I was wrong about Guns

[integral]

For most of my life, I believed guns should be banned entirely because it would reduce the crime rate, and it doesn't make sense that you can buy a gun at Walmart in the United States. For the most part, unregulated guns don't work, with the United States being a perfect example. But guns have a very important purpose, and only one real purpose that matters, which is to take power away from powerful people.

Guns allow you to kill a powerful person, and this is a vital component for limiting corruption. Unfortunately, it goes both ways, giving the powerful more ability to oppress. But when a kid from high school almost ended the life of Donald Trump, it puts things into perspective.

Completely removing access to guns limits the population's ability to regulate their own government. It's part of the social contract the people have with the government. The government is an extremely useful tool, and we give up some freedom so that we can collectively have the freedom we really want. Guns are needed to keep freedom in check.

It's hilarious how guns and freedom truly are connected but then this was idealized by the right wing and demonized by the left.

Edited Sunday at 11:29 PM by integral

[sholomar]

I appreciate you bringing this up and it's also the reason I believe in the right to bear arms because of human nature and I don't trust Human Nature and human nature needs checks and balances to keep power and wealth from concentrating too much. If you have a dictator coming to power it's helpful to be armed. If the populace is not armed then they're powerless to do anything about the situation and this is the entire reason the founding fathers put the Second Amendment into the constitution. They were aware of human nature because it hasn't changed much in 250 years or 2,000 years. 

That said, I would argue that we should have better regulations in place to make sure only stable well-trained people are using them and I would probably raise the age to 21 because people mature a lot slower these days. However that's not going to happen anytime soon and I'm okay with that.

Edited Monday at 04:39 AM by sholomar

[Hojo]

Why not assign citizens guns in someway that has nothing to do with government and lock them away and let them go get it when they want to protect themselves from the government. The call of the void is a real thing. People especially when socially conditioned to be insane and guns are not a good combo.

Do you think if the government stops using guns and only drones with bombs to kill, that citizens should be able to get their own drone bombers to defend themselves against the government?

Edited Monday at 02:57 PM by Hojo

[Kairos]

15 hours ago, integral said:

Guns allow you to kill a powerful person, and this is a vital component for limiting corruption.

Corruption is a systematic problem . Killing a person or two makes no difference.

Look at Luigi Mangione case . Will the Healthcare system change now ?Of course Not.

There is no real way to defend against government , even with guns .

 

[gettoefl]

Access to guns simply increases the share price of bullet proof armour companies

You will never kill me as I already know your plans and am three steps ahead

Your ideals will simply militarize the entire nation to the damning detriment of all

Guns are dumb because we have all been angry enough to wrongly pull that trigger in our worst moment no matter how enlightened we are

 

Edited Monday at 03:56 PM by gettoefl

[sholomar]

2 hours ago, Hojo said:

Why not assign citizens guns in someway that has nothing to do with government and lock them away and let them go get it when they want to protect themselves from the government. The call of the void is a real thing. People especially when socially conditioned to be insane and guns are not a good combo.

Do you think if the government stops using guns and only drones with bombs to kill, that citizens should be able to get their own drone bombers to defend themselves against the government?

I mean, if the government wants to badly enough they're going to slaughter their own citizens, and for what? To implement some "do as I say" top down authoritarian style of governance from some "utopian" dictator?  Communism will never work as long as it's based on an autocratic system where only a few individuals control policy and the people have no voice or vote.  It becomes dependent on benevolent leadership which given human nature is the exception, not the rule, given the type of people who tend to seek power.  One could practice radical acceptance of what is... if it's my time, it's my time... we live but a blink of an eye in the relative age of this planet and universe anyways... just don't stick me incarnating in a North Korean dystopia where life is brutal for no other reason than to appease the dictator.  In such an extreme example they break your soul from birth, taking away any desire you have to fight back.

Edited Monday at 05:03 PM by sholomar

[Leo Gura]

18 hours ago, integral said:

Completely removing access to guns limits the population's ability to regulate their own government.

