The actual government
That was the Framers’ intention. It was not for a hunting permit. Do you have a better idea about how to enforce the self-preservation of liberty and freedom from tyranny when the tyrannical government is armed and disposed to use force against a subjugated population? How would you prevent another King George? Say you don’t like Trump and he has all the top guns as the next POTUS and decided to declare a military dictatorship? Sure, they have the most powerful weapons but lawyers aren’t going to help. Wouldn’t you rather fight for freedom than lay down and die in the camps?
This shows ignorance in history but also understanding of warfare. There are too many examples of this: Vietnam as a historical example and Afghanistan as a recent one. Let’s not forget what’s going on in Israel rn vs all the proxies. It’s not necessary to have advanced weaponry to fight a war.
Vietnam as a historical example and Afghanistan as a recent one.
The biggest asset these countries had in their favor was distance from the American industrial core. First Nations people employed many of the same techniques used in Vietnam and Afghanistan but were ruthlessly slaughtered. Guerrilla movements in Latin America - the FARK in Columbia and socialists in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador got massacred by American military power. These countries are wholly within the US sphere of influence now.
Let’s not forget what’s going on in Israel rn vs all the proxies.
Israel is a textbook case of advanced weaponry tilting the playing field. Air superiority, naval support from the US, and a high tech anti-missile/anti-personal system along with one of the most advanced spy networks in the world all allow this relatively tiny nation to punch far outside its weight class. By contrast, less developed countries like Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan routinely serve as punching bags for more advanced states.
Vietnam had field artillery and Soviet fighter jets. They were a real army.
Sure, but a large portion of their fighting against the French and Americans was through guerilla warfare and tactics.
Yeah, and the only reason they won is because it was a logistical nightmare for the country on the other side of the world.
That wouldn’t be the case for a civil war. They have all their army equipment right there.
It’ll be a whole different thing for the government to send military against the population. An armed population should be plenty to keep the cops respectful, and cops are the real problem.
Making them shoot an unarmed group of protesters is much harder than making them shoot an armed one.
Lol, well they had no problems seriously wounding the unarmed BLM protesters by shooting them with “rubber” bullets.
They wouldn’t touch the right wingnuts showed up at protests with guns.
They also wouldn’t touch an armed group distributing food to homeless and needy
They didn’t touch the Bundy’s when they took over the wildlife refuge offices in an armed standoff.
So cops are fine shooting at unarmed people, but if they’re going to face well armed threats they play nice.
Yep. Doesn’t even have to be a group of armed people doing “maybe illegal” things. It can be a single person doing absolutely illegal and horrific things…like Uvalde.
Article I Section 8 Clause 15 Calling Militias
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
I have no idea how the Constitution, which is so clear about the use of militia, has morphed into this fucked up 2A gunfucker bullshit.
Read “insurrections” as slave revolts and you can get a real sense of what the 2a was for.
That gives a certain poetic irony given the put down of the south.
I actually know this one. Federalist no 46 by James Madison. Not arguing against or for it, I just probably know what your fucked up 2a gunfuckers are referring to. either that or John Locke.
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
So, not just to defend ourselves against government powers, but also corporate powers? Someone should update their hitlists.
From left to right:
-
AIM-120 AMRAAM
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AIM-9X Sidewinder
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2x GBU-54s
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Fuel tank
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Sniper pod (for targeting)
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Another fuel tank
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Not sure about that little thing, probably more targeting
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Fuel tank
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4x GBU-39 Small diameter bombs
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AIM-9X
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AIM-120
Sniper pod (for targeting)
I’m just imagining a sniper lying in there, trying to stay on target while flying with mach-fuckton in a tiny metal pod
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Governments are overthrown when the police and military refuse orders, not when they’re outgunned.
Every time this fucking meme is made I’m reminded that the US military is currently being embarrassed in the red sea by a non-state actor with zero air superiority, which began itself with a thousand-or-so civilians with AK47s.
That or how Israel is currently struggling to achieve any kind of military victory against two groups of lightly-armed militias which rely on scavenged and hand-made explosives to defeat state-of-the-art tanks.
Let’s not even remind ourselves about the Taliban.
Pretty much. The US military can take on any other nation state (China is trying to change this, but it’s not there yet). The initial fight against the organized militaries of both Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t last long, and was as much of a one sided curb stomp as you’ll ever see in history. It was the insurgency later on that was the problem.
And all those you named are suffering heavy losses. Good luck bro, I ain’t fighting the US government.
I’m reminded that the US military is currently being embarrassed in the red sea by a non-state actor with zero air superiority
Houthi rebels in Yemen are leveraging the mathematics of actuarial accounting to shut down the Red Sea. The cost of sending a ship into a free-fire zone skyrockets, compared to the cost of simply sailing around the Horn of Africa.
If the Americans were doing the flotilla strategy of the WW2 era - where FDR realized he could build cheap concrete shipping vessels faster than the Germans could sink them - then the Houthis would be an ugly nuisance rather than an insurmountable stopgap.
But international shipping has a zero-margin for losing ships. They’re not sending these things out on the ocean with the expectation of some attrition.
