I don't see much difference with this than when gun buying spikes after publicized mass shootings[0].
Gun sales also spike when new gun control laws are proposed. People are afraid (however unfounded) that their right to protect themselves and their family will be taken away. It use to be one of the biggest issues to scare people into voting republican (at least in Texas), the boogyman threat that "they" are coming for your guns and taking your right to protect yourself always came up just before important elections.
When the government's tagline as "cruelty is the point" and people find themselves on the wrong side of that it's gonna scare a few of them, and scared people buy guns -- "identity" and sides stop mattering.
In case anyone is actually interested in US gun ownership trends in the data — instead of just posting your prior-affirming vibe take — there is a lot of data.¹𝄒²
Results
Overall, 11% of respondents reported purchasing a gun since 1/1/20, 35% for the first time. Among recent purchasers, larger proportions of Democrat, Black, Asian, and Hispanic respondents were new gun owners than Republican or white respondents. Compared to prior owners, odds were 4.5-times higher that new gun owners’ recent purchase was motivated by racial violence and 3.2-times higher for political violence.
I’m really curious about the amount of screen time and news/social media consumption of these groups. I assume it’s a couple standard deviations above what’s healthy.
Why would you explicitly assume something that confirms your bias? Why not just say that you suspect a trend?
Individual anecdote, but I bought a pistol for defense in the US because of the (two way) threats I constantly read and hear in my real life, and I do not consume any social media. No Twitter, no Facebook. I don't read news outside HN, my local paper, and the occasional CS Monitor story. I rarely sit around scrolling TikTok/YouTube/etc on my phone, and when I do, it thankfully just shows me engineering/trades stuff (BigClive type stuff, plumbers, etc). Admittedly, I have visited 4chan occasionally since it was established.
My opinion is: It's fallacious to imply that the hatred and violence of Americans against Americans is negligible, and could only be considered a real problem through the lens of dishonest media. Yes, consuming garbage media will amplify that fear, but the fear is absolutely, obviously based on real, actual attitudes and words in the US.
In my social circle (mostly Asian tech employees in the PNW) there were many first-time gun purchases immediately after the social unrest in 2020. Hysterical social media posts about "the riots are going to come to the suburbs" factored into it. The fears ended up being completely overblown.
Now there are different groups of people who are predicting violence and feeling the need to do something about it. Too early to tell whether the fears are overblown this time around as well.
In any case, I hope all first-time gun owners properly train with them and secure their guns at home. I wouldn't be surprised if the main outcome of both of these clusters of gun buying is not actual defense against the feared threats, but that guns get stolen and used for crimes.
Unlikely (almost all the "rooftop koreans" had national service training in Korea) and unreported (that I could find)
In the end, Chang said not a single person was shot and killed by the Korean shop owners — just warning shots to chase away potential looters and arsonists.
I know a bunch of trans gun owners. They're pretty standard gun geeks, and a few of them do shooting competitions.
I've asked them how they got into shooting sports, and a lot times, they tell me some pretty scary stories of real-life encounters with bigots. Some have also encountered armed right-wing protestors outside of a bar that held a late evening drag event.
So at least among the people I've met out in the real world, it was fairly common to be motivated by specific real-life events. The numbers might be different for gun owners who don't go to the range regularly.
I am a staunchly pro gun-control leftist and I own a gun. Are you trying to imply that gun control means "nobody can have guns", or something similarly incompatible with gun ownership?
Ratio of gun ownership per party has shifted maybe from 40:1 to 39.99:1. While this is real, by the numbers it's inconsequential and of no note. But it is a vibe shift. Both inconsequential. But: this is worth noting.
And it's just cursed as frell that the left has seen such a shift that they abandon governance, abandon the state, feel the Dont Step On Me militarizing insanitude viruses that has afflicted & demented so much of America for hundreds of years.
One of the circulated highly-discussed topics of the day on BlueSky was The South. There was a lot of dragging & disdain, and some occasional 'I can't believe we're being so hostile here' outcries, but largely just bitter anger that US history has faced such a strong adversary against equanimity, such a tilted wild force built so purely around negative hateful biases that has resorted to such violence & force again and again. That violent clutching to illegitemacy has ridden so rough-shod over America for so very deep long, has once again gotten such an enormous violent clutch-hold over the land.
