> Wonder if this is what makes lawmakers consider some sensible gun regulation...
I can't comprehend why an average civilian would need license to keep and/or carry a firearm. None of the arguments seem to stack up, at least, from my perspective.
why? Because the history books and graveyards (marked and unmarked) are full of examples of hundreds of millions of unarmed powerless peoples being marched off to their deaths by power-hungry dictators and their supporters. The authors of the American political system were exceedingly well educated and understood that a new American constitutional republic experiment where the people held the power would revert to a dictatorship unless the people themselves had some mechanism to retain authority. In addition to the checks and balances in the government, a large part of that authority is established (and guaranteed) through the availability of militarily-useful firearms as a last resort.
I guess the first problem is, that I am not from the US.
What you write makes sense, but it seems weird to me to justify having guns with a hypothetical, apocalyptical scenario. Sounds a bit like fear-mongering to me.
Yes, it is precisely a cultural thing. America was formed as colonies declaring war against the strongest empire on earth, refusing to be ruled by a King and both occupied locally and abused from afar. The US Constitution and the balance of power between the three branches is designed to prevent consolidation of power in any one person because the government gains it's authority from the consent of the governed. (the people) And yes, as a final check against abuse of that power, the people have the means to overthrow. It is essential if free people are to remain free.
Most things seem hypothetical until they happen. Hundreds of millions of dead souls in the last century died from what was (at the time) a "hypothetical, apocalyptical scenario." And not only the death camps - think of how many people started their day normally, never knowing they would be murdered by a government by nightfall. History repeats itself so long as the basic flaws of human nature persist - and they will.
I don't get why there is a need in a city, but there are definitely wilderness places in the US where it is required. What's wacky is that nobody can see this difference when laws get passed.
Parent's post is correctly insinuating that it's city people assuming their context is universal and trying to regulate as such. The state wide restrictions are non-sensical for rural environments in states like CA and MA.
You might change your mind if you’ve ever had someone try to break into your home at 3am. Happened when I was a kid. Fortunately my father had a lowly 0.22 rifle. The sight of the rifle in my fathers’s hands was enough to convince them to leave.
My father is as left-leaning as they come (and an Italian immigrant) but he knew even then that the police can’t always protect you.
Yeah, I hear about a lot of examples like yours. I have an air rifle laying around somewhere, maybe that could scare someone off :D
I was raised by the standards of "Talk or Run away", and I want to adhere to them. But I don't live in the US and in my country I don't have to be afraid to be home-invaded, especially not with guns.
I see that some people "need" guns, I just don't want that as a pacifist. To each their own I guess ;)
The way you phrased this is funny because it can be interpreted as either a pro gun or anti gun statement:
1. Civilians should be able to keep or carry a firearm without a license.
2. No civilian should be able to keep or carry a firearm.
In America licenses are not generally required to purchase handguns, rifles, or shotguns except in the more restrictive states. And each year more and more states are trending towards being able to carry without a permit as well.
> In America licenses are not generally required to purchase handguns...
Now I understand why police in the USA is so aggressive when they expect citizens to be armed. People are talking 'defund police' while problem lies in Constitution.
It's a failsafe to have a chance to fight in case the government and enough of its military and commanders become tyrannical.
Different systems (democratic vs. tyrannical) have a different spread of when and how violence occurs. Gun violence, which can be lessened in America once adequate policy is in place to prevent dis-progression and heal mind-body-soul vs. genocide by CCP of specific population who didn't want to fall in line with CCP rule.
I actually agree that the 2nd amendment exists for this purpose (protect against a tyrannical government) and think that is a good thing. An armed private citizen stands zero chance of effecting any defense against our military. None. Zero. It'd be a joke. Futile. Even the most practiced and prepared "militias" would fairly quickly be put down if the full might and focus of the US military where to be trained on them. The most a militia could hope for in such a scenario would be a guerilla warfare style protracted conflict combined with broadcasting a message that would win over the hearts and minds of the general public, that would then cause the US military to stop due to political, not military reasons. But such an outcome is unlikely in the scenario you're presenting, because the military would be controlled by a tyrant, not the public.
One thing to note is that under current law you cannot stockpile weapons. And you cannot create bio weapons or cyber weapons. You have no access to massive bombs. The 2nd amendment, in my opinion, has become an excuse for individual to own weapons that are dangerous to private citizens and the safety of the public but of no consequence in a fight against a tyrannical government.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Note the "a well regulated Militia" and "a free State"
Militia is capitalized. As is State. In politics (and generally internationally "State" has a very different meaning than is commonly used in the USA (in modern times, the founding fathers used it more in line with the way international law understands it to mean). To keep it short, the National Guard, again in my opinion, very effectively fulfills the purposed intended of this amendment. It is a well regulated militia that the State can direct to mount an effective defense against a tyrannical Federal government.
There’s no law banning the “stockpiling” of weapons in any locale of the United States or at the federal level. You can own hundreds of rifles, shotguns, and handguns even in places like NYC as long as you purchase/possess/register the guns in accordance with all local laws.
I should have said "effectively". There is no law saying that explicitly, however, try stockpiling 1000 weapons of the same sort in a manner not meant to be difficult to be noticed and see how long it takes for you to be on someones radar.
If you call that an "effective" defense, yeah idk what to say. We went in there with impunity, didn't even use the full capabilities of our forces, changed their government, killed over a hundred thousand of people, destroyed their economy, incapacitated their military... So can one individual cause a little damage to the US military? Sure. I wouldn't call it effective by any measure.
