01-15-2013, 06:31 PM
The Taliban is a multinational group funded from many people throughout multiple nations. They aren't exactly the same type of group as American Citizens.
Look at the Arab Spring, since you mentioned it. Can you really say that the armed populace is behind that?
And no one is saying that you unarm the populace of the United States. But like Bolty said, slide that "line" back a few notches. When we are discussing the safety of our society, we shouldn't be so quick to move to the "But we have to be able to defend ourselves from the government!" That should be the very last thing on our minds, but even in the United States, it is seemingly the first thing we jump to. And if it isn't the first thing we jump to, it's certainly on a very short list of things that we leap at to defend our right to own weaponry that John Q. Public has no idea how to use properly or effectively.
I think of it as a Don Quixote complex. We are constantly waiting, and preparing, and bantering as if the windmill that is the US Government will one day awake as a sentient malevolent bloodthirsty giant, coming to take away our freedoms, our lands, our wives, our children, and our guns.
I'm just not that fearful that the windmill is going to awake, and come to take me away. And I'm not so sure that if it ever did, a well armed populace is going to be the force to repel it.
Look at the Arab Spring, since you mentioned it. Can you really say that the armed populace is behind that?
And no one is saying that you unarm the populace of the United States. But like Bolty said, slide that "line" back a few notches. When we are discussing the safety of our society, we shouldn't be so quick to move to the "But we have to be able to defend ourselves from the government!" That should be the very last thing on our minds, but even in the United States, it is seemingly the first thing we jump to. And if it isn't the first thing we jump to, it's certainly on a very short list of things that we leap at to defend our right to own weaponry that John Q. Public has no idea how to use properly or effectively.
I think of it as a Don Quixote complex. We are constantly waiting, and preparing, and bantering as if the windmill that is the US Government will one day awake as a sentient malevolent bloodthirsty giant, coming to take away our freedoms, our lands, our wives, our children, and our guns.
I'm just not that fearful that the windmill is going to awake, and come to take me away. And I'm not so sure that if it ever did, a well armed populace is going to be the force to repel it.
nobody ever slaughtered an entire school with a smart phone and a twitter account – they have, however, toppled governments. - Jim Wright