But with regards to this article: the tables aren't tipping IMO. Nothing's changing, violence wise. The violence insurrectionist tendencies are still 100% on one side. None of the people who were wetting their pants / podcasting ad infinitum about Jade Helm (a hypothetical violent government takeover of states) have said a peep about the radically unprecedented incursion of military forces into peaceful "what so happens to be"-liberal American cities. I empathize strongly with those who see whats happening, the horrific vile acts & the enjoyment of despicability/deplorability, who decide to arm up. But this story is about exceptions that prove the rule. This story is a tell: a tell about how brutal and mean and nasty much of America is, and how 0.02% of the good decent respectful folk have decided that, for their basic most primitive safety, they have to go buy guns. Most such calls for arms have never been in any real sense out of defense, IMO.
The longer story, what the viewpoint should really be looking at, is how radical and extremist so much of America has been for so long. How much they defy (have defied for getting near two centuries) even the most basic constitutional calls for respect & peace are, and how armed they've made themselves to resist the state/become an vigilante force of fear/terror/oppression. This minor anomaly is an indicator that the corrupt pro-violence mafia-state has just gotten way way too uppity & dangerous. But in truth, very few of even these people have any hope of resisting this bitter violence-happy mafia-state if these hooligans keep escalating.
Perhaps it’s just my location in the country but virtually everyone I know is armed regardless of political leaning in my area and it’s been that way for at least the four decades I have lived here. You just assume it and it’s no big deal.
Of course here left and right tend to socialize together here and no one seems to hung up on if someone disagrees politically. For instance, I’ve been to a neighbors house and drank shitty Trump branded wine while playing Eucre with Trump casino playing cards. Had a respectful discussion about politics and while no one changed any minds, we had a great time nonetheless.
I've been to places like that! And my microcosm of personal friends is certainly like that (sans political merchandise). Unfortunately, the opposite case is a much stronger tone-setter and cautionary prompt. E.g. to use a metaphor, a person considering home security is looking at how often break-ins happen - not how often break-ins don't happen.
This makes sense. If one of your political platforms is to weaken and reduce the police force, then buying a gun is a very logical and practical thing to do.
Quite the opposite. The increased fear is that there will be bad actors (brownshirts, racists, klansmen, etc) that the police are not making an effort to restrain, or even with whom the police are are allied.
Your average liberal/progressive is still probably less afraid (relative to the median) about random or property crime.
From my understanding, the issue with the police in the US is that they have to do to much, work as EMT, social services, mental health services, community police (proximity police? basically neighborhood cop), peacekeepers (during protests or organized events), investigating, policing traffic...
So you actually have a big "company" responsible for something you could dispatch to at least 4 other services (i've heard call to divided it in 7 parts, but i can't find where i read that, so let's be reasonable and say 4), and they have too much political power because of it. Divide the budget accordingly, correctly train teh police and "new police", call it "police" too because branding works and to stop people from crying out in fear ("mental health police" might not be the best brand, but other might work), and actually separate departements, and concerns. Separate training material, separate training place, split the union. Also make a department that will take care of orphaned police kids.
"Divide the police" is a way better catchphrase anyway.
It is more like if you have to worry about masked goons breaking into your house and trying to kidnap you or your family members then maybe you can't trust the government either.
Wait, what? I thought the main leftward argument against the necessity of the second amendment was that we can now trust our government to not overstep its authority and people protecting themselves against tyranny was no longer needed?
That's not my experience at all - every time (possibly literally every single time) I have heard a liberal say that we don't need guns to protect government tyranny, the argument is that you could not protect yourself from the government, not that you would not need to. That seems obvious to me, so I'm a little astonished at what you're saying.
This notion of an all powerful military and the futility of defense against tyranny assumes that every military person (if so ordered) would gladly take up arms against their own citizenry as well as every military weapon system would be utilized against the people.
What makes the 2nd a deterrent against tyranny is the notion that if things degraded to that level, the military would be compromised by the factions as well likely to the same level as the population is. That, in addition to a significant % of your population is also armed, would create the environment that a government could be changed.
Because the government is aware of this fact, it will keep itself in check.
> every military person (if so ordered) would gladly take up arms against their own citizenry as well as every military weapon system would be utilized against the people.
Perhaps you should look up the literal thousands of occasions of that happening, before snarkily dismissing it as absurd.
Doesn’t require “every”, which is an equally ludicrous addition you’ve made solely so you pedantically dismiss any objections.
But I’m sure the students at Kent State, for instance, would’ve been happy to know how much the government feared them. Great comment.
