Man who shot YouTuber on video at Dulles Town Center found not guilty by jury ( www.wusa9.com )

bedrooms , 9 months ago

As a non-US citizen I have come up with this spontaneous question. If guns are permitted so that they can fight a tyrannical government, why are people allowed to carry them to shoot other citizens?

chumbalumber , 9 months ago

Not a US citizen, and very much in favour of gun control, but I don’t think this argument holds much water.

Consider yourself a wannabe tyrannical dictator, but your population is heavily armed and might rebel against your takeover. How do you go about preparing your takeover? The answer: you slowly restrict gun usage. You make purchasing a gun more difficult, restrict the spaces you are permitted to carry a weapon, introduce buyback schemes to reduce the number of guns on the streets, etc., to ensure you have a monopoly on violence.

If you look at it from this standpoint, then the response is obvious; as a gun activist, you must vehemently oppose all restrictions on gun purchasing, because any restriction paves the way for yet more restrictions.

jeremy_sylvis , 9 months ago

If guns are permitted so that they can fight a tyrannical government

There is no “only” in play here; “fight a tyrannical government” is just an extension of self defense.

why are people allowed to carry them to shoot other citizens?

Self-defense.

cobra89 , 9 months ago

Because the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 “a well regulated militia” apparently means nothing and normal citizens can essentially have whatever gun they want: …wikipedia.org/…/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

<span style="color:#323232;">District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. It ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms—unconnected with service in a militia—for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee.[1] It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that certain restrictions on guns and gun ownership were permissible. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense or whether the right was only intended for state militias.[2]
</span>