I'm tired of hearing this particular argument against the Second Amendment:

[Sknyjdwb]

I loves my guns but I think I love InterAirplay more for that last post. I nearly pee'd myself.

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

Yet normally in a battle between terrorists and US military 100 terrorists die and 1 US soldier dies so the terrorists will call it a victory.
Even though the US military suck "Hmm who do I shoot? Oh right my own troops" 0.o

Yes, in a straight up fight with air and armor support the insurgents always got whooped.

But what about all those roadside bombs that were so effective? US causalities: 3 killed, 5 wounded with 2 crippled for life, $3.16 million M2 Bradley damaged beyond repair. Insurgents: some 155mm shells or whatever, a Nokia cell phone, no personnel losses.

The thing is the American army is so big and vast when they invaded Iraq, Iraq did a damn good job of defending itself. They can say they won but it is like a team of Grade 1's saying they one the soccer match because they got one goal against University students who got 24.

 

[Firehound]

At your first argument, I have to say that no it is not what you claim, it is more like the equivelent of telling a kid his nerf gun is not as effective as an AR-15. All it does is make him want something bigger.

And why is this against the second amendment? Last time I checked that was for an armed militia in case of invasion. Pretty much gaining and holding territory in America would be hell- if only from the chaos caused by fanatics on American soil pulling guerilla action.

Think WWII Japanese island cave system, and you probably have about how fast an army would be able to move if it wasn't planning on just firebombing every population center it passed. There are people out there in america with the weaponry to actually take down most modern weapons, It'd be just a pain in the ass to run supplies.

 

[Trildor]

It amuses me how Americans see their civilians as a brave, unbeatable guerrilla force willing to fight to the end.

 

[shreedder]

1) This should be in the religion and politics section.

2) I have never herd that argument used by anyone.

3) their are far better arguments on both sides of the coin, so arguing this one seems pointless.

 

[TheEnglishman]

You're right, there are so many better reasons why Americans shouldn't be able to have access to guns, for a starters they're Americans, lets give them water pistols for a few decades and see if they're any better than.

 

[shreedder]

You're right, there are so many better reasons why Americans shouldn't be able to have access to guns, for a starters they're Americans, lets give them water pistols for a few decades and see if they're any better than.

we would drown ourselves.

 

[ReverendJ]

Does there need to be stricter gun control laws? Hell yes. Do guns need to be respected more? Again, yes. Are guns themselves dangerous? Well, that depends. Depends on the person wielding the weapon. Just like a pen in the wrong hands can lead to a lot of damage, so too can a gun in the wrong hands. It's just that a gun's last word is usually non negotiable. At least, with ink, lives aren't in immediate danger.

So the question is, do you assume the average citizen is a responsible individual concerned with the well-being of themselves and others, or a borderline sociopath who is looking for a reason? I prefer the first. Yeah, people may be jerks in general, but your average person isn't Loughner; they're the guy throwing himself in front of his wife. When I look around and see many people with guns, I'm not afraid, I'm relaxed. Most of those people are law-abiding citizens with a concern for not only their own safety, but also the safety of others, because people are basically kind of inherently 'good.'

Additionally, one can't always expect the police to be around and/or useful. I won't jump right into horrific anecdotal details here, but suffice it to say for the moment that citizens need to be able to protect themselves. The law-abiding will follow regulations preventing them from owning guns, but individuals who've already decided to break society's number one taboo feel no such restrictions...

 

[Firehound]

It amuses me how Americans see their civilians as a brave, unbeatable guerrilla force willing to fight to the end.

Nah, I don't see them as that, just an annoying roadblock. Look at the russian partisans. Their choices were firepit or aesthetically different firepit. They did their part in slowing down the germans, and spreading them thin and they didn't particularily like either choice.

Obviously, people who like their government are going to fight harder then those who were meh about both sides. and only slightly prefered their own government because it meant they were only very likely to die instead of asssured of it.