The argument of their hypocracy stands though, doesn't it? If someone argues that people don't need guns because they would be ineffective against their government, it's strange that that person would buy a gun precisely to use against their government, right?
> it's strange that that person would buy a gun precisely to use against their government, right?
IF that was indeed what they said, what they believed, and what they actually did, sure.
You do seem to have fashioned a weak strawman here though.
This thread appears to be about liberals, PoC's, and LGBTQ's buying guns due to a perception of increased threat from Trump supporters, MAGA cos-players, newly empowere Groypers, etc.
Not (that I can read in the article) to use against their government.
So that's a double no to both your artifically posed questions.
It seems like you're unable to follow or understand the thread. Several posts up is this post:
>It is more like if you have to worry about masked goons breaking into your house and trying to kidnap you or your family members then maybe you can't trust the government either.
Referring to agencies such as ICE, I believe. Then the post I replied to said that it's not about trust, it's about effectiveness. Now you're telling me it's not about the government at all, but essentially for general purpose self defense, which still seems hypocritical coming from the gun control crowd. Also I'm not sure what an "artificially posed" question is.
Who said the masked goons were military, or even ICE? Plenty of people running around in masks these days pretending to be ICE since ICE officers themselves won’t identify themselves or provide evidence that they are legit. They could just be thugs taking advantage of a very unprofessional arm of the federal government to justify a no-warrant home invasion.
We all know that guns, if ever used that way, will be citizen on citizen, not citizen vs the military. Both sides will think they are right, one or both sides will start with violence, the other side will be forced to respond in kind. The 2nd amendment has always been about Americans killing each other ever since the Supreme Court nullified the first clause of the amendment (which was meant to establish a Swiss-like militia). All it will take for the military to shoot a few students in cities Trump sent them to under the pretext of “preserving law and order” and the whole country is going to blow up. Heck, this is probably Trump’s plan to avoid the midterms.
You could also look at it from the opposite perspective: the military is now too powerful for private ownership of guns to do much and the downsides of having gun ownership now outweigh the nonexistent benefits
No, this is a weak argument point. We know from experience that urban fighting against small arms is hugely difficult without simply wiping a swath of a population completely out…which our military could do of course, but wouldn’t against a domestic population. We generally wouldn’t even do it against foreign adversaries.
You may certainly make the argument that a sizable guerilla urban force could perform outside their weight class against a federal army. However, it makes no logical sense to assert that most liberals buying guns do so under the theory that they will organize together against their government, nor that they do or should believe that this piece of military wisdom would work out for them.
I.e. it's obviously reasonable to believe that private firearms cannot stand up to the federal government, regardless of whether it is the case under theoretical conditions.
That is not true at all, on both accounts, and I hate reading this take every time it comes up.
It shows a lack of understanding about the nature and power of insurgencies and a vast overestimation of the military's ability to protect itself should every military base, forward refueling point, and backyard airstrip suddenly become under attack. Hint: They're not really designed for that.
All of the anarchists and socialists and marginalized and oppressed communities are on the left. Their arguments against gun ownership and the second amendment were never based on an implicit trust in government.
Certainly not - their argument was always that it doesn't make sense to argue that we need guns to overthrow the government. Not that the government is broadly trustworthy.
tbh "we can now trust our government to not overstep its authority and people protecting themselves against tyranny was no longer needed" sounds like an intentional misrepresentation of a leftist position than something many actual leftists would believe.
The political side that that often argues for more government in their political solutions seems to by default to trust the government “to not overstep its authority”?
This seems dishonest. Surely the liberal position - on average - is the rejection of dangerous police, even if that means rejecting a large number of police officers, until the police force (nationally and/or locally) is once again a trustworthy foundation of democratic civilization? The unfortunate reality is that, when you have a class of people with authority and guns, even if only a small minority of them are dangerous, that immediately ruins the image of the whole thing until they are rooted out. Americans have historically proven that, if there's one thing they won't stand for, it's being oppressed/frightened by those in power.
That might be the liberal position on average, but if you have a social circle that’s lefter than average, as in many metro areas, you’ll occasionally hear a desire for outright abolition of police. Not even a simple local constabulary walking the beat, as there is a meme going around that such law enforcement came out of gangs that hunted down fugitive slaves and is inherently tainted. (Nevermind the existence of such police in countries around the world that never had race-based chattel slavery.) Instead, more investment in social services will supposedly remove the need for them entirely.