Sounds nice in theory but don't work in practice.

Many countries more developed than the USA have banned guns. Yet their government is more responsive and healthy than American government.

America has endless guns yet the government is no better off for it. The guns do not help an advanced society better itself.

You're not going to regulate Federal government with guns. It's just not a real scenario. You can do some terrorism and that's about it. This terrorism will not create meaningful improvement.

It's a fantasy. A gun fantasy.

A society in which people are using guns to regulate government is not a society anyone would want to live in. That would be like the Congo or Sudan.

The truth is that Americans are lost in a gun fantasy.

The bottom line is that violence begets violence. Which is the whole reason why the state has a monopoly on power. To effectively challenge the state through violence you need tanks and planes, not ARs. And even then it works poorly, as you can see from Ukraine, Iraq, Palestine.

Palestine shows you what happens when you try to challenge a state with small arms and homemade bombs. The state will just hunt you down and execute you. People who think they can challenge a state with small arms guerilla tactics are delusional, living in a fantasy. That kind of thing can only work in very undeveloped and corrupt places like Afghanistan or Sudan.

Edited Monday at 05:36 PM by Leo Gura

[Miguel1]

Here in Finland, citizens do not have permission and access to guns.

We have one of the least, if not the least corrupted governments.

[HelluvaGuy]

37 minutes ago, Miguel1 said:

Here in Finland, citizens do not have permission and access to guns.
 

??? That is certainly news to me.

You sure about this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Finland

 

[Miguel1]

2 hours ago, HelluvaGuy said:

??? That is certainly news to me.

You sure about this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Finland

 

Well, let me be very precise:

Gun ownership laws in Finland are much stricter compared to the United States.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Research some of the changes that occured in Australia regarding gun laws, and the positive onflow effects. 

I was close enough to hear (and was local to, same suburb) the Julian knight Hoddle street massacre, and remember well the Port Arthur massacre. 

Regulations reduced the extensive loss of life caused.

Guns weren't banned, tighter regulations were introduced. Net positive 

[Jayson G]

4 hours ago, Miguel1 said:

Here in Finland, citizens do not have permission and access to guns.

We have one of the least, if not the least corrupted governments.

@Miguel1 that probably explains why finland's education system is pretty good, a less corrupt government, maybe. 

[Rafael Thundercat]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Sounds nice in theory but don't work in practice.

Many countries more developed than the USA have banned guns. Yet their government is more responsive and healthy than American government.

America has endless guns yet the government is no better off for it. The guns do not help an advanced society better itself.

You're not going to regulate Federal government with guns. It's just not a real scenario. You can do some terrorism and that's about it. This terrorism will not create meaningful improvement.

It's a fantasy. A gun fantasy.

A society in which people are using guns to regulate government is not a society anyone would want to live in. That would be like the Congo or Sudan.

The truth is that Americans are lost in a gun fantasy.

The bottom line is that violence begets violence. Which is the whole reason why the state has a monopoly on power. To effectively challenge the state through violence you need tanks and planes, not ARs. And even then it works poorly, as you can see from Ukraine, Iraq, Palestine.

Palestine shows you what happens when you try to challenge a state with small arms and homemade bombs. The state will just hunt you down and execute you. People who think they can challenge a state with small arms guerilla tactics are delusional, living in a fantasy. That kind of thing can only work in very undeveloped and corrupt places like Afghanistan or Sudan.

 

[Leo Gura]

Von Clausewitz got it backwards.

Politics is a continuation of war by other means.

Edited Tuesday at 12:07 AM by Leo Gura

[ryandesreu]

Guns need stronger regulations but not banned altogether. Hand guns can benefit women or physically weak people defending themselves and their homes vs attackers for example.

When you have a president like Trump coming into office, we might just be better off keeping our AR-15s for the time being lol. Just a thought.

Edited Tuesday at 12:35 AM by ryandesreu

[Hardkill]

OP, don't tell me the right-wing media got you.

Do you realize that America has more mass shootings than every other developed nation in the world combined?

