Why is there so much hate for guns?

[raildogg]

One can easily make a thread labeled "Why is there so much desire to acquire guns?"

Ok, so lets see. It is to protect ourselves from those dangerous animals. So how many people live in areas where a gun is required to keep one safe from these beasts? Maybe 1% of the population?

The other reason might be to provide food for the family. Again, there might be more efficient means of getting food. A gun, a bullet, a license, gas, possible danger to oneself in the forest etc. might be cost prohibitive. For a family living in Montana, 50 miles from a grocery store, might this be necessary to eat? Sure. But that still doesn't explain why so many millions of others want guns.

One reason that gets mentioned is personal safety. So one gets a gun to protect oneself from a "bad guy." Now what if everyone is armed? Will that prevent bad things from happening or will our trigger happy fingers be more likely responsible for accidents etc.? In this society we live, people can't do anything without assistance and guidance etc. Yet we want to arm them. So this desire for guns in this example stems out of fear.

The fear of the government is also a reason that is mentioned. But what is the reality? I understand hypothetical situations where the government takes away your land etc. But that is not what is reality. So you're preparing for something that may not happen? Even if it does, you think your little gun will protect you?

Sorry guys I may have went a bit far but these reasons come up often.

 

[irishScott]

The point is that having citizens with guns is not even a real deterrent to the government misbehaving. The reason why our government has been mostly functional for the course of American history is because the system of democracy has accountability built in and so you can replace your leaders as necessary.

If the US military wanted to crush you, it would crush you. And obviously the US military doesn't just have tanks. There's plenty of mechanisms for dealing with guerrilla warfare. I'm not saying it'd be a slam dunk victory. It'd be ugly.

But once again acting like you have some noble cause of keeping the government in check with your guns is pretty ridiculous.

The argument for home defense is great, but this whole fantasy of revolution and some foreign power invading and pulling an Afghanistan is kinda ridiculous.

Yes, armed revolt has not been deemed necessary for over a century and a half now, and likely won't be for at least a century more. That's nice. That doesn't mean it's an obsolete or irrelevant concept, just that the founders did a very, very, very good job.

An armed revolt is the final check against governmental abuse, and is a fundamental right of anyone, American or no.

Afghanistan is about the size of Texas, and is supplied primarily by one, long, highly protected supply line running through Pakistan.

If, say, the populations of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico (just throwing out names) decided to revolt, the US military literally does not have the resources to secure all 3 states at once. To do so effectively would require protection of thousands of supply lines at once and recall of almost all overseas troops.

As I said, they could go total war, start carpet-bombing, incurring massive civilian causalities, ie they could "crush" a revolt, but I doubt the American people would tolerate such things in the information age. Not to mention likely military defections to the side of the rebels.


I'm not saying it would be easy, it would have to be a very widespread and very committed movement, but to poo-poo a guerrilla revolt and assume the US military is invincible (because, you know, our track record with guerrilla wars is just fucking perfect...) is disingenuous.

It's not a fantasy, far from it. There's nothing appealing about a civil war. It's just a fact.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

In Syria they took a military base with small arms.

Its not about military vs population, they have better equipment. Its about forcing the military to fire on civilians. It kills their morale. Then they join the civilians instead of the politicians. Like in Egypt.

The actual fighting doesn't matter. Loyalty matters. With an armed population the soldiers have to live on the base since its not safe anywhere else and morale plummets.

You should try reading the news sometime because there are recent precedents for it mattering if the population has small arms or not. There are places where the population got the proverbial boot on the face in the arab spring. The unarmed ones :awe:

Who cares about in my lifetime. You really think America will be stable forever? What about 400 years from now. They'd be so pissed if things went south and people in 2013 took away the right to bear arms. All empires seem to last 400-700 years or so.

I agree that having the military fire on civilians causes morale to plummet. That's a huge deterrent in a revolution. You want to use the military to squash the opposition but you can't do so by steamrolling them and slaughtering them. You have to subdue the uprising in a diplomatic fashion. But this isn't really about guns.

A revolution can take place whether or not that country has gun laws or not. In western nations, we have installed parties and officials that can be removed when things go sour. The whole concept is to not have to resort to revolution and anarchy to change things up. Sure guns are there as a last resort, but at that point hasn't democracy failed us? I mean yeah, when America looks like it's gonna crumble and descend into chaos and I need to protect my family, I'll definitely cite that as a large reason why I've got an armory in my house, but we're nowhere near that, so really it's just a fantasy for many.

Once again, home defense I can understand, but we're not living in some sort of rocky America where our guns are the only thing that's preventing the government from screwing us over, like we're one step away from a ruthless dictatorship.

 

[Absolution75]

It is better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have one...

Depending on where you are living, a "shit hits the fan" situation could be fairly realistic. Katrina would be an example of one of those situations. You still may not need it, but it adds a bit of security. If you live next to a major fault line, active volcano, hurricane magnet area, experience an extreme blizzard, get hit by a tornado, emergency services could be clogged up for days/weeks/months. Any call to emergency services is likely be ended with "Sorry, we are too busy for that", or "We'll be there in 4 hours".

The blizzard example is a bit of a stretch as it has been proven that thieves hate cold weather. Not sure about murders/etc though.

 

[Lithium381]

FYI average police response time in my city is over 12 minutes. . . . San Jose CA

At least it was last october. . think about that. 12 minutes.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

FYI average police response time in my city is over 12 minutes. . . . San Jose CA

At least it was last october. . think about that. 12 minutes.

6.57 minutes according to the City of San Jose website "where there is a present or imminent danger to life or major damage/loss of property" This was for Q4 2011-2012. Maybe it doubled in 2012.

You're right. If you believe that your gun will protect you in these situations, absolutely. You should exercise your rights.

 

[Lithium381]

6.57 minutes according to the City of San Jose website "where there is a present or imminent danger to life or major damage/loss of property" This was for Q4 2011-2012. Maybe it doubled in 2012.

You're right. If you believe that your gun will protect you in these situations, absolutely. You should exercise your rights.

I was going off of this report:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=8845763

 

[bryanl]

There's not, unlike hatred of gun nuts.

 

[boomerang]