But of course, whether that position or the number of people who hold it, has any real influence on gun sales is doubtful and the GP may have been a bait post.
I have never in my life heard or read anyone, of any social standing, political affiliation, education or station of life discuss the abolition of police entirely.
> I have never in my life heard or read anyone, of any social standing, political affiliation, education or station of life discuss the abolition of police entirely.
I have, it’s an originally online meme that has been taken up by some of the people in my life, frankly as a shibboleth for the progressive values they want to be seen as holding. But anecdote aside, a search for "abolish policing slave patrols" will get you plenty of advocacy, e.g. [0] (as well as critique from the opposing end of the ideological spectrum).
Well, today in fact a town in Wisconsin officially shut down their police department [1]. This area leans Republican, so it’s unlikely that the woke mob did it; probably just couldn’t afford the police anymore. But there you go: people discussed it and then did it.
>> I have never in my life heard or read anyone, of any social standing, political affiliation, education or station of life discuss the abolition of police entirely
No, this doesn't make any sense because the "liberals" have not been recently voted into power in order to achieve their political platforms. The opposite has occurred - they are the powerless ones.
I don't see much difference with this than when gun buying spikes after publicized mass shootings[0].
Gun sales also spike when new gun control laws are proposed. People are afraid (however unfounded) that their right to protect themselves and their family will be taken away. It use to be one of the biggest issues to scare people into voting republican (at least in Texas), the boogyman threat that "they" are coming for your guns and taking your right to protect yourself always came up just before important elections.
When the government's tagline as "cruelty is the point" and people find themselves on the wrong side of that it's gonna scare a few of them, and scared people buy guns -- "identity" and sides stop mattering.
[0] https://law.stanford.edu/press/gun-sales-us-spike-mass-shoot...
In case anyone is actually interested in US gun ownership trends in the data — instead of just posting your prior-affirming vibe take — there is a lot of data.¹𝄒²
¹ https://news.gallup.com/poll/653621/gun-ownership-rates-spik...
² https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
Hmmm
Results Overall, 11% of respondents reported purchasing a gun since 1/1/20, 35% for the first time. Among recent purchasers, larger proportions of Democrat, Black, Asian, and Hispanic respondents were new gun owners than Republican or white respondents. Compared to prior owners, odds were 4.5-times higher that new gun owners’ recent purchase was motivated by racial violence and 3.2-times higher for political violence.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11378614/
I’m really curious about the amount of screen time and news/social media consumption of these groups. I assume it’s a couple standard deviations above what’s healthy.
I assume the social media consumption of [whatever you think the opposite groups are] is also a couple standard deviations above what’s healthy.
Why would you explicitly assume something that confirms your bias? Why not just say that you suspect a trend?
Individual anecdote, but I bought a pistol for defense in the US because of the (two way) threats I constantly read and hear in my real life, and I do not consume any social media. No Twitter, no Facebook. I don't read news outside HN, my local paper, and the occasional CS Monitor story. I rarely sit around scrolling TikTok/YouTube/etc on my phone, and when I do, it thankfully just shows me engineering/trades stuff (BigClive type stuff, plumbers, etc). Admittedly, I have visited 4chan occasionally since it was established.
My opinion is: It's fallacious to imply that the hatred and violence of Americans against Americans is negligible, and could only be considered a real problem through the lens of dishonest media. Yes, consuming garbage media will amplify that fear, but the fear is absolutely, obviously based on real, actual attitudes and words in the US.
In my social circle (mostly Asian tech employees in the PNW) there were many first-time gun purchases immediately after the social unrest in 2020. Hysterical social media posts about "the riots are going to come to the suburbs" factored into it. The fears ended up being completely overblown.
Now there are different groups of people who are predicting violence and feeling the need to do something about it. Too early to tell whether the fears are overblown this time around as well.
In any case, I hope all first-time gun owners properly train with them and secure their guns at home. I wouldn't be surprised if the main outcome of both of these clusters of gun buying is not actual defense against the feared threats, but that guns get stolen and used for crimes.
The rooftop Koreans were awesome. Modern day cowboys.
Didn't they end up only killing other Koreans?
Unlikely (almost all the "rooftop koreans" had national service training in Korea) and unreported (that I could find)
~ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roof-koreans-meme-know-real-s...Also, wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooftop_Koreans
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>because of the (two way) threats I constantly hear and read, and I do not consume any social media
Where do you hear the threats then? In real life? Are they quoted in the local news you read?