Also, while I'm uncertain about the future of America under Trump's potential second term, I'm honestly still ambivalent about the need for everyday citizens to own guns. Throughout America's history as a sovereign nation, there hasn't really been a significant instance where citizens needed to protect themselves from government tyranny.

Given the current level of freedom and fairness enjoyed by people of all backgrounds in America, one could argue that there's even less justification for widespread gun ownership.

Historically, the Second Amendment originally meant that only US Citizens who were part of a well-regulated militia could own a gun; however, SCOTUS in the early 2000s twisted the interpretation of that amendment by ruling that the right to bear arms extends to individual ownership and use.

Has there ever been a time when the people of your country needed guns to protect themselves from government tyranny?

Also, watch professor Lichtman explain why there needs to be heavy gun control throughout the entire nation:

 

[eliasvelez]

On 6.1.2025 at 0:25 AM, integral said:

For most of my life, I believed guns should be banned entirely because it would reduce the crime rate, and it doesn't make sense that you can buy a gun at Walmart in the United States. For the most part, unregulated guns don't work, with the United States being a perfect example. But guns have a very important purpose, and only one real purpose that matters, which is to take power away from powerful people.

Guns allow you to kill a powerful person, and this is a vital component for limiting corruption. Unfortunately, it goes both ways, giving the powerful more ability to oppress. But when a kid from high school almost ended the life of Donald Trump, it puts things into perspective.

Completely removing access to guns limits the population's ability to regulate their own government. It's part of the social contract the people have with the government. The government is an extremely useful tool, and we give up some freedom so that we can collectively have the freedom we really want. Guns are needed to keep freedom in check.

It's hilarious how guns and freedom truly are connected but then this was idealized by the right wing and demonized by the left.

Posts like this show me how much different the american bubble is than the european. Almost nobody in Europe would say something like this because it doesnt is that easy. 

Edited Tuesday at 09:01 AM by eliasvelez

[Alex4]

If you think you can defeat the powerful U.S. army with your recreational weapons, you're mistaken. Not everyone should own a weapon, and I believe it's a good thing that access to them is restricted in Europe. We don’t need that cringy wannabe badass American culture here.

[Basman]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Sounds nice in theory but don't work in practice.

Many countries more developed than the USA have banned guns. Yet their government is more responsive and healthy than American government.

America has endless guns yet the government is no better off for it. The guns do not help an advanced society better itself.

You're not going to regulate Federal government with guns. It's just not a real scenario. You can do some terrorism and that's about it. This terrorism will not create meaningful improvement.

It's a fantasy. A gun fantasy.

A society in which people are using guns to regulate government is not a society anyone would want to live in. That would be like the Congo or Sudan.

The truth is that Americans are lost in a gun fantasy.

The bottom line is that violence begets violence. Which is the whole reason why the state has a monopoly on power. To effectively challenge the state through violence you need tanks and planes, not ARs. And even then it works poorly, as you can see from Ukraine, Iraq, Palestine.

Palestine shows you what happens when you try to challenge a state with small arms and homemade bombs. The state will just hunt you down and execute you. People who think they can challenge a state with small arms guerilla tactics are delusional, living in a fantasy. That kind of thing can only work in very undeveloped and corrupt places like Afghanistan or Sudan.

But Leo, in your "when does the left go too far?" series you said "it could be done" relative to a citizen population resisting its government, citing Afghanistan as an example. Have you changed your mind on that premise?

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Basman said:

But Leo, in your "when does the left go too far?" series you said "it could be done" relative to a citizen population resisting its government, citing Afghanistan as an example. Have you changed your mind on that premise?

It's a matter of perspective.

Maybe it could be done, but you wouldn't want to live in such a society. Because you're talking about a civil war. You wanna live in civil war?

Not that that's seriously gonna happen. But even in the wildest fantasies of it happening, how does this benefit anyone?

Gun-fantasy conservatives are too ignorant to understand the costs of war.

Afghanistan is not something we should model in the West.

Edited Tuesday at 04:05 PM by Leo Gura