I haven't read this complete thread but as an Australian where guns are completely banned and you won't find a single person who thinks civilians should be armed I've studied both sides of the argument and my stance is as follows:
1. Utopian Solution: Guns don't exist, and neither the government nor citizens (law-abiding or criminal) own guns. But since this is naive and not realistic I favour the second solution:
2. Armed citizens - and armed with military style weapons. But not to protect themselves against home intruders - mainly to protect and/or keep in check a tyrannical government.
Now you say this to anyone in this part of the world and they laugh and dismiss you as a lunatic "what are you saying? As if the government will attack it's own people" ....
Plenty of examples of this happening, and even so in recent history. I went to Cambodia two years back where the Khmer Rouge executed 3M of their own people out of a population of 8M only over a 3 year period. I walked through The Killing Field and stepped on human bones sticking out of the ground. This was late 70's, when many of the members of this board were alive. If an average citizen had an AR16 hanging on the living room wall I very much doubt the Khmer Rouge would have had the balls to enslave and execute a whole nation of people.
Look at what's happening in France now, how the armed police is beating their own people, their own taxpayers to a bloody pulp. I doubt they'd have the balls to do that if the civilians turned up in their own riot gear with the same fire-power.
Protecting against a tyrannical government and at least keeping them at bay is the MAIN reasonfor being armed. And why civilians need to be armed with the same calibre of fire power as the government.
1. Utopian Solution: Guns don't exist, and neither the government nor citizens (law-abiding or criminal) own guns. But since this is naive and not realistic I favour the second solution:
2. Armed citizens - and armed with military style weapons. But not to protect themselves against home intruders - mainly to protect and/or keep in check a tyrannical government.
Now you say this to anyone in this part of the world and they laugh and dismiss you as a lunatic "what are you saying? As if the government will attack it's own people" ....
Plenty of examples of this happening, and even so in recent history. I went to Cambodia two years back where the Khmer Rouge executed 3M of their own people out of a population of 8M only over a 3 year period. I walked through The Killing Field and stepped on human bones sticking out of the ground. This was late 70's, when many of the members of this board were alive. If an average citizen had an AR16 hanging on the living room wall I very much doubt the Khmer Rouge would have had the balls to enslave and execute a whole nation of people.
Look at what's happening in France now, how the armed police is beating their own people, their own taxpayers to a bloody pulp. I doubt they'd have the balls to do that if the civilians turned up in their own riot gear with the same fire-power.
Protecting against a tyrannical government and at least keeping them at bay is the MAIN reasonfor being armed. And why civilians need to be armed with the same calibre of fire power as the government.
