Why? You did a good job of outlining your view. My view is that America has long passed the point where “revolution” is in the air. We’re lazy and complacent, and so long as we have our food, consumer luxuries, and entertainment - our bread and circuses, if you will - then “change” will not really come about.
I predict that I become rich driving down to the border and selling guns to Americans, much like some other Montrealers who sold them booze during Prohibition.
It’s not threadshitting when czarcasm does it.
People often need a reality check regarding delusions of partisan glory. We grew up with a generation who seems to believe that Red Dawn was a documentary, but let’s be honest here. I would argue that the American population, by and large, is relatively weak, fragmented and conditioned to a lifestyle that is anything but conducive to prolonged guerilla action. I believe that we would turn on each other faster than we would unite against the military mite of the federal government.
Fledgling revolutions would be stamped out fairly quickly. On one side you would have laser-guided weaponry, satellite reconnaissance, tactical assault equipment, armored vehicles, etc. The other side would have some small arms and an ideology.
Game over.
Er, nor is it threadshitting when there was a clear, reasonable, and rational explanation that differed from someone’s initial misinterpretation.
To those predicting an uproar or revolution–wouldn’t just a bit of planning go a long way around that? Why would they focus on kicking in granny’s and Jenkin’s doors first? Why not focus on crime-related aspects of guns. Let fines and property confiscations do their work. Let Una’s (IMHO correct) view let things settle?
Not quite. The U.S. has a volunteer military, after all, and we can plausibly expect mass desertions and thefts of materiel, so both sides end up with serious firepower, albeit it is still a gross mismatch.
To make this work, you’d have to spend several years tightening up the military, discharging anyone who might hesitate at shooting American civilians, heavily indoctrinating recruits to hold the civilian population in contempt, installing an officer corps of ruthless individuals interested in power… I supose you could tell them you’re seizing guns as an emergency measure to maintain the long-term health of the constitution, or something. That’ll work for a while.
An outsider perspective; how many civilian firearms are there in the U.S.? This cites about 283 million, give or take - impossible to know for sure. Federal authorities are never going to have the manpower to track down even those guns you can be reasonably sure exists. Combined with losses from all the ‘cold, dead hands’ types - which do exist - I imagine a lot of secessionist types would see this as their moment, in a mid-90s kind of way, you negate any point in doing it. The issue of gun control in the U.S. is a purely manufactured issue; you don’t have a hope in hell of infringing on that level of ownership and the zeal behind it.
Here in the U.K. we pretty much banned handguns overnight after some sick paedo son of a bitch walked into a primary school in Scotland with legally owned handguns and started shooting. The legislation was largely passed without a fuss, and supported by most of the public. Comparisons with other countries are to a great extent false analogies, however, for a variety of reasons - mainly cultural and political. The 2nd Amendment had no real equivalent in British law, there’s no powerful gun lobby or NRA. If you get rid of the 2nd Amendment, will the rest be far behind?
Of course now I’m reminded of one of my favourite bits from Hot Fuzz, and a joke I didn’t even notice the first two times I watched it. Police Sergeant Angel has been involuntarily transferred from London to a posting out in the country, where he encounters hostility from some of the local police force, including the detectives:
DS Andy Wainwright: You do know there are more guns in the country than there are in the city.
DS Andy Cartwright: Everyone and their mums is packin’ round here!
Nicholas Angel: Like who?
DS Andy Wainwright: Farmers.
Nicholas Angel: Who else?
DS Andy Cartwright: Farmers’ mums.
Later on, Angel rides into town to deal with the bad guys, first encountering James Reaper (owner of Brannigan Farm) who yells out “MOMMMMM!” prompting his elderly mother to appear with a double-barrel shotgun and start blasting.
Yeah- i enjoyed Both Tristan’s post and Una’s updated version. Both somewhat plausible IMO but i’d probably put my money on Una’s scenario.
FWIW i think apathy would kick in long before the national guard was called out. No one would try to confiscate anyone’s guns. It’d become 3% more difficult to get a gun, a tiny percentage of people would turn theirs in voluntarily. Life would continue much the same as it is now and in about 60 years, the old timers would reminisce about how much better it was when we all had guns.
What do you mean by “3% more difficult to get a gun”? I think it would be a hell of a lot more difficult than that.
What would REALLY happen if the Second Amendment was repealed? In my opinion, not too much except for a lot more shouting.
The repeal of the Second Amendment wouldn’t ban firearms - it would just make a ban theoretically possible. And as this thread demonstrates, gun ownership is a button issue for a lot of people. The NRA would still be around and it would still be voting - probably more so with the stakes being higher.
Would a few hundred congressmen get elected on a platform of banning and confiscating firearms? Obviously not. You’d probably have a couple of dozen members who would be calling for such a general ban and they’d never get it.