(Sight nitpick - HN is social media)
I know a bunch of trans gun owners. They're pretty standard gun geeks, and a few of them do shooting competitions.
I've asked them how they got into shooting sports, and a lot times, they tell me some pretty scary stories of real-life encounters with bigots. Some have also encountered armed right-wing protestors outside of a bar that held a late evening drag event.
So at least among the people I've met out in the real world, it was fairly common to be motivated by specific real-life events. The numbers might be different for gun owners who don't go to the range regularly.
See https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/
What does the Gun Control side of the left have to say about this?
Will the factions just politely agree not to talk about it?
I am a staunchly pro gun-control leftist and I own a gun. Are you trying to imply that gun control means "nobody can have guns", or something similarly incompatible with gun ownership?
>This story was based on more than 30 interviews
Yikes
I'd be interesting in seeing the recruitment method and spatial distribution of those 30.
The student-run cafe in the basement of the Sociology building, whose patio opens onto the main quad's designated protest lawn.
Subjects selected from local gun store line
Ratio of gun ownership per party has shifted maybe from 40:1 to 39.99:1. While this is real, by the numbers it's inconsequential and of no note. But it is a vibe shift. Both inconsequential. But: this is worth noting.
And it's just cursed as frell that the left has seen such a shift that they abandon governance, abandon the state, feel the Dont Step On Me militarizing insanitude viruses that has afflicted & demented so much of America for hundreds of years.
One of the circulated highly-discussed topics of the day on BlueSky was The South. There was a lot of dragging & disdain, and some occasional 'I can't believe we're being so hostile here' outcries, but largely just bitter anger that US history has faced such a strong adversary against equanimity, such a tilted wild force built so purely around negative hateful biases that has resorted to such violence & force again and again. That violent clutching to illegitemacy has ridden so rough-shod over America for so very deep long, has once again gotten such an enormous violent clutch-hold over the land.
But with regards to this article: the tables aren't tipping IMO. Nothing's changing, violence wise. The violence insurrectionist tendencies are still 100% on one side. None of the people who were wetting their pants / podcasting ad infinitum about Jade Helm (a hypothetical violent government takeover of states) have said a peep about the radically unprecedented incursion of military forces into peaceful "what so happens to be"-liberal American cities. I empathize strongly with those who see whats happening, the horrific vile acts & the enjoyment of despicability/deplorability, who decide to arm up. But this story is about exceptions that prove the rule. This story is a tell: a tell about how brutal and mean and nasty much of America is, and how 0.02% of the good decent respectful folk have decided that, for their basic most primitive safety, they have to go buy guns. Most such calls for arms have never been in any real sense out of defense, IMO.
The longer story, what the viewpoint should really be looking at, is how radical and extremist so much of America has been for so long. How much they defy (have defied for getting near two centuries) even the most basic constitutional calls for respect & peace are, and how armed they've made themselves to resist the state/become an vigilante force of fear/terror/oppression. This minor anomaly is an indicator that the corrupt pro-violence mafia-state has just gotten way way too uppity & dangerous. But in truth, very few of even these people have any hope of resisting this bitter violence-happy mafia-state if these hooligans keep escalating.
> Ratio of gun ownership per party has shifted maybe from 40:1 to 39.99:1.
More like 5:2.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/653621/gun-ownership-rates-spik...
Perhaps it’s just my location in the country but virtually everyone I know is armed regardless of political leaning in my area and it’s been that way for at least the four decades I have lived here. You just assume it and it’s no big deal.
Of course here left and right tend to socialize together here and no one seems to hung up on if someone disagrees politically. For instance, I’ve been to a neighbors house and drank shitty Trump branded wine while playing Eucre with Trump casino playing cards. Had a respectful discussion about politics and while no one changed any minds, we had a great time nonetheless.
I've been to places like that! And my microcosm of personal friends is certainly like that (sans political merchandise). Unfortunately, the opposite case is a much stronger tone-setter and cautionary prompt. E.g. to use a metaphor, a person considering home security is looking at how often break-ins happen - not how often break-ins don't happen.
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This makes sense. If one of your political platforms is to weaken and reduce the police force, then buying a gun is a very logical and practical thing to do.
Quite the opposite. The increased fear is that there will be bad actors (brownshirts, racists, klansmen, etc) that the police are not making an effort to restrain, or even with whom the police are are allied.
