Mao tse tung famously stated all power comes from the barrel of a gun. Is it then so difficult to understand why governments want to take your guns?

[Sixgunsound]

Mao cobfiscated guns, Hitler confiscated guns, Lenin confiscated guns, Castro confiscated guns, Pot confiscated guns, etc. Could anyone then fail to predict the industrial style and scale butchering of their political opponents which inevitably followed?

Updates

+1 y

I'd like to thank the people who responded and engaged the most for not making the issue personal. The rest of the internet could learn much from them.

[Julie4]

The problem with your argument is that it forgets the historical context, indeed it is essential to understand the specific context of each case and the political, social and economic circumstances that led to these events. The confiscation of firearms cannot be seen as the only reason for the oppression that followed.


In the examples cited, the regimes in question also put in place other repressive measures, restricting individual freedoms, freedom of expression and human rights generally. Firearms confiscation is only one aspect of these broader oppressive policies.


Moreover, each country and each political situation is unique. It is therefore difficult to draw general conclusions based solely on a few specific historical examples. Governments that seek to regulate or control firearms may do so for reasons of public safety, prevention of gun violence, or other context-specific reasons.


In sum, it is simplistic to suggest that government confiscation of firearms inevitably leads to large-scale atrocities. Historical situations need to be considered as a whole, taking many factors into account and avoiding overgeneralizations.

[Sixgunsound]

So the argument you're making is that my argument doesn't go into enough detail or that there are insufficient examples? Or do I misunderstand.

Disarming peasants has long been the strategy of oppressive dictators to ensure the safety of their troops and other supporters when they begin violently suppressing opposition. Machiavelli's 'On Fortresses' goes into much further detail, but the high level overview is that a population with the means of resisting or holding their ruler accountable can and will do so, but a defenseless population is easier to control and abuse. The dictators I mentioned all disarmed their opposition as a prerequisite to controlling and eliminating a threat to their power. In the US we aren't playing that game, because we saw just how often the little people lose it elsewhere.

I've always respected your vast historical knowledge, and now I call on your ability to understand group psychology. The final act that we could no longer tolerate from our colonial overlords in the UK was gun confiscation. We put up with theft beatings murder rape public executions crushing taxation etc, but when it came to enslaving us by depriving us of our ability to resist further predation that was the end of looking for a political solution. Once we lost the ability to resist, we would never be taken seriously again, and our demands would be laughed at. In a way, we bonded as a nation around a shared resistance to gun control. I don't expect anyone who did not grow up in America to understand that, but it is the root and origin of America's gun culture. We are as a nation so terrified of being abused and extorted by government once we become defenseless that NOTHING will pry guns out of the hands of many Americans so long as they are still breathing. Look how our government treats us when US civilians own nearly half of the sum total of every gun ever made on earth?

[Sixgunsound]

Have you ever heard of a little place called Howard Springs located in a country that was recently deprived of it's ability for its citizens to defend themselves against their own government?

[Sixgunsound]

My argument is that confiscation of firearms is what made the atrocities possible, whether it was the root cause or not. My apologies for not being specific enough.

[Anonymous]

Does the government want to take your guns? Would they not have done it already?

[Sixgunsound]

The ruling classes haven't found a way to modify the federal constitution to ban guns yet because they don't have a big enough majority. One of the founding. Principles of the US, as evidence by its inclusion in a founding document is the principle of the ability to wield deadly force against an attacker whether that attacker is your neighbor or your. Own government period that has largely stopped the US from turning into Australia. Nobody who rises to government power is a. Human angel, and they often do so in order to exploit the people they rule over. The ruling classes do not fight so hard to gain or preserve their dominions out of an altruistic desire to enrich the lives of their subjects at personal expense; generally the wealth transfer goes the other direction. A basic overview of Irish history should demonstrate that to most people's satisfaction.

[Opinion Owner]

I dont think so. All they would have to do is stop the manufacturer and sale of certain types of guns and bullets, replacement parts and accessories, the sale of those big magazine things and gun licences for every gun you own that's so expensive that it is difficult to be a gun owner. In 20 years it would all work itself out that few if anyone owns a gun, this is the case in Ireland and Britain.
From what I've seen of US politics neither side really wants to take guns or even regulate the better, the issue is used as a shuttlecock to avoid debating other issues and as a distraction. Often I think the gun lobbyists pay the democrats to start talking about gun bans to boost gun sales. Like last year was the 2nd highest year for gun sales in the US.
If gun were actually banned tomorrow citizens would have no choice, like when Australia banned guns.