It wouldn't be 100% of the military that would likely fall to tyranny or be controlled by a tyrant - there would be splintering and sides taken, who then can support and organize civilian militias.
There's really too much nuance and variables to argue this easily such as state of society, how rich or impoverished they are, how healthy or unhealthy they are - including their education - how open their heart and mind is, and so on.
A strong stable or stabilizing system - democracy in this case - that is capable of returning to the homeostasis with a forward-evolving movement will take an impressive attack to knock it down.
Of course there are bad actors who are trying to do such a thing, and due to all factors Biden won the election - and the Democrats won the Senate as well - so they can implement policy without being blocked by Republicans (nor extorted by giving $ trillions to corporations leveraging the need for stimulus-survival cheques) - and hopefully they implement new policies that will strengthen America and its democracy.
I believe Andrew Yang's core policies are the answer to breaking apart the duopoly and taking away the amalgamated power of the small handful of mainstream media channels (TV and newspapers) that amplify and support the duopoly: Democracy Dollars, Journalism Dollars, Ranked Choice Voting, Freedom Dividend/UBI, and Government Healthcare Option ("Medicare For All") to compete against the status quo - so people can become healthy and do their best to prevent dis-ease.
I agree with you that the State is an additional layer to reduce, limit, de-risk the potential of tyranny - perhaps then private gun ownership then becomes a layer against each State potentially becoming tyrannical, and if the State starts clamping down on people with bad behaviour - control-oppression-violence - to too severe of a degree, then arguably people will start moving to another State that is in line with their own values.
It's all about organization, alignment, and readying for defending against the different layers of potential conflict - whether citizen to citizen, citizen to State, citizen to Federal, State to Federal, Federal to Federal - the fight for democracy-freedom vs. tyranny, globally.
Edit to add: It's important when reasoning to understand how these situations unfold - they don't happen overnight and there is time to organize. There will be peak moments that act as signals - whether things are evolving or devolving: Biden was elected is one signal from one side, the continued attempted coup the other day, where sadly a handful of people died, is another signal from the side; like the genocide of Uighurs in China by the CCP is a signal from one side, on global scale. Generally the side that acts first in a physical violence means will be the less rational one, more aggressive and using anger which will blind them to some degree - "blind rage." This is why economic pressure via multi-lateral trade agreements between Democracies is the best starting solution - and with other policy can quickly reenforce the internal strength of those currently leaking economic value, ROI et al, to a bad actor who won't fall in line with freedom, health, non-violence, and so on; none of this is to say the US isn't guilty in some areas of unnecessary violence.
No conservative voice has value, in your mind? Surely there is a word of difference between a conservative voice and the voice of a confederacy advocate, or similar far-right voice?
Does conservative mean something different in the US?
Billy Bob is a name stereotypically used to refer to someone to imply that they are rural, ignorant and/or unsophisticated.
Billy Bob (short for William Robert) at one time was a common set of first names for Americans that lived in country areas.
> We also disallow content alleging widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of a historical U.S. Presidential election.
How can any honest person accept this state of affairs? What would be the reaction of the gleefully censorious US big tech employees, many here on HN, if non-US social media giant enacted such measures in their locality?
I don't see evidence that the 2020 election stolen from the Republican candidate, but this is a huge red flag that something might be going on. It would absolutely be consdiered as such were this happening elsewhere.
> but this is a huge red flag that something might be going on
On the contrary. This is an indicator of the Republican claims being based on no evidence. The fact that these lies happen to be incredibly damaging to the perception of US democracy is a good enough reason for a private company to decide not to host it.
It's not part of an even larger coverup, as you seem to believe. Do you know how many people would need to be involved on a coverup of this scale? How is that even remotely close to being the right explanation.
To be clear, I did not say this is part of a larger coverup, as you seem to believe. I stated, quite clearly, I see no evidence that anything particularly strange has happened.
I suggested that a major tech firm banning content which challenges election results, not only this most recent election, would be considered a red flag if it were to happen anywhere else.
The majority of big tech people live in D+∞ areas. Given that, and the likely bias that comes as a result, it isn't unreasonable to not want their influence on what political opinions are or are not able to be said aloud.
> The fact that these lies happen to be incredibly damaging to the perception of US democracy is a good enough reason for a private company to decide not to host it.
This is the narrative, yes. Where is the evidence that Trump and his followers screaming about election fraud has damaged the perception of US democracy? So far, it appears that the system did the thing it was supposed to do: Trump is being removed from his office.
If people telling lies about a system is sufficient to destroy that system, then perhaps the system needs to die and be replaced with something less refutable.
Is democracy really so fragile?
A free society increasingly appears to be, as censorship ramps up.
>I don't see evidence that the 2020 election stolen from the Republican candidate, but this is a huge red flag that something might be going on.
The US tech giants have done all they can to back the Democrat party in the last 4 years and now they're seeing through their final act. You can't make all your moves at once, that would play the hand, but little by little chip away at it and slowly boil the frog.
Whether it's evidence of something being amiss, or a red flag that there's substance to the conspiracies, matters not to me. This whole ordeal has proven that the US* and its tech masters are no better than their Chinese counterparts when it comes to propaganda and censorship.
Whether they go the next step further and try to "re-educate" their opponents, as some have pondered on social media, is something we'll soon see play out in the new year.
Conspiracy or not, stolen election or not, the thirst and exercise of information (and disinformation) control is very, very real.
*I have no doubt that the effectiveness of this tech weaponry will be studied and emulated throughout the Western world in the coming years.
I can't comprehend why an average civilian would need license to keep and/or carry a firearm. None of the arguments seem to stack up, at least, from my perspective.