Yeah I guess if we’re doing hypotheticals then perhaps the US could suddenly overhaul its naval shipbuilding capacity, recruit thousands more sailors, and march through North Yemen within a week.
More that we could switch to a smaller and more disposable shipping fleet, where any damage to a ship was negligible to the volume of trade
Or, y’know, Vietnam.
Vietnam was as much a modern war than an insurgency. The Chinese/Soviet govts supplied the PAVN with modern weapons including air defence, armour, and an air force. The Viet Cong were the irregular militia forces that supplemented that. At least by the time of US deployment.
Though then again, that started with a unit of 23 people equipped with a machine gun and two revolvers. It really doesn’t take long for any militia to achieve some serious weaponry if it can get the attention of sympathetic states.
Lmao. Murican gun nuts are not tough bastards like Afghanis or Vietnamese. Do you know what kind of life those people were living before USA invaded?
Most US Yeehawdis will come to their senses without access to Wi-Fi and Walmart for a week.
And that’s an overwhelmingly good thing. The nut jobs and extremists are looking for an excuse to start shit but (as you correctly stated) lack the resolve to finish shit. They want to do a little political violence to feel enfranchised and like they have some control, but they’re not ready to give up everything for a cause. This makes them particularly dangerous.
The real bulwark against government fuckery is the people you don’t hear about: normal folks who happen to have guns. It would take actual, serious grievances against large swathes of the population to make them do something. Because that much larger (and more ideologically diverse) cohort isn’t champing at the but for a fight they haven’t lied to themselves about being able to maintain a normal life and therefore wouldn’t start one lightly. That’s pretty boring, so you only hear about the weirdos.
eh, they could die and let tougher mfs have their guns
So long as you have an endless stream of brain washed kids who are happy to die, as they paradise at the end of a barrel, and are happy the kinds of losses they do you’ll be fine
Whether you see it as brainwashing or principles is irrelevant when they’re still capable of effective military resistance against superior nation-states.
If anything, you’re right; people who are ideologically driven for their cause are the bane of a professional army; ideology is much cheaper and much more motivating than a paycheck and promise of a cushy pension.
Ultimately, it was their resistance and their lives that were irrelevant. America got their oil and the CIA got their opium fields. It was no longer worth the cost of keeping American troops there. So, they pass on the burden of protecting their stolen assets on to the native people. Its textbook neo colonialism.
Call that a loss if you like. Some people won big.
In fairness Israel isn’t struggling to beat Hamas. They could quite handily just carpet bomb the place to oblivion and kill 2 million people. It’s not really any bigger than Grozny, and we saw what even the Russians managed to do to that.
But that doesn’t tend to sit well with anyone, not even the US. Better to commit genocide by making the survivors leave and stealing their land, rather than going full holocaust on them.
Still, they’ve killed 2% of Gaza in a year. Give them 50 more and there won’t be a Gaza Strip.
People who drop these kinds of memes still think warfare is carried out and progresses like it did in the Napoleonic era: two orderly opposed fronts clashing head-to-head in theaters with well-defined boundaries - where the adversary with more guns/people/resources win. Because more guns/people directly equates to military power, right?
These folks would do well to spend even the slightest amount of time learning about fourth generational, guerilla war.
Let’s take this meme back a couple hundred years and cast OP as a counter revolutonary American at the onset of the revolutonary war.
/*Wants to have muskets to fend off british empire
/*british empire:
Starts to seem silly when you realize even our founding fathers were doing guerilla warfare not long ago.
I mean, if you park your navy outside of the enemy’s ports and bombard their cities from the air, it’s gonna make it very difficult for them to hit YOU, but that won’t necessarily break their resistance. Here we’re talking about a civil war tho, that would entail the country bombing itself… which happens, mind you, but it’s not super effective.
It is much easier to push through extreme actions like that against your own population though if some idiots with guns give you a good excuse to fear monger.
Military spending in 2023 (in billions of US dollars):
United States: 916
China: 296
Russia: 109
India: 83.6
People who own a “don’t tread on me” flag: 0*- Rounded to nearest significant figure
Eh, Americans spend something like $10-20B per year on guns and ammo. That’s nowhere near the military budget, but it’s still a lot of guns and ammo, so the US would put up a pretty good guerrilla resistance.
Alright, so here me out. We need guns to protect ourselves from the Chinese government. What do you say about that? Just saved you $620B
I sure hope those 2nd amendment fanatics can afford the naval vessels and foreign military bases they’re going to need to get involved in the South China Sea! 💸
You joke, but libertarians lost a war to Tonga
I don’t feel like Russia got a hundred billion dollars worth of military out of the hundred billion dollars they spent
2A’ers are just mentally handicapped, there’s no other way to explain it.
exactly why we need ground to air missiles for civilian use.
Finally someone that gets it.
Okay, so what’s your idea? You’re going to give up your freedoms for some temporary safety?
What “freedoms” would they be giving up, exactly? The freedom to become a school shooter?
