# A modest gun control proposal: First, confiscate all guns. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 31, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614 "2012-12-31T00:00:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/81 "2013-01-05T03:58:16Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > BrainGlutton, how did that type of strategy work out in Tiananmen Square? With the same outcome, and significantly less bloodshed, than it would have if the Goddess-of-Democracy protesters had been armed. The functional differences from Russia in 1991 being, (1) the Chinese dissidents camping out in Tianmen Square did **not** have the mass of the people behind them; most Chinese saw them as discontented know-it-all college kids, or so I’ve gleaned from discussions here with **China Guy** among others; and (2) in China’s case it was the protesters who started it, and were attacking the status quo, which is always a bigger challenge than defending it, or reacting to a coup attempt. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/82 "2013-01-05T05:57:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > With the same outcome, and significantly less bloodshed, than it would have if the Goddess-of-Democracy protesters had been armed. The functional differences from Russia in 1991 being, (1) the Chinese dissidents camping out in Tianmen Square did **not** have the mass of the people behind them; most Chinese saw them as discontented know-it-all college kids, or so I’ve gleaned from discussions here with **China Guy** among others; and (2) in China’s case it was the protesters who started it, and were attacking the status quo, which is always a bigger challenge than defending it, or reacting to a coup attempt. OK, so what you are saying is the exact opposite of this happened: “…unarmed civilians took to the streets and got up in the soldiers’ faces and demanded, in effect, “Do you really want to do this?” And the soldiers were all, “Well . . . no.” It turned out the generals could not rely on their troops to turn their guns on the people they were supposed to defend.” So the moral is, if the protesters are a know it all kids, and the’re aren’t enough of them to instill some fear of reprisal, then generals can pretty much count on their troops to turn their guns on their own people, especially if it’s the kids who “started it” with regards to demanding liberty and human rights. Thanks for the history lesson. ---
**Author:** ![Gavelbrook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@Gavelbrook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gavelbrook)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/83 "2013-01-05T16:32:44Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > I think it should be a federal crime to post anything on the Internet suggesting that the right to keep and bear arms should only apply to muzzle-loading black powder weapons. (People would of course still be free to make such arguments by standing on a soapbox in the town square, or printing up some handbills on a [printing press](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Handtiegelpresse_von_1811.jpg) and passing them out to people on street corners or posting them in public places.) At first I was outraged. Then I laughed. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/84 "2013-01-05T17:24:33Z")
You’ll find that’s a common reaction here, **Gavelbrook**. We try to keep you on your toes. Welcome aboard! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/85 "2013-01-05T17:51:25Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > OK, so what you are saying is the exact opposite of this happened: > > “…unarmed civilians took to the streets and got up in the soldiers’ faces and demanded, in effect, “Do you really want to do this?” And the soldiers were all, “Well . . . no.” It turned out the generals could not rely on their troops to turn their guns on the people they were supposed to defend.” > > So the moral is, if the protesters are a know it all kids, and the’re aren’t enough of them to instill some fear of reprisal, then generals can pretty much count on their troops to turn their guns on their own people, especially if it’s the kids who “started it” with regards to demanding liberty and human rights. Thanks for the history lesson. Don’t forget the most relevant element of that history lesson: There is no conceivable scenario where being armed **helps.** ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/86 "2013-01-05T20:21:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Don’t forget the most relevant element of that history lesson: There is no conceivable scenario where being armed **helps.** The soldiers found it handy. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/87 "2013-01-05T20:54:30Z")
And I don’t think the guys inside the tanks felt particularly threatened. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/88 "2013-01-05T21:09:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So where does that right come from, then? Not God. Not “natural law.” Where? Do you deny that it exists? It matters not the source though you can come up with your own rationale. By virtue of being sentient it exists, no different than the right not to be killed. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/89 "2013-01-05T23:14:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Don’t forget the most relevant element of that history lesson: There is no conceivable scenario where being armed **helps.** Except Afghanistan, as previously mentioned, wherein armed citizen’s militias (after the main armed forces were destroyed) held off a modern superpower’s army for years using man-portable and improvised weapons and tossed said superpower out on its collective ear. Yes, they eventually had help from the US. I’m sure there’s NO country at all that’d find it expedient to smuggle man-portable arms in to inflame an ongoing US civil war. ESPECIALLY (as you helpfully mention above) that the military wouldn’t be 100% on the side of crushing any rebellion that happened. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/90 "2013-01-06T00:40:32Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Do you deny that it exists? I deny it exists except as a legal concept. Think [consequentialism,](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Consequentialism) not [deontology.](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/91 "2013-01-06T00:45:45Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > And I don’t think the guys inside the tanks felt particularly threatened. Exactly. That’s why it’s mostly pointless for the street-rebels to be armed, if the government forces have tanks, which they always do, nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/92 "2013-01-06T01:12:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Exactly. That’s why it’s mostly pointless for the street-rebels to be armed, if the government forces have tanks, which they always do, nowadays. Except if the rebels are armed with RPGs. Then the rebels go from a nuisance to a problem. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/93 "2013-01-06T01:35:19Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Except if the rebels are armed with RPGs. Then the rebels go from a nuisance to a problem. So, to be prepared for when that Rubicon is crossed, would you like the Second Amendment to be interpreted so as to allow you the freedom to keep and bear RPGs? That’s not going to happen in your lifetime or mine, nor should it. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/94 "2013-01-06T02:08:07Z")
IMHO, it all boils down to this: you cannot turn the US into an oasis of peace and safety by banning guns. Banning guns _ **simply will not** _ turn the US into a UK or a Japan. It just won’t happen- and any idea that it will is a fantasy; as deluded as the notion that Prohibition would turn the US into a nation of teetotalers. It might turn the US into another Mexico, where criminals, insurgents and scofflaws can get all the illegal guns they want; but thinking banning guns will “dismantle the gun culture”? Bullshit. And it isn’t just a matter of the effort being futile; the very attempt will be more harmful than doing nothing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/95 "2013-01-06T02:10:39Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > IMHO, it all boils down to this: you cannot turn the US into an oasis of peace and safety by banning guns. Banning guns _ **simply will not** _ turn the US into a UK or a Japan. It just won’t happen- and any idea that it will is a fantasy; as deluded as the notion that Prohibition would turn the US into a nation of teetotalers. You’re drawing some pretty heavy false equivalency, there. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/96 "2013-01-06T02:41:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So, to be prepared for when that Rubicon is crossed, would you like the Second Amendment to be interpreted so as to allow you the freedom to keep and bear RPGs? That’s not going to happen in your lifetime or mine, nor should it. The tanks, for the record, catch fire pretty easily from homemade firebombs and improvised explosives. It’s actually kinda hilariously tragic how easy it is to mission-kill a modern battle tank in an urban or guerrilla environment–which is why no one uses them for that, except Israel’s one purpose-built one (the Merkava LIC)–you’ll note how few we used in the insurgency phase in either Afghanistan or Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/97 "2013-01-06T04:37:23Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > BrainGlutton, how did that type of strategy work out in Tiananmen Square? It worked the first time. The Party had to find more troops from a different part of the country to bulldoze the protesters. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/98 "2013-01-06T04:48:59Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > IMHO, it all boils down to this: you cannot turn the US into an oasis of peace and safety by banning guns. Banning guns _ **simply will not** _ turn the US into a UK or a Japan. It just won’t happen- and any idea that it will is a fantasy; as deluded as the notion that Prohibition would turn the US into a nation of teetotalers. It might turn the US into another Mexico, where criminals, insurgents and scofflaws can get all the illegal guns they want; but thinking banning guns will “dismantle the gun culture”? Bullshit. And it isn’t just a matter of the effort being futile; the very attempt will be more harmful than doing nothing. False premise: The UK is not an oasis of peace and safety. There are armed gangs in Britain. There are neighborhoods of Bristol terrorized by kid gangs. Do the Brits say, “Well, then, let’s arm everyone”? No. They send in cops. Nasty, armored, paramilitary, “jackbooted thug” cops, straight out of Rusty Limbaugh’s nightmares. And apparently it works passably. An “armed society” is not necessarily a well-policed society. As far as the implicit argument that the USA is now and must continue to be some kind of battlefield of endless race war–at least that’s the subtext I get from your post–OK, fine. How about we take a page from the Chinese and restrict movement internally? There can be gunfree states separated from Gangland USA by razor wire. You want to live in a free-fire zone? Vote for that, and we’ll arrange it. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/99 "2013-01-06T05:07:47Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > As far as the implicit argument that the USA is now and must continue to be some kind of battlefield of endless race war–at least that’s the subtext I get from your post– He didn’t really say that, just that “banning guns won’t solve the US’s violence problem”. Which, statistically speaking, there’s a case to be made for that. When compared with other nations, our rates of violent crimes and spree killings are not proportional to our rates of gun ownership. IMHO, the US has a cultural problem that needs to be solved, and attempting to solve our violence problems by addressing guns rather than culture is going to work approximately as well as Prohibition addressed our alcohol problems–that is to say, not well enough. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/100 "2013-01-06T13:15:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Don’t forget the most relevant element of that history lesson: There is no conceivable scenario where being armed **helps.** I’m sorry your conceptional skills are lacking. Seems your memory is as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614.md?page=6)