LogFAQs > #897033356

Rasmoh posted...

Also, anything that dismisses the contingency of fighting a tyrannical government is absolute bullshit.

Can we please put this bullshit fantasy to bed? Ignoring that the idea of a tyrant seizing power in the United States is patently ridiculous, civilian access to arms has never - not once - overthrown a tyrannical government, in the US or anywhere else, and it never will.

News flash: civilians do not violently depose governments; militaries do. The fate of any popular revolution is completely dependent on whether or not the military supports it (or, if they do not, whether the rebels can find an ally outside the country willing to support them militarily). If the military supports, or at least is tolerant of, the revolution, it will succeed (see: Egypt, Ukraine). If they remain on the side of the government, the uprising will fail (see: Iran, Syria, Bahrain, countless others) unless another military intervenes.

This is doubly true of a country with as powerful a military as the United States. If a tyrant were to somehow rise to power in the US, either they will have the allegiance of the military, in which case any civilian uprising would be swiftly and brutally crushed by the most powerful military force on the planet, or they would not, in which case the military would be able to topple the dictator at their leisure and the civilian milita would be wholly unnecessary.

And this all tiptoes around the logical loophole no one ever seems to bring up in these debates: there's no guarantee that gun owners wouldn't be on the side of the tyrant. After all, guns for all means the tyrant's loyalists would have just as much opportunity to arm themselves as anyone else (probably more, given that they're the ones planning on installing a dictatorial regime).

Troll_Police_ posted...

i consider every bit of freedom to be valuable because i am a fucking adult and i can make my own decisions.

If you were an adult, you might realise that freedoms are a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves.

For instance, we have freedom of speech not so we can all say "piss shit ball fuck", but so that we can do things like peacefully assemble, disagree with the government, and worship whatever god we want and not worry about being tossed in jail.

"Muh freedom" is a juvenile argument, one that attempts to close off the debate without actually making any substantive declaration of fact. If you actually want to be taken seriously, you need to articulate what end that freedom will be used in pursuit of, and why it's worth any costs associated with said freedom.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!