How do you think Communism was overthrown?

Exaggerate much?

I have never wondered in my life if someone is carrying a gun and don't know anyone who has.

But go ahead and say blanket statements about other cultures.

Being scared of guns is funny coming from someone from England where the crime rate is close to as high as ours but they just stab you with a knife. You only have to worry about criminals carrying guns and not law abiding citizens. You have to worry about brazen criminals breaking into your house while your asleep with no fear.

The idea of citizens being able to confront the US military is ridiculous with or without guns.

My thoughts exactly. I'm pretty confident they had zero privately owned guns in East-Germany.

We don't worry about people breaking in our houses because we are powerful and have FREEDOM United states of England #1

Who said the citizens need to confront the military?

If the will of the people is not in line with the govt they will have a every hard time winning any sort of war. They wouldn't necessarily lose but winning would be near impossible.


Look at Afghanistan for instance. The Russian and American militaries tried to force govt and the will of the people resisted. Do you think the afghanis would be as formidable without guns?

Not to mention that if the will of the American people doesn't fall in line with the govt the military as we know it will not be the same.

It collapsed under it's own weight. Calling that "overthrowing" is not accurate. Overthrowing is literally forcibly removing from power. Without the force part, it's another form of transition.

I'm not from England.

Scotland's even worse. Glasgow has the highest crime rate in the UK

Dude I've lived in Africa, I'm not exactly a stranger to guns.

But yeah I appreciate the point, and probably spoke out of turn but I wasn't making a blanket statement as such, more just musing as to how I'd feel walking down the streets in a place where you can walk into a shop and buy a gun over the counter with very little if any hassle at all. It's just strange to me, and I would be thinking to myself, god all these ****ers could be carrying guns. Imagine I get into a fight in a bar - I could legit end up on the wrong end of a bullet. But yes that's probably quite dramatic.

I'm going to Houston on Sunday so I guess I'll fond out one way or the other.

I'm not from Glasgow and yes it is a ****hole of the highest order to be avoided at all costs. Other than Glasgow, no, Scotland is by no means or measures 'worse'.

Anyway enough of the derail.

At least we can all agree that Scotland is a dump and full of social deviants

You couldn't pay me to live in that wasteland

Or a board with a nail in it...

This figure is completely plausible. My father has 4 shotguns and a rifle and I know of at least ten relatives and friends just off the top of my head that own multiple firearms. Granted, these people that I speak of live in Dorset, but still that is probably enough to skew the figure for the total UK population. I assume that you live in an urban area?

Yea not really. Besides, if you define a revolution by the use of guns it's kind of pointless for me to argue that revolutions can occur without armed populations. Was an armed population necessary for Tunisia's revolution?

Probably about as strange as it is to us that your police officers don't even carry guns. A practice like that here in the states would be insane. Hence, for the same reasons, some respectable citizens also feel a need to own guns in order to protect themselves. It's unfortunate but it's the reality of the situation.

The Russians were in the late 70s / early 80s where the differences in military vs personal weaponry was not as drastic as it is today.

The Mujahideen were trained and supplied military weaponry by foreign governments. If Reagan hadn't shipped the Stingers things would have turned out very differently.

Consider the type of individual that fights in these conflicts be it the Russians in Afghanistan or the Syrian uprising currently happening -- now go to a mall and look at your fellow Americans. Do you see a difference?

Having sufficient support of armed individuals is critical, in this case, when the military turned, that can do it. You can say it is possible without armed civilian populations, I suppose, in some instances.

Is this really a debate about gun control AGAIN? What a terrible case to make an argument for it.

1. He stabbed the same amount of people to death that were shot to death. He also tried to run people over with his car. If you think he wouldn't have found some other way to hurt and kill people if he didn't have a gun, you're delusional.

2. He never tried to commit suicide, was hospitalized, or had his doctor declare him to be mentally unstable. He was on some meds and that's it. If someone took some meds a few years ago, you can't just restrict them from things for life. It's not like having a felony on your record. There are obviously laws that prohibit mentally unstable people from legally buying guns. It's just bad variance that he didn't have any previous mental history on paper, because most people like him do.

3. This happened in California, which is a gun control advocate's wet dream state. It's without question one of the strictest gun ownership states in the nation, and guess what? Didn't stop anything. (shocking) I would love to hear some proposed gun law changes that California doesn't already have that would have made any difference.

I don't even have to bust out all the standard gun debate arguments about whether it raises or lowers crime yada yada yada, because it's all irrelevant. Short of a nationwide gun ban (which could never happen or be enforced) it couldn't have been prevented with any kind of legislation. Accept it.

When it gets to the point where the military is ordered to slaughter a bunch of civilians either unarmed or toting pistols/rifles/shotguns a fair amount of the soldiers are going to want to turn around and slaughter the people giving them that order. Some generals might even decide it's a good time for a coup. Regular citizens aren't going to "beat" a government with their guns. But they might well kick something off that eventually ends with regime change.

Would they though? Don't the army completely re-mould you into someone that isn't going to go against orders no matter what? It would be awfully hard for them to break out of this I imagine

Were talking about the army, not the marines.

Both of these statements are ridiculous.