 

[sageoftruth]

the US military aren't allowed to blow up expected bases or attack people without authorization due to the 'Human rights protesters'

Oh horseshit. Human rights protestors have about zero effect on how the US military conducts itself in the field.

Sorry I meant the US law, which was influenced by these people in the past my bad.

Inconvenient as it may be, portraying the US military as the good guys amongs the people in Afghanistan is just as important in winning the war, since it cuts down on Taliban/Al Queda recruitment. Both books and magazines have been stating how the war won't truly be won until the country becomes stable and Al Queda has lost its influence over the people.

 

[zfactor]

Ain't that the truth. I liked your second point. It's an idea I hadn't thought of. I know that dictators from by-gone ages have said the best way to oppress the people is to keep them from defending themselves. Guns are a great protection. On a related note, my brother loves a quote from a Japanese General who said, "WE will never invade America as there is a gun behind every blade of grass." A nation's best defense is its people.

That was actually the reason we nuked them.

They were training everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) how to fight. How to stab, bludgeon, shank, choke, maim, and blow up (the suicide bomber way) enemy soldiers and vehicles. Our losses would have been REALLY high. About 1 million. And most of Japan. They prefer death over surrender.

 

[La Barata]

Yet normally in a battle between terrorists and US military 100 terrorists die and 1 US soldier dies so the terrorists will call it a victory.
Even though the US military suck "Hmm who do I shoot? Oh right my own troops" 0.o

"Who do I shoot? Oh, right, the Canadian troops" more like.

 

[Plurralbles]

Banning guns woul djust make hte black market that much more dangerous, therefore I don't see how it can be said that it is a good idea to ignore the 2nd.

one of the reasons the american forces were so effective in WWII(in the relative sense) is that the rural boys had a gun since they were 10 and a car in the garage. The soldiers, sailors, and airmen were able to lead their targets better than the opposition and they could better fix tanks and other vehicles due to the experience they had with motorized transport back in the states.

Today the country gives tons of training, but I feel that it helps to be able to have experience with the tools of war in every day civilian life, it keeps it so that the draft can be effective if it needs to happen. COD doesn't cut it.

 

[La Barata]

Ain't that the truth. I liked your second point. It's an idea I hadn't thought of. I know that dictators from by-gone ages have said the best way to oppress the people is to keep them from defending themselves. Guns are a great protection. On a related note, my brother loves a quote from a Japanese General who said, "WE will never invade America as there is a gun behind every blade of grass." A nation's best defense is its people.

That was actually the reason we nuked them.

They were training everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) how to fight. How to stab, bludgeon, shank, choke, maim, and blow up (the suicide bomber way) enemy soldiers and vehicles. Our losses would have been REALLY high. About 1 million. And most of Japan. They prefer death over surrender.

Yeah, they trained kids to run under tanks with suicide bombs and such.

As well, yeah, he has a really good point. Let's say there's an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse. Who'd be our best defense? Not the military, they'd be spread god knows how thin. Same with the police. The street gangs would, hands down, be our greatest protection. Alien, zombie or rival gang, anyone straying onto their turf is for it. We'd have hundreds of willing, self armed militia.

 

[zfactor]

Yeah, they trained kids to run under tanks with suicide bombs and such.

As well, yeah, he has a really good point. Let's say there's an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse. Who'd be our best defense? Not the military, they'd be spread god knows how thin. Same with the police. The street gangs would, hands down, be our greatest protection. Alien, zombie or rival gang, anyone straying onto their turf is for it. We'd have hundreds of willing, self armed militia.

Of course, the street gangs aren't exactly great with guns. They tend to spray entire streets with death and get bystanders killed A LOT. Plus, they are mostly teenagers who think they are awesome and can kill someone from down the street with one bullet. And they can't. So not the best bet in a Zombipocolypse (Zombie Apocolypse... LOLZ) because they would burn through all their ammo in 5 seconds and can't wield chainsaws or katanas very well.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

2) What will this hypothetical tyrannical government use to oppress the people? The military of course! Who is the military? The people themselves! Who do you think flies those planes and pilots those tanks? Your neighbors, your friends, your former classmates from high school. I think people overestimate the willingness of the National Guard and U.S. armed forces to massacre their fellow citizens.

