zlacker

>>KenCoc+(OP)
I can't wait until the part where we all don't talk about gun control and carry on as usual. Sigh.

EDIT: I see my post is being downvoted. I know that it may come across as insensitive to immediately leap to the gun control debate, but frankly I'm more angry than upset by this news. How many times does it have to happen? We have a good 48 hours of emotional outpouring and then everyone forgets it ever happened.

>>untog+M
I say the same thing when people in oppressive regimes are silenced with no recourse because the government has no reason to fear it's own citizens. Sigh. I did not downvote your post, but frankly I'm angry that you just assume everyone who is pro-2nd amendment just isn't as enlightened as you are.

>>TallGu+G1
The weapons needed to resist a regime are not weapons we allow people to generally have in America at any rate.

If we really believed in the 2nd Amendment, people would be allowed to own serious weapons of war but not be allowed to own concealable personal firearms.

>>DannoH+A2
Hardly. Just because the public doesn't have nuclear weapons doesn't mean that they are incapable of resisting an oppressive regime. Ordinary firearms are for more than sufficient for that purpose. A populace doesn't need to be able to defeat conventional armies on an open battlefield in order to resist oppression. What would be the likely result of, say, an American insurgency against an oppressive government? You wouldn't see militias fighting against tanks, that's just stupid. You would see widespread assassination. You'd see guerrilla attacks on police forces and so forth. You'd see guerrilla forces with ordinary firearms making targeted attacks to gain access to more powerful weaponry. You'd see the public at large making life more difficult for the forces of the regime while giving support to the forces of the insurgency.

A mass of civilians aren't going to be able to stand up to a column of tanks easily, but just a hundred civilians armed with AR-15s are going to be able to stand up even to massed police forces. And if an insurgency is supported by the public at large then life is not going to be easy for the police and the military. This is the way that all guerrilla wars go, and there are many examples of successful insurgencies when they have widespread popular support, even against very well armed government forces.

>>Inclin+z5
This is precisely true. You need not look further than America's troubled middle east wars to see how devastating a small guerrilla force can be. Some of the insurgents are using Mosin-Nagant rifles, a Russian bolt-action rifle that dates back to 1891!

>>jevins+D6
It's also worth pointing out that in Iraq, for example, the insurgents did not have very much popular support and yet still made things tough for the most powerful conventional army in history. In fact, it was the erosion of that small amount of popular support that turned things around, as much as it was the increased troop levels in the surge before the US finally completely pulled out.