• @masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    This is honestly, the dumbest, most American take in the world.

    It literally ignores the plainly obvious fact that not a single other developed country allows gun ownership, and yet, still have rights and democracy and freedom.

    Guns did not get your rights, and they do not protect you from a government that has AI powered drones with anti tank mines on them. Hell a fucking APC with a sound cannon will make your AR look like a child’s toy.

    Guess what happened when a pair of guys had enough guns and body armour to challenge the local LA government in the 90s? Oh would you look at that, every single local government’s police force across the country just militarized and bought tanks and SWAT teams in response. The idea that the government will let any random potentially mentally ill or terrorist citizen, buy enough firepower that they could legitimately challenge the government, is dumb on its face. No government anywhere allows that or would for obvious (see: terroristic) reasons.

    Wide spread gun ownership just makes everyone less safe. Full stop.

    • @nBodyProblem@lemmy.world
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      421 hours ago

      This is honestly, the dumbest, most American take in the world.

      Hell yeah brother 🦅🦅🦅

      It literally ignores the plainly obvious fact that not a single other developed country allows gun ownership, and yet, still have rights and democracy and freedom.

      Many other developed countries allow gun ownership. Educate yourself, my man.

      But more importantly, I literally do not care if they do or not. The point was never that democracy cannot exist without firearms, but rather that in the worst case scenario an armed citizenry can act as a force against tyranny. It’s a rare thing that it might be needed, and a last resort. No sane person wants a civil war

      Guns did not get your rights

      Except they literally did. How do you think the revolutionary war was won, softly spoken words?

      they do not protect you from a government that has AI powered drones with anti tank mines on them. Hell a fucking APC with a sound cannon will make your AR look like a child’s toy.

      Guerrillas with small arms in developing countries have repelled the US military repeatedly over the past half century. More importantly, if you don’t think a combination of small arms and low cost homemade munitions are effective against a modern military you haven’t been paying attention to the war in Ukraine at all.

      • @masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        20 hours ago

        Do you know how many innocent people’s blood that has cost?

        Encouraging people to arms themselves will get people killed. You’re racing to the bottom in a doom loop and yelling hell yeah nonsensically rather than actually trying to break out of that doom loop.

        America is fucked because it’s convinced it’s population that it has to keep participating in its toxic behaviours to survive. That’s false. It’s literally just fear mongering.

        • it’s not fear mongering when we’re literally months away from being the next fascist state.

          And another thing to consider, cars kill about as many people in the US as guns, so we should be talking about banning cars as well?

          • @masterspace@lemmy.ca
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            19 hours ago

            Oh do tell us the value of goods and services transported every day by gun.

            Because I can give you a number for the approximate economic value provided by cars and vehicular transportation generally, can you tell us the economic value provided by guns and every random person being able to point and click murder whenever they want?

            • Gun crimes are largely committed by people who do not have the legal right to those guns. The vast majority of legal gun owners are responsible people. When you ban guns, they’ll just go to other means of killing. You won’t stop it, if they want to kill people they will.

              • @masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                18 hours ago

                Nope.

                Just objectively and provably false, this is NRA talking point nonsense.

                Guns increase the rates of suicide, they increase the rates of domestic violence murder, and they make everyone less safe around police by giving police an excuse to use deadly force.

                Guns also are not manufactured clandestinely en masse, anywhere, because it takes a lot of precise industrial machining to do at scale. They are not like sex or weed that are impossible to ban, when you stop manufacturing them for nonsense reasons, they stop circulating and criminals stop being able to get their hands on them.

                I do not understand why Americans think they are such unfathomably unique snowflakes that none of the evidence or lessons learned from every other developed country could apply to them.

                • @nBodyProblem@lemmy.world
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                  17 hours ago

                  Guns also are not manufactured clandestinely en masse, anywhere, because it takes a lot of precise industrial machining to do at scale. They are not like sex or weed that are impossible to ban, when you stop manufacturing them for nonsense reasons, they stop circulating and criminals stop being able to get their hands on them.

                  This is false. There are multiple Latin American countries where street gangs have been manufacturing reasonably sophisticated all-metal submachine guns at scale in clandestine factories for over a decade. Even prior to the 3d printing boom, open bolt submachine gun were fairly simple for an individual to manufacture with common hand tools, and quantities scale rapidly with improvised tooling and readily available machines like benchtop lathes.

                  With 3d printing, it has become even more accessible. Printers can be used to manufacture tooling in addition to parts, and the DEFcad community has been remarkably resourceful in developing new methods utilizing 3d printers. Everything from electrochemically etched, rifled, barrels to recoilless rifles with shaped charge warheads can be made at home if a person has no compunctions about breaking the law.

                  You can see the impact of 3d printing overseas, where there are a number of rebel groups using 3d printed firearms as their primary armament. Banning guns might reduce the quality of what is available, but it definitely won’t end production in a country full of gun enthusiasts with the interest and skills to make firearms.

                  I do not understand why Americans think they are such unfathomably unique snowflakes that none of the evidence or lessons learned from every other developed country could apply to them.

                  As I said, our gun culture ensures people continue to make firearms regardless of what the law says. We have countless machinists, gunsmiths, and hobbyists that would manufacture guns as a form of protest if they were banned. Furthermore, we already have more guns than people and the vast majority of them would remain in civilian hands if the government tried to seize them.

                  But most importantly, many Americans believe that the equalizing force of firearms—something that allows the citizenry to defend themselves against tyranny and for the weak/frail to defend themselves against the physically strong— is philosophically worth a small reduction in public safety.

                  • @masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                    16 hours ago

                    But most importantly, many Americans believe that the equalizing force of firearms—something that allows the citizenry to defend themselves against tyranny and for the weak/frail to defend themselves against the physically strong— is philosophically worth a small reduction in public safety.

                    How many times guns have helped resist tyranny in the US?

                    I’ll start citing innocent people killed by the tyranny of widespread gun availability.