On the one major occasion Americans were tested as to their readiness to kill other Americans, they took to it with enthusiasm. It was called the American Civil War, you may have heard of it. Basically in any situation where one side has spent enough time dehumanizing the other, effective war is possible. And in the modern world, getting modern generals to defect from the Feds' forces would be a hell of a lot harder than it was in the era of the ACW; high-tech warfare needs resources on a scale that you can't hope to match with breakaway secessionist economies.

Oh, the civil war? When America was an incredibly sectionalist nation, and had been since it's inception? Where you pretty much stayed in the state you were born in your whole life, because it took so much time and effort to travel? Yes, that completely applies to today.

 

[Jonluw]

An armed citizenry in the United States cannot stand up to tyranny of government in today's day and age. Our AR-15s and handguns are useless against AC-130s and cruise missiles and Predator drones and F-16s! If the government wants to oppress you, they will.

There are several things that immediately come to mind whenever I hear or read this:

1) This is equivalent to telling a child that he is banned from owning baseball bats for the rest of his life because he sucks at baseball.

I would do that if baseball bats could kill people from 1000 feet away.

2) What will this hypothetical tyrannical government use to oppress the people? The military of course! Who is the military? The people themselves! Who do you think flies those planes and pilots those tanks? Your neighbors, your friends, your former classmates from high school. I think people overestimate the willingness of the National Guard and U.S. armed forces to massacre their fellow citizens. Keep in mind - the enemy in this situation would not be "brown people" (as George Carlin put it) with a foreign culture and religion in a part of the world most Americans know nothing about - but rather the enemy would be us.

If the hypothetical government has no tool to oppress the people with in the first place, why does your average joe need to stock up with weapons to defend against them?
And if the people are going to get access to the weaponry of the military, why bother with semi-automatic assault-rifles?

3) Finally, people making this argument severely underestimate the effectiveness of low-tech, leaderless resistance. Look at Vietnam, look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan - in all cases the U.S. military had superior technology but nevertheless got locked in a quagmire that sapped their will to fight. In Iraq, militants armed with little more than with assault rifles, cell phones, and improvised explosives did serious damage to the most powerful armed force the world has ever seen.

Now, there we agree. Though that argument is sort of undermined by your other argument that the government couldn't conceivably go against its citizens.
Edit: And one of the strengths such guerrilla groups have is that their opponents can't allow themselves to harm civilians; but if it's the general public vs. their government, I don't think that's going to be much of an issue.

Don't bother to reply, really. I don't want to debate this, it's an incredibly tiresome debate.
Yeah yeah; "why would I reply if I didn't want to debate?" I just felt a really strong urge to point out those things. I don't want to follow it up though. Why? Because it's the evening; I'm tired, and discussing gun-politics is annoying and exhausting. In addition to being completely irrelevant to me.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Oh, the civil war? When America was an incredibly sectionalist nation, and had been since it's inception? Where you pretty much stayed in the state you were born in your whole life, because it took so much time and effort to travel? Yes, that completely applies to today.

No, for today you'd need different factors. A highly polarized populace... maybe the presence of a decades-entrenched and increasingly radicalized right-wing political movement with its own media infrastructure, its own separate educational system from homeschooling through colleges, and a subculture that fantasizes about insurrection and starts militias every time it loses an election might be a start. (Good thing there's nothing like that!) But it would take some extreme catalyst to parlay even that into a civil war and not likely to get anything more than the irregulars to sign on for it, as I said.

I'm not saying Americans wouldn't be unwilling to kill each other, I'm saying the Civil War is a silly place to use as an example.