumption that if you put enough guns on the streets, they will primarily be used to defend against tyranny.

There are already places where the police are massively outgunned - I would assume this to be the case in any large American city. I don't believe the assumption that the police will respond to the threat of violent resistance with dutiful respect and civility is correct enough - rather, more confrontations which presuppose violence will escalate to greater violence.

But it is certainly the case that you can't scale morality in line with tactical force. More guns in people's hands also means more guns in the hands of criminals, and gangs, more domestic shootings, more kids being shot, accidental shootings, etc.

Like it makes a fucking difference... Your civilian gun rights can't protect you when there's a team of police armed with assault rifles and body armor marching down your street. Are you seriously suggesting civilians take up counter-sniping positions against the police? The fuck is wrong with you? The days of the old west are over, we need laws and regulations not civil war.

> Your civilian gun rights can't protect you when there's a team of police armed with assault rifles and body armor marching down your street.

Hogwash. I have weapons that are just as capable as those of my local police force, and access to the same types of body armor if I wanted to spend the money for it.

> Are you seriously suggesting civilians take up counter-sniping positions against the police? The fuck is wrong with you?

In Ferguson? Absolutely not.

An instance where it isn't moral to use force doesn't mean that there is no moral instance where responding to force with force is justified.

> The days of the old west are over, we need laws and regulations not civil war.

The ironic thing about this is that in the Old West, "law and order" was in fact enforced through the will of a sheriff and his posse, at gunpoint. They got to define what "law and order" meant, and in many cattle towns firearms were effectively outlawed as a result. Meanwhile, the actual US Civil War was precipitated and fought by professional militaries subject to civil authority (i.e., law and regulation).

> Like it makes a fucking difference... Your civilian gun rights can't protect you when there's a team of police armed with assault rifles and body armor marching down your street.

20,000 civilians with guns can protect a region against a few hundred police, even with their armored vehicles, tear gas, etc. I think you're underestimating the population difference between civilians and police.

> Are you seriously suggesting civilians take up counter-sniping positions against the police?

If there are police snipers, then absolutely.

> The days of the old west are over, we need laws and regulations not civil war.

I'm not calling for the old west, or for civil war, or for a lack of laws. You're the one advocating a greater power disparity between police and civilians.

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