Another reason banning guns won't work

[Passionario]

im all for gun ownership, but there is no reason for a private citizen to have a semi-auto assault rifle, a high caliber sniper rifle or anything like that

One could argue that the spirit of the 2nd Amendment is, in fact, a possible reason for this.

After all, if the citizens' right to bear arms is supposed to be a safeguard against tyranny, then it's only reasonably to ensure that the strength of said arms is sufficient for this task. If a potential tyrant can only command soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets, then citizen should have access to rifles and bayonets of their own. If said tyrant can unleash drone aircraft, killer satellites, cruise missiles and nukes - why, it stands to reason that the anti-tyranny force should have access to an arsenal of similar grade!

If Japan hadn't attacked the US when they did and assisted Germany (more) with the conquest of the Soviet Union instead, do you think:

a) the US would have gotten involved anyway?
b) we'd all be speaking German/Japanese/Italian today?

Unless the US joined the war on the side of the Axis, USSR would defeat both Germany and Japan.

[bldavis]

all they would have to do is withdraw and let the winter do a number on them, and then counter attack next spring

worked against Napoleon, and the Germans in WWII
and the Japanese would be even worse off, as they would have to go through US supported China, or Siberia

as for that arguement, my dad had same thing to say
my counter point was....ok when do we git: grenades, shoulder fired missiles, tanks, air strike support, and tons of other cool toys!
and a good hunter with a scoped rifle can be a VERY effective sniper, esp since armies have little to no facial armor.
yes it would be a tough shot, but it is a tough shot no matter what you are firing.
and what if they come at us with something bigger than infantry? fight back with tanks? ok they call in an airstrike, and blow us all up...that worked graet didnt it?

on the other hand
need to protect your family and home from a zombie invasion, riot or some thing else other than a mass invasion? pretty sure a semi-auto rifle and/or a decent guage shotgun will do just fine for closer range fighting, and if you want long range, well scoped deer rifle...plus you would need training for most longer range fighting to even be effective

[Brekkie]

and a good hunter with a scoped rifle can be a VERY effective sniper, esp since armies have little to no facial armor.
yes it would be a tough shot, but it is a tough shot no matter what you are firing.

ACTUALLY...

they are issuing us with these now...



lol cylons.

[bldavis]

in that case, how is that assault rifle gonna help?
(do have a slight case for the 50 cal rifle)

[Arnock]

Deathwing marines?

[Levantine]

lol cylons.

My face when.

[Dantriges]

Not sure if the 2nd amendment would help much against tyranny today. Most tyrannies use the support of the majority, suppress a minority and gt enough propaganda not to send in their soldiers battling with the civilians on the streets. It is nice for asymetrical warfare. It seems assault rifles, RPG-7 and IEDs are tools that are good enough to annoy even the most modern army. the question is, would americans today, actually do battle with their own army? And well the arab spring wasn´t fought with weapons in many countries. Ok one of the gulf states was able to suppress it, Syria and Lybia have or had civil war. IIRC Iran was able to suppress any ideas the populace had of overthrowing the parasitic leeches sitting in their government. The eastern bloc fell more or less peacefully.

So you can overthrow tyrants with or without warfare, depending on the local system. Sometimes abetter armed resistance movement would have helped. But I am no expert on the middle east. No idea if Syria had a lot of weapons in civilian hands pre civil war. Somehow I doubt it.

Considering american politics I am not sure if people would actually agree when they live under a tyrannical system. Someone´s death to america could be another´s savior of the country.

Seems to me the 2nd amendment is more or less an anachronistic last stopgap measure with questionable value.

Other points:
Invasion: Well an actual invasion across the oceans is rather unlikely. I don´t think the japanese dropped that thought because of guns in american civilian hands but invading a bigger country with a bigger industrial and population base with a population that isn´t actually welcoming the invaders is hardly a good idea. Home advantage. Attacking targets that are closer and have a smaller or nonexistant army seemed to be the better option for Japan. especially if you consider that the US won´t deliver them the oil they need to fight and they haven´t securedother available resources.
So the need for partisan patriots defending american soil is more or less nonexistant unless you fear an invasion from Mexico or Canada.
Other foreign threats will use terrorism or if America really goes to war with another superpower (who else would consider it, even today) and there are still nuclear weapons, it will be a nuclear exchange. The most likely competitor for 2nd superpower is or will be China and well bombing the US is stupidity written large. Besides America´s obvious answer with nukes of their own, they would demolish a very important trade partner and well China invested a lot in the USA. Unless times are getting really desperate and assaulting will be more profitable or necessary than trading we won´t see another major war between the big players.

Russia-Japan. Anactual declaration of war would have helped Nazi Germany even without one japanese soldier setting foot on russian soil in Wladiwostok. Stalin was able to transfer the siberian divisions to the western front because the eastern border was safe. The siberians were quite important in the earlier stages of the invasion as Stalin lost quite a lot of manpower during Germany´s openening moves. Probably Moscow would have fallen, perhaps Stalingrad as well. If it would have had any other effect than prolonging the final result is idle speculation.

[bldavis]

which is why when i play axis and allies as the axis, my first priority for japan is to get a bit more navy, and then invade siberia...lessen pressure on my eastern front for germany, and easy land grabs for japan!

[Koatanga]

Should the Chinese want to take America, they would just dump their US currency, resulting in an economic collapse of the US. You wouldn't need guns to fight off the Chinese, but you would need guns to fight off your neighbor from taking the last of your canned goods. Only when Americans are done killing off other Americans would the Chinese army come in.

[Darielle]

See, their morals, their "code"... it's a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these uh, these "civilized people" .... they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.

[Arnock]

[bldavis]

and that it why i love MTadin

[Sagara]

REminds me of a manga I read (Peacemaker Kurogane). In the manga version, there's a conversation between a modernized samurai and a traditional one about what it entails to own a gun as opposed to swordsplay.

Short version: You spend years of sweat and blood to create to spirit to fight with a sword, while all it takes is the money and some hand-eye coordination to use a gun.

[Skye1013]

Geez man... spoiler alert...

[Sagara]

Geez man... spoiler alert...

That's no spoiler, that. If I wanted spoilers I could tell you that the modern samurai in question is actually a fanboy of...

...

Nah, won't say :-p I could add that he ends up in some weird relationship and eventually...

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAH