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Thought paddy fields was Vietnam...

 Medium of Death wrote:
Not really mate. I highlighted the ridiculousness of you dragging a "we won WW2" comment into a thread about gun violence in America. So me pointing out that those guns didn't help in Vietnam is in the same vein.

If it was about the Revolutionary war then fine, that's just not what I took it as. Strangely enough that's not what's imprinted on my mind when I think about overreaching governments.

Did private gun ownership really help in the Revolutionary war? I would have thought proliferation came after you'd won?

And how well did your guns help in Ireland?

As an Irishman my first thought was the Revolutionary War. And yes, private ownership really helped as a lot of the militia owned their own firearms, and furthermore much of the artillery and cannons were owned privately

Gotta admit, I took the overreaching government comment as the Revolutionary War, also. I think this underscores a huge difference in the thought process on both sides of the pond.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 easysauce wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Spoiler:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Lordhat wrote:
I just want to know why we feel like we can tell people that they're not allowed to end their own life.

That's not really what the article is saying. It's that people can come through their depression and if they didn't have readily available firearms they wouldn't be able to kill themselves comparatively easily to the other suicide options.

This is hardly overlapping into the Euthanasia debate.

And that is a purely facetious idea. If someone is dead set on suicide, they will do it no matter what implement they have handy to do it with. The US and UK have near identical suicide rates, 12 and 11.8 per 100k. In the US 50% are done with firearms, in the UK 50% are done by hanging.

So you have one modern western nation with readily available guns, one modern western nation without. Same suicide rates. The point is debunked.

Nice logic, because we know that the United Kingdom and America are so interchangeable. There can be other factors at work beyond, Scotland has a higher suicide rate that the rest of the UK for example.

I'm not saying that guns are the reason that a lot of people kill themselves I'm saying that them being readily available gives people an "easier" option. It might be a small percent out of the total that do kill themselves with guns, but it's probably still there.

So... put some numbers up then. Provide some proof that your idea of trampling all over the rights of a nation would actually accomplish anything.

Rest of the western world.

so again, ignoring the fact that gun crime went up in places like britain after the handgun ban?

when asked for proof, you just make a comment like the rest of the world actually has less gun crime because of their gun control, when the exact opposite is true factually.

"Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soars-35.html#ixzz2sBk3aZCn

"use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned. The Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College in London, which carried out the research, said the number of crimes in which a handgun was reported increased from 2,648 in 1997/98 to 3,685 in 1999/2000. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm

And now it's gone down, and it was never anything like the level in the USA, and UK gun crime includes things that aren't gun crimes in the US. Yes. Let's not bother to look at Canada, Japan or France.

Americans, you have a problem with guns.

Most of us disagree that we have "a problem" with guns.

Admit it. Accept it. Decide to do nothing about it because having lots of guns is more important.

That's fine. We understand. Just try to stop being in denial.

Admit what? Don't you think your "European" sensibility is being forced into the American psyche a wee bit?

Please.

No thanks brah.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
The EU posters arguing this, it's important to consider how different the situation is in the US. Widespread civilian firearm ownership is far less common here than in the US, and historically was way less common. It is much harder to get the cat back in the bag, so comparing the US to Europe isn't helpful. It's also unhelpful to treat the "US" as one monolithic block with regard to gun laws.

Based on the death stats, there seems to be a problem with gun violence in the US. It would be more interesting and productive to look at what causes a culture of violence in a nation rather than to restrict the tools of that violence, in my view. (That said I am definitely pro gun control in countries where it can actually make a difference, I am just sceptical it would work as well as many of us on this side of the pond imagine).

Exactly.

Thanks for being sensible Da Boss.

I think non-Americans likes to bring this up to bash Americans. Because, lemme let you in on a secret: We have it good here.

 Goliath wrote:
Yes, but just because you make that point in every gun thread doesn't mean that it isn't still a bit silly.

The government tried legislating away alcohol, and what happened was the prohibition era. It wasn't particularly fun.

They could try and legislate away cars, I guess? I'm under the impression that cars are used more in daily life for most americans than guns are though, so that might cause some issues.

Its so choice that I have a new shotgun (Mossberg field ans security combo) in the mail and I had a call that my new M&P has been fully tweaked and is ready to ship back to me. 3.2 lb measured trigger pull with tightened audible reset, competition barrel, and competition adjustable sights yea baby YEA!

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 easysauce wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Spoiler:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Lordhat wrote:
I just want to know why we feel like we can tell people that they're not allowed to end their own life.

That's not really what the article is saying. It's that people can come through their depression and if they didn't have readily available firearms they wouldn't be able to kill themselves comparatively easily to the other suicide options.

This is hardly overlapping into the Euthanasia debate.

And that is a purely facetious idea. If someone is dead set on suicide, they will do it no matter what implement they have handy to do it with. The US and UK have near identical suicide rates, 12 and 11.8 per 100k. In the US 50% are done with firearms, in the UK 50% are done by hanging.

So you have one modern western nation with readily available guns, one modern western nation without. Same suicide rates. The point is debunked.

Nice logic, because we know that the United Kingdom and America are so interchangeable. There can be other factors at work beyond, Scotland has a higher suicide rate that the rest of the UK for example.

I'm not saying that guns are the reason that a lot of people kill themselves I'm saying that them being readily available gives people an "easier" option. It might be a small percent out of the total that do kill themselves with guns, but it's probably still there.

So... put some numbers up then. Provide some proof that your idea of trampling all over the rights of a nation would actually accomplish anything.

Rest of the western world.

so again, ignoring the fact that gun crime went up in places like britain after the handgun ban?

when asked for proof, you just make a comment like the rest of the world actually has less gun crime because of their gun control, when the exact opposite is true factually.

"Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soars-35.html#ixzz2sBk3aZCn

"use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned. The Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College in London, which carried out the research, said the number of crimes in which a handgun was reported increased from 2,648 in 1997/98 to 3,685 in 1999/2000. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm

And now it's gone down, and it was never anything like the level in the USA, and UK gun crime includes things that aren't gun crimes in the US. Yes. Let's not bother to look at Canada, Japan or France.

Americans, you have a problem with guns.

Admit it. Accept it. Decide to do nothing about it because having lots of guns is more important.

That's fine. We understand. Just try to stop being in denial.

Please.

In the same token you can admit Europe has a problem with alcohol, since 195,000 who die yearly in Europe do so because of alcohol related causes.


http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/alcohol-use/data-and-statistics


http://ec.europa.eu/health/archive/ph_determinants/life_style/alcohol/documents/alcohol_factsheet_en.pdf


A lil' qualifier, not talking prohibition, but with all of the support for the alcohol industry over there, in spite of the carnage and other problems it causes, why are you so down on gun ownership?

Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

Maybe there's a language barrier issue, but the first part of your post makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

I'm kind of with Nuggz. That makes no sense at all.

KillKrazy and MoD are being counterproductive.

The more ya'll speak the more I'm inclined to ignore you on this.

Relapse wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 easysauce wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Spoiler:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Lordhat wrote:
I just want to know why we feel like we can tell people that they're not allowed to end their own life.

That's not really what the article is saying. It's that people can come through their depression and if they didn't have readily available firearms they wouldn't be able to kill themselves comparatively easily to the other suicide options.

This is hardly overlapping into the Euthanasia debate.

And that is a purely facetious idea. If someone is dead set on suicide, they will do it no matter what implement they have handy to do it with. The US and UK have near identical