Same thing with the states. I doubt any state would enact a general ban. People need to remember there’s a lot of people in both parties who support gun ownership rights - it’s not a left/right Democrat/Republican issue.
So what you’d probably end up getting in a handful of cities and towns that might ban firearms. And you’d probably see more restrictions on a broader level.
What you wouldn’t see is Armageddon. There’d be no armies of militiamen fighting in the streets because the Berkley city council decided to ban handguns or because Massachusetts enacted a ninety-day waiting period law. Gun owners for the most part would think laws like that were stupid but they wouldn’t have any effect on most gun owners. The consensus would be “If those idiots are dumb enough to disarm themselves, let them get killed by criminals. Fuck them.”
I think you’d see what happened in Canada - civil disobedience. When universal gun registration was passed, a significant number of gun owners simply refused to register them. Only about 75% of gun owners registered their guns before the deadline.
I’m guessing that in the U.S., people would simply refuse to turn in their guns. Since they are largely unregistered, the government has no way of knowing who has guns and who doesn’t. That makes the law virtually unenforceable unless you’re planning on doing house-to-house gun sweeps. Good luck with that.
There would be a thriving black market, because guns last forever and there are over 200 million of them in the U.S. As the price rises due to demand, it will cause a lot of gun owners to sell. There will be plenty of supply.
And of course there will be guns manufactured underground - they’re being manufactured already. ‘Zip’ guns and Saturday Night Specials have been around for a long time. Manufacturing these things isn’t as hard as it used to be. CNC machines, flo-jet cutters, and other small machines make it possible to run a small assembly line with just a handful of people. But even larger manufacturing is possible. If a gun costs $200 to make and sells for $2000, I guarantee there will be a lot of gun makers.
As far as the people who say they’ll have a “boat accident” and “lose” all their guns, so what? If the guns are hidden away that’s almost as good as melting them down. Hidden guns aren’t likely to be accessible to be pulled out and used stupidly, and will be hard for burglars to find which will limit their impact on the black market.
The analogy between banning drugs/alcohol and banning guns is flawed because the motives are different. Bans against intoxicants are mostly based on the idea that they are immoral. Bans on guns are mostly motivated by the fear of the guns being used. I don’t much care if you hide in your hidden armory caressing your guns (while muttering “my precious” perhaps); if they are hidden and hard to access then the guns are unlikely to be used which accomplishes the important goal of such a law. As opposed to drugs, where if someone sneaks into their stash and drinks or shoots up the law has failed.
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Those of you who are looking at the the markets in NW Pakistan (more accurately Darra Adam Khel) need a reality check. Those cheap knock off of foreign weapons are so bloody dangerous to the firer (and much safer for the target incidentally) are not going to be the basis of a black market. Even today with a gun culture more deeply entrenched and wide in scope then any place in the US and with a crap load of black market guns, most of these are not from DAK but either local factory manufactured or foreign made. Those guys use film rolls to make gunpowder ferchrrissakes.
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I have to say this, if you think that some how your little pistol is gping to be much help when the “government” comes calling means that you are out of your mind.
I doubt it. Nitrate film hasn’t been used since the early 1950’s.
That place is in the 1550’s.
You’re talking out your ass by repeating something you half-remember reading somewhere. At one time, very long ago, it was possible to make propellant from nitrate-base film. Film manufacturers switched to safer bases long, long ago. You were correct enough about the locally made guns being generally unsafe. Just let this one go.
Not half remembered. Witnessed. You still have spools of nitrate based filsm being sold there (thats where grand ma old films end up). It is true that most gunpowder is not made from film rolls but there was and still is a market for it.
Dude, unless nitrate-base film is carefully stored at low temperatures, it chemically degrades. One of the things formed by the degradation is nitric acid. You end up with a corroded film cannister filled with dust or goo, either of which is a fire hazard. Grandma’s old film, if it hasn’t disintegrated, isn’t making its way across the world so these primitive screwheads can make propellant out of it. I call bullshit.
“Hand waving” the other side seemed to work okay for your side for the 70-80 years since Miller.
How’s that shoe fitting you now that it’s on your foot?
Your “honest and legitimate contention” exists in the minds of the graduates of a handful of liberal universities (albeit prestigious ones) on the east and west coasts, and a few northern cities like Chicago.
Agreed; many government arms rooms (law enforcement and military) might coincidentally empty out overnight and their contents disappear, and there might be a kind of “revolving door” of guns taken from people willing to give them up, and then mysteriously and clandestinely handed over to groups (sure to form) willing to fight.
Classic insurgent scenario where a portion of the government is sympathetic to the insurgents.
And the hunting rifles are, in the end, the most dangerous firearm out there in terms of lethality, range, precision (assuming proper sighting) and accuracy (assuming marginally competent rifle shooter).