For as long as the casualties are so low, we don't even have the hope that eventually these people will exterminate each other. So how will they be stopped, people of America? Will you do something, or must I just sit here (thousands of miles away) and wince, and cringe, and grieve? :chin:

Since when does commanding men have anything to do with realising how the world works? They came up with a constitution designed to protect certain interests and that is what it continues to do at the detriment of the general population. They're still suffering for it because the founders had no realisation what every day problems most people go through. So yes, a privileged few designed it without understanding what was needed in general.

Wars have been fought for a millennia. Understandable, text is small and can fool the eye. But yes, death is terrible, but if it’s me and my loved ones or them that has to die or we lose our freedoms, it will be him who meets his end.

Exactly, assymetrical warfare will cause havoc to a uniformed service who must adhere to laws of war. Rules of engagement can dictate life or death while men have their hands tied behind their back by a strong moral code that must be followed.

Practice is what veterans would more than likely take care of. They’d teach the citizens how to fight.

Being an expert in explosives, I can tell you industrial grade dynamite are not hard to acquire, and Homemade Explosives are not hard to make.

Missile systems... can’t really think of anything other than finding a battery and attempting to seize their assets.

Yes I have served and continue to serve to this day. It’s not much, but it’s work, it pays the bills, and allows me to take care of my family which is what I care most about.

i would call it infantile to think all military personnel would continue to follow all orders from those appointed over them if they were given an op order to assault and detain innocent civilians (which is an unlawful order... most of the time). — Obscuration

If this is true for MOST armed service personnel (including the high ranking and highly trained), then problem solved - we don't need a massively armed citizenry. If nearly all military personnel just blindly follow orders, then armed citizenry can do no more than annoy and delay. Your example of a couple Afghans with an AK and a rope (no wonder Charlie Bronson always carried a rope) highlights this problem. Guerilla fighters that are extraordinarily out-gunned can use hit and run tactics, to ensure the large enemy suffers higher casualty rates...and hopefully this can lead to winning by attrition (even George Washington - whose arms were significantly more comparable to the British than an assault rifle vs a drone today - basically just had to keep his army alive until the British decided it was no longer worth their effort). But what would a war of attrition between the US government and its citizens look like?

It seems to me that it would mean the end of 'the grid' and along with it 'modern civilization'? Sure I can go hide in a cave in Montana. And if I get a good group of capable like minded individuals together, we might be able to make the US Government abandon their ground efforts in Montana...Hooray?!?! What do we win? The ability to live in an 1800s style community that has to run for the hills every time we hear one of those strange flying machines from the capitol?

Oh, and also, this type of insurgency only works against modern technology because the powerful nation values (or at least kowtows to the whims of its citizenry) the lives of non-combatants. Once that doesn't matter, the government can just wipe me and every other living thing in Montana off the map.

So, since guns barely help even in these extreme scenarios, and they seem quite problematic as a regular part of crowded, civilized, society; then it seems worth it to remove them...But like Bitter Crank said, it is not going to happen in America without a Civil War.

freedoms — Obscuration

What is freedom according to you?

Get rid of guns you morons

You might want to do something about this guy too, folks.

My bills being paid, my family having their needs met, being able to have a few glasses of whisky and soda on the weekend, not spending $20 on a tin of Three Nuns because of sin taxes, and doing what I want in my spare time within the confines of the law. And being able to leave if I disagree with the laws of that land.

And being able to leave if I disagree with the laws of that land. — Obscuration

That's a tough one, emigration isn't so easy.

My bills being paid, my family having their needs met, being able to have a few glasses of whisky and soda on the weekend, not spending $20 on a tin of Three Nuns because of sin taxes, and doing what I want in my spare time within the confines of the law. — Obscuration

So you don't want freedom but money?

if I wanted money I wouldn’t be in the military.

but everything you mentioned could be obtained with money. So you're not concerned about freedom but about money. Or what am I missing?

I think you’re “missing” the straws you’re trying to grasp for, because they aren’t there. The ability to leave a country whose laws I don’t agree with, nor is the ability to do what I want in my free time a matter of money. Taking care of my family involves money, yes. My own moral code will not allow us to live on the street so that is not exactly an option. A fine tinned pipe tobacco and a bottle of mediocre whiskey? They are indeed vices that cost money, but to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln; men without vices rarely have many virtues.
Perhaps your idea of freedom is simply different from mine. Responsibility doesn’t allow me to not make money. Is there a land I do not know about where my family is taken care of and happy without any monetary cost? If so I’d gladly trade my pipe and Jameson for the opportunity provided there isn’t a sinister plot behind it all.

Until then however, I shall enjoy my smoke, and drink as I relax watching my children play gayly in the backyard while my wife enjoys the breeze, and landscape after a decently fulfilling day of dutiful paid service.

Looking forward to "debating" this for the next round of mass shootings!

One of the things that uniquely characterizes America is it's refusal to acknowledge the vile mistakes in the past and hold any type of responsibility, whether it's denying reparations for Black Americans or accepting that the Civil War was fought over slavery, or even continuing to have Elliot Abrams in a government position or Oliver North as the President of the NRA. We continue to see people in positions of power who should be otherwise completely disgraced over and over again, deleterious policies that utterly failed be brought back from the dead, or the memory of their vile deeds collectively erased. Did you see George W. Bush give Michelle Obama a piece of candy?! Hey, let's back a coup in Venezuela! It's like an hellish eternal recurrence of the same awful people, the same terrible policies, and the same conversations around gun control and it will basically never end because we can't confront who we are and what we've done.