Every freedom. You’re giving the government a green light to do whatever they want to you. Two pure examples of this is China and Russia. How do you think tyrannical regimes come along? By taking away your ability to defend yourself. This has been shown in history multiple times.
Yes, every country with gun laws has turned into a dictatorship. Such is how things go when your freedom to have an assault rifle for defense is restricted. France, Spain, Australia, Norway, Sweden, etc. all currently have totalitarian governments suppressing their citizens more than the USA. Without a gun, every freedom is lost.
/s (obviously)
Russians absolutely have guns. And their laws aren’t very strict. And you seriously think the majority of developed countries where gun laws are stricter than the US’s are in imminent danger of tyranny?
Sheesh. Tyranny absolutely doesn’t care about guns, and even appreciates them in some ways. Because before things are bad enough that government weaponry (which citizens can never hope to match if the government is serious enough) is used to enforce it, militias of extremists will absolutely start the process of turning the country to shit. And will not prevent actual tyrannical behaviour by the government.
Proud Boys standing at polling stations with military weapons to intimidate voters for “safety”. Extremist anti-abortion nutheads enforcing their point of view regardless of laws or basic logic. Police murdering citizens for minor offenses or unfounded suspicions, where a gun on the citizen’s person couldn’t possibly do anything but make the cops more afraid and more violent. (What you gonna do with your guns? Start a frickin’ war with the police? You know they’ll call for reinforcements and now have a perfectly valid reason to shoot, right?)
Those are all happening in the US. Guns aren’t helping with any of this tyrannical behaviour, and while I’m not willing to put my hand over the fire over this take, it would be reasonable to consider whether the popularity of gun laws and lax gun regulation have made things worse.
You know what is being used right now to fight against the coup in Myanmar? Small arms…and it’s working.
A plane cannot patrol a street corner or kick in doors.
Soap
Ballet
We are here, between these two…pray it does not make it to the last
Jury
Cartridge
Europe exists, has more freedom than your shithole country, and very few guns per capita.
No, Europe does not have more freedom than the usa. This is a silly take.
This is objectively true. I have the freedom to go to college without being in crippling debt, the freedom to take 5 weeks of paid vacation every year, the freedom to go to a doctor without fear of bankruptcy, the freedom to travel or move to another country at will…
Living in the US has literally no upside.
This is objectively true. I have the freedom to go to college without being in crippling debt
Yea we do to, hell my state college here is free…
the freedom to take 5 weeks of paid vacation every year
I get 6, but you’re right a large portion of our country who works minimum wage doesn’t, which is kinda bullshit.
the freedom to go to a doctor without fear of bankruptcy
Yep and we need to fix it
the freedom to travel or move to another country at will…
Yea we can do that to??
Living in the US has literally no upside.
You’re right, we totally don’t have the most immigration and no one wants to move here …got it
Haha and how much are you getting taxed up your arse for all the ‘free’ stuff exactly? Good luck with the third mortgage so you can keep up with tax payments.
Only on about every independent freedom index ever made. Although, im sure you’ll just declare the USA to be more free regardless.
Freedom comes with a price, more regulations do not necessarily make you more free. I’d love if we had a mix of European social safety nets.
And since you wanted to dig out some freedom indexes. Here’s just the first one from google.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country
Like it or not. The USA is a very free country.
Do you think private individuals should also be able to own tanks, ground to air missiles, fighter jets, aircraft carriers and nukes? Why stop at rifles? What do you think rifles will do against a fighter jet?
If you think the people should be able to violently overthrow the government, then the people need to have appropriate armament for something like that. Yet i dont see many people advocating for the right to have tanks.
If more guns means more democracy, why all the places that have tons of guns are so undemocratic? The only exception to this is Switzerland but there people dont actually have guns. Technically they have guns but they have no ammo and their guns are locked and arent allowed to openly carry automatic rifles around.
Predators I’ve seen on my property: law enforcement, moose, elk, bison, cow, brown bear, black bear, wolf, wild dog
Number of times law enforcement has engaged me for existing while brown since I began to open carry: 0
Bonus: boomers, MAGA, and neolibs are all afraid to engage.
They’ll take my rifle and pistol when they pry them from my cold, dead hands.
A response from a 2A’er with a “tard” suffix that illustrates my point. Thank you.
Nice, can’t even explain why you disagree. Thanks for proving my point.
What you have is shitty slogans and zero thought. You’re a trumpet for NRA propaganda and you’re too dumb to even realise it.
The whole “security for liberty” shit you’re referring to? Actually means the exact opposite of what you’re trying to say.
SIEGEL: So far from being a pro-privacy quotation, if anything, it’s a pro-taxation and pro-defense spending quotation.
WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it’s almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.
Now which is a more real risk to the collective security of Americans, daily mass shootings or some fantasy where the government is “coming to take muh guns” and you end up living in some hills fighting a guerrilla fight against a military made up of your fellow nationals?
Gee, idk, should we ask the kids who survived Sandy Hook how they feel about it? (They’re old enough to vote now.)
Planes cant hold land
A-10 go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT
Asymetric war is a thing.
I would have went with a predator drone.