Your average liberal/progressive is still probably less afraid (relative to the median) about random or property crime.
From my understanding, the issue with the police in the US is that they have to do to much, work as EMT, social services, mental health services, community police (proximity police? basically neighborhood cop), peacekeepers (during protests or organized events), investigating, policing traffic...
So you actually have a big "company" responsible for something you could dispatch to at least 4 other services (i've heard call to divided it in 7 parts, but i can't find where i read that, so let's be reasonable and say 4), and they have too much political power because of it. Divide the budget accordingly, correctly train teh police and "new police", call it "police" too because branding works and to stop people from crying out in fear ("mental health police" might not be the best brand, but other might work), and actually separate departements, and concerns. Separate training material, separate training place, split the union. Also make a department that will take care of orphaned police kids.
"Divide the police" is a way better catchphrase anyway.
It is more like if you have to worry about masked goons breaking into your house and trying to kidnap you or your family members then maybe you can't trust the government either.
Wait, what? I thought the main leftward argument against the necessity of the second amendment was that we can now trust our government to not overstep its authority and people protecting themselves against tyranny was no longer needed?
That's not my experience at all - every time (possibly literally every single time) I have heard a liberal say that we don't need guns to protect government tyranny, the argument is that you could not protect yourself from the government, not that you would not need to. That seems obvious to me, so I'm a little astonished at what you're saying.
This notion of an all powerful military and the futility of defense against tyranny assumes that every military person (if so ordered) would gladly take up arms against their own citizenry as well as every military weapon system would be utilized against the people.
What makes the 2nd a deterrent against tyranny is the notion that if things degraded to that level, the military would be compromised by the factions as well likely to the same level as the population is. That, in addition to a significant % of your population is also armed, would create the environment that a government could be changed.
Because the government is aware of this fact, it will keep itself in check.
> every military person (if so ordered) would gladly take up arms against their own citizenry as well as every military weapon system would be utilized against the people.
Perhaps you should look up the literal thousands of occasions of that happening, before snarkily dismissing it as absurd.
Doesn’t require “every”, which is an equally ludicrous addition you’ve made solely so you pedantically dismiss any objections.
But I’m sure the students at Kent State, for instance, would’ve been happy to know how much the government feared them. Great comment.
The argument of their hypocracy stands though, doesn't it? If someone argues that people don't need guns because they would be ineffective against their government, it's strange that that person would buy a gun precisely to use against their government, right?
> it's strange that that person would buy a gun precisely to use against their government, right?
IF that was indeed what they said, what they believed, and what they actually did, sure.
You do seem to have fashioned a weak strawman here though.
This thread appears to be about liberals, PoC's, and LGBTQ's buying guns due to a perception of increased threat from Trump supporters, MAGA cos-players, newly empowere Groypers, etc.
Not (that I can read in the article) to use against their government.
So that's a double no to both your artifically posed questions.
Right?
It seems like you're unable to follow or understand the thread. Several posts up is this post:
>It is more like if you have to worry about masked goons breaking into your house and trying to kidnap you or your family members then maybe you can't trust the government either.
Referring to agencies such as ICE, I believe. Then the post I replied to said that it's not about trust, it's about effectiveness. Now you're telling me it's not about the government at all, but essentially for general purpose self defense, which still seems hypocritical coming from the gun control crowd. Also I'm not sure what an "artificially posed" question is.
Who said the masked goons were military, or even ICE? Plenty of people running around in masks these days pretending to be ICE since ICE officers themselves won’t identify themselves or provide evidence that they are legit. They could just be thugs taking advantage of a very unprofessional arm of the federal government to justify a no-warrant home invasion.
We all know that guns, if ever used that way, will be citizen on citizen, not citizen vs the military. Both sides will think they are right, one or both sides will start with violence, the other side will be forced to respond in kind. The 2nd amendment has always been about Americans killing each other ever since the Supreme Court nullified the first clause of the amendment (which was meant to establish a Swiss-like militia). All it will take for the military to shoot a few students in cities Trump sent them to under the pretext of “preserving law and order” and the whole country is going to blow up. Heck, this is probably Trump’s plan to avoid the midterms.
You could also look at it from the opposite perspective: the military is now too powerful for private ownership of guns to do much and the downsides of having gun ownership now outweigh the nonexistent benefits
No, this is a weak argument point. We know from experience that urban fighting against small arms is hugely difficult without simply wiping a swath of a population completely out…which our military could do of course, but wouldn’t against a domestic population. We generally wouldn’t even do it against foreign adversaries.