Looking forward to "debating" this for the next round of mass shootings! — Maw

That should be pretty soon, then. :worry:

32 mass shootings this so far this year - that's about once per week.

Looking forward to "debating" this for the next round of mass shootings! — Maw

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an elementary school in Connecticut. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” — NYT

I'm very sorry if this comment offends someone, but the more I think of it, the less this whole discourse of the "American people having guns" to somehow to "defend their nation from their own state itself" makes no real sense.

As a long time reservist and coming from a country with obligatory conscription with the vast majority of adult males having served in the military, I find this whole debate absolutely bonkers, totally crazy. Yet it's very American in the way it puts the individual at the center. It's as the discourse has been hijacked into a realm of ideals that doesn't have much to do with reality and how people in real life behave. Hence it's a discussion totally alienated from reality.

The idea of people having guns to defend themselves from a Superpower state that somehow would start to act like a loose cannon is basically just ideological masturbation on how special Americans (and their Constitution) is. It gives this fantasy of 'being free' or 'standing on your own feet'. It has absolutely nothing to do with reality, nothing to link it with any historical facts of any political crisis or civil wars. Even the United State's own Civil War and how quickly the two sides organized themselves into huge armies lead by generals ought to tell the people how absurd the idea is. It simply goes against any thorough understanding how societies behave and organize themselves in a civil war or in real political turmoil. Above all, I think it paints this hugely condescending idea of the military and the people working for the nation as if they would be something 'different' from the 'ordinary citizens'.

To put it simply, if any nation collapses and the monopoly of violence of the state (or the state itself) vanishes, people will under no time form militias which are organized quite like armies. The pistol and shotgun of Joe Sixpack and his own individual actions are quite useless to anything else than to inflict harm to some unarmed person that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The arms of the military will be in no time in use and hand guns and small arms owned by civilians won't decide the course of the war. Perhaps talking about societies behaving in a collective manner sends the wrong vibe to many, but just look at history.

The idea of people having guns to defend themselves from a Superpower state that somehow would start to act like a loose cannon is basically just ideological masturbation on how special Americans (and their Constitution) is. It gives this fantasy of 'being free' or 'standing on your own feet'. It has absolutely nothing to do with reality, nothing to link it with any historical facts of any political crisis or civil wars. — ssu

Well said.

Seconded.

Everything you've described can be bought with money. So what you've described is that you need money not freedom. It appears to me that you aren't yet speaking about what freedom means in a political sense. So I'll extrapolate a bit from what you've said and you tell me if I'm close.

You seem to describe some basic wants that should be possible right after you have your basic needs fulfilled. I would say that's about freedom of choice and the existence of opportunity. So if that's good for you, it should be good for others, right?

How do you go about maximising the freedom of choice and opportunity for as many people as possible? Or do you reject that freedom (for now described as choice and opportunity) should be universal? If so, why?

The ability to leave a country whose laws I don’t agree with, nor is the ability to do what I want in my free time a matter of money — Obscuration

Everything you've described can be bought with money. — Benkei

It seems as I said before, not everything I described can be bought with money.

It appears to me that you aren't yet speaking about what freedom means in a political sense. — Benkei

In my experience, freedom is dictated by the powers of the people in charge of the lands political system. In a republic, freedom is determined by representatives. In a dictatorship, one person holds the power and he/she decides what freedom is for their people. "Freedom in a political sense," is as variable as everyones favorite dessert. What I believe freedom to be may not be good enough for others. They should have the right to live somewhere they agree with the freedoms which are dictated by laws.

Freedoms should not be universal. Thats why we have prisons for rapists, murderers, and the like.

Is Joe a threat? Of course, but not as large a threat as the government entity trying to care for me. — Obscuration

That point has been made plenty of times before, and what you say is true. Of course a tyrannical government turning on it's people would be a much bigger threat. But it's also hypothetical and extremely implausible in the US, so back in reality, it's not a credible threat, but in fact only functions as pro-gun propaganda or paranoid delusion.

Some unhinged Joe with a gun on the other hand... now that's a very real threat, as a number of US citizens have been unfortunate enough to find out.

In any case, this hysterical fear is probably best dealt with by mental health professionals. No-one here is going to be able to help you. — Baden

Hear, hear.

A crazy old man started following me around in the grocery store mumbling things about the items on the shelves and grinning at me. I expedited my shopping to get away from him because I didnt want to get caught in the crossfire.

I was in the parking lot designing a bird costume for camouflage when POW! A body went down and I started humming a Jimi Hendrix song.

A crazy old man started following me around in the grocery store mumbling things about the items on the shelves and grinning at me. I expedited my shopping to get away from him because I didnt want to get caught in the crossfire. — frank

Clinically mentally ill people are more likely to get hurt by others than to hurt people intentionally themselves, unless in self defense or defense of others they care about. Mass shooters are more likely than not to not have a clinical mental illness.

I was in the parking lot designing a bird costume for camouflage when POW! A body went down and I started humming a Jimi Hendrix song. — frank

Are you being funny here? Because I don’t understand you.

Mass shooters are more likely than not to not have a clinical mental illness. — Noah Te Stroete

How do you know?

Are you being funny here? Because I don’t understand you. — Noah Te Stroete

I saw what he did there.

How do you know? — frank

From psychologists on the news.

I figured it was a “Hey, Joe” reference, but I wasn’t sure if he was joking about there being an incident.