[Sixgunsound]

They are doing many of those things already, and you do need a license which registers every serial number for handguns and semi auto rifles in my state. Parts and ammunition are subject to HUGE amounts of regulation or bans. And the aforementioned licenses are designed to price the poor, who have greater need of an equalizer for self defense than people who live in safer parts of town out of gun ownership. The racist, classist, elitist regulations on gun ownership in the US actually hurt the people they are allegedly supposed to benefit the most. After all thd crap King George put us through, what finally pushed us over the edge and created a rallying cry around which we could unite as a nation was resisting gun bans and gun confiscation. We became a nation to keep our guns. Look at the meteoric rise out of nowhere of politicians like Lauren Boebert who nobody ever heard of until she decided to make guns her platform, and all of a sudden half of America is ready to follow her to hell and back. It wouldn't surprise me if she wins a higher office than Congress later in her career. Contrast that with nearly any anti-gun politician who don't do nearly as well unless they already had a lock on a political career, and even then, they are losing ground and getting primary challenges. When life gets more chaotic, as we are seeing now with riots and covid and lockdowns and government mandated race wars, people want to feel safe and so go out and buy guns. In 2020, 40% of guns sold were to first time buyers! That is amazing, and paints a picture of a bright and secure future for Americans abilities to defend themselves from all enemies, foreign and domestic, should the need arise. Who knows, US civilians might surpass the 50% mark for ownership of 50% of every gun ever made anywhere on earth if the left keeps pushing to restrict gun rights. The humiliating detonation of nearly every left-led anti gun court case this year has got to sting at least a little bit😂

[Sixgunsound]

I do have to give you credit for being correct where credit is due. I sell guns at a retail chain on weekends but I will never be as good of a gun salesman as anti-gun politicians🤣

[Opinion Owner]

The registration of guns is pretty standard, that's how you know they don't even care about guns as an issue as it would be so easy for them to know exactly every gun sold in the US belongs to and where.
I dont think king George 3rd wanted your guns, he actually wanted you to keep them so he could call Colonists up as militia rather than having to keep a large standing army in the Americas to fight the natives or French or Spanish. Also hunting in the Americas was majorly important for food, it was one of the biggest differences colonists from Europe enjoyed compared to Britain and Europe, all the abundance of food, people in Europe were starving. Then you have the furr trade in the Americas with the liked of the Hudson company at one time far richer than the east India company. The British had a huge empire at the time and the government wanted to run it very cheaply with little spent on it upkeep and defence and subjects in colonies paying their fair share of taxes for this. One could argue that the American revolution was the continuation of the English civil war because after the monarchy was restored after 20 years of a British Republic a lot of those republicans, roundhead vetreans and religious groups like calvanists, Puritans, Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists left Britain to settle and make a success in the Americas.
George the 3rd was probably the best king Britain ever had despite his image as a tyrant in America and mad king in Britain. He helped advance science and mathematics. He pushed the agricultural revolution through which led to the industrial revolution.
Even Lauren Bobbert running on a gun platform shows what I'm talking about. Why not inflation? Job? Wages? Housing? Homeless? Big Pharma? Obesity? Infrastructure? Drug addiction? Food standards? College tuition prices? Litteracy?

[Sixgunsound]

It was the march on our arsenals to seize our guns that removed the possibility of a political solution. The first thing that we could agree on and bond over as a nation was the refusal to accept disarmament. We will not be defenseless slaves to a foreign tyrant. We dont care if you are the biggest empire on earth with more troops than we have people. Come and take it. Prior to coming for our guns, we were still willing to talk. But we understood even then that once our guns are gone they aren't coming back, and that once the sheep have no horns their demands are easily ignored.
I talked about America being a consequence of the English Civil War in a different post. Basically you have the East Anglian puritans who form the Northern Yankees who are opposed to the Southern English second sons and other spare nobility who wanted to set up medieval fiefdoms in the south. Our civil war was the conflict between those in the south trying to preserve their state's rights to have medieval fiefdoms and keep their serfs, opposed by the descendants of working class people whose ancestral memory recalls being serfs fighting to preserve their newfound freedoms in the new world.
I reference the person running on a gun platform to show where the hearts and minds of many Americans remain. She's so successful because she tapped into a part of the national psyche and gave the people what they wanted. Politicians who do that tend to succeed, and I predict seeing more people running on a pro gun platform because that is what larger numbers of Ameri and want, especially in times of chaos or uncertainty. The left becoming the ruling class and achieving many of its policy goals in a center-right nation is causing massive amounts of chaos, so people feel unsafe and reach for guns.

[Sixgunsound]

Civilian gun ownership was a successful strategy for us as a deterrent from Japanese invasion during WW2 and it was hilarious how quickly Ukraine opened up its arsenals and started handing out guns despite its anti gun government, when it mattered. Civilian gun ownership seems to be deterring Russia!

[Opinion Owner]

There were plenty of gin owners in the Philippines, mayla, Hong Kong and Singapore during Ww2 as well as China but it didn't deter a Japanese invasion. Perhaps the Western coast of the US was just a step to far for them, their whole strategy during ww2 was to cripple the US navy at pearl Harbour, seize resources they needed and establish a defensive line of territories and Islands.
aren't all the men in Ukraine conscripted into the army? Are they still civilian gun owners of they are army?

[Andres77]

Because they worship mao and many Americans are ignorant

[Sixgunsound]

It's in the government's best interest to legally mandate indoctrination camps that result in said ignorance.