You may certainly make the argument that a sizable guerilla urban force could perform outside their weight class against a federal army. However, it makes no logical sense to assert that most liberals buying guns do so under the theory that they will organize together against their government, nor that they do or should believe that this piece of military wisdom would work out for them.
I.e. it's obviously reasonable to believe that private firearms cannot stand up to the federal government, regardless of whether it is the case under theoretical conditions.
That is not true at all, on both accounts, and I hate reading this take every time it comes up.
It shows a lack of understanding about the nature and power of insurgencies and a vast overestimation of the military's ability to protect itself should every military base, forward refueling point, and backyard airstrip suddenly become under attack. Hint: They're not really designed for that.
All of the anarchists and socialists and marginalized and oppressed communities are on the left. Their arguments against gun ownership and the second amendment were never based on an implicit trust in government.
Well it was definitely a talking point of the mainstream left.
Certainly not - their argument was always that it doesn't make sense to argue that we need guns to overthrow the government. Not that the government is broadly trustworthy.
tbh "we can now trust our government to not overstep its authority and people protecting themselves against tyranny was no longer needed" sounds like an intentional misrepresentation of a leftist position than something many actual leftists would believe.
The political side that that often argues for more government in their political solutions seems to by default to trust the government “to not overstep its authority”?
The "mainstream left" isn't real, it's a manufactured facet.
Look at the number of historically communist or socialist countries with an AK-47/74/AKM on their flag.
How often did those countries allow their citizens keep their private firearms after the revolution?
If you rush forward to "after" you conveniently ignore the armed uprising "before".
This seems dishonest. Surely the liberal position - on average - is the rejection of dangerous police, even if that means rejecting a large number of police officers, until the police force (nationally and/or locally) is once again a trustworthy foundation of democratic civilization? The unfortunate reality is that, when you have a class of people with authority and guns, even if only a small minority of them are dangerous, that immediately ruins the image of the whole thing until they are rooted out. Americans have historically proven that, if there's one thing they won't stand for, it's being oppressed/frightened by those in power.
That might be the liberal position on average, but if you have a social circle that’s lefter than average, as in many metro areas, you’ll occasionally hear a desire for outright abolition of police. Not even a simple local constabulary walking the beat, as there is a meme going around that such law enforcement came out of gangs that hunted down fugitive slaves and is inherently tainted. (Nevermind the existence of such police in countries around the world that never had race-based chattel slavery.) Instead, more investment in social services will supposedly remove the need for them entirely.
But of course, whether that position or the number of people who hold it, has any real influence on gun sales is doubtful and the GP may have been a bait post.
I have never in my life heard or read anyone, of any social standing, political affiliation, education or station of life discuss the abolition of police entirely.
Is this like “they’re eating dogs!”?
> I have never in my life heard or read anyone, of any social standing, political affiliation, education or station of life discuss the abolition of police entirely.
It was quite literally a slogan and rallying cry.
> It was quite literally a slogan and rallying cry.
It quite literally wasn't. "Defund" is a different word from "abolish" and has a different meaning. Are you not aware of that difference?
I have, it’s an originally online meme that has been taken up by some of the people in my life, frankly as a shibboleth for the progressive values they want to be seen as holding. But anecdote aside, a search for "abolish policing slave patrols" will get you plenty of advocacy, e.g. [0] (as well as critique from the opposing end of the ideological spectrum).
[0] https://criticalresistance.org/abolish-policing/
Well, today in fact a town in Wisconsin officially shut down their police department [1]. This area leans Republican, so it’s unlikely that the woke mob did it; probably just couldn’t afford the police anymore. But there you go: people discussed it and then did it.
[1] https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/southeastern-wisconsin...
>> I have never in my life heard or read anyone, of any social standing, political affiliation, education or station of life discuss the abolition of police entirely
"Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police"
-- New York Times opinion headline, June 12, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
I can remember things that happened 5 years ago.
I don’t read the NYT and likely I don’t live in the same country as you.
Then maybe stop commenting about contentious topics in US politics?
Why bring this pointless hostility to HN? Just disagree, rather than the petty internet-style sneering/gatekeeping.
No, this doesn't make any sense because the "liberals" have not been recently voted into power in order to achieve their political platforms. The opposite has occurred - they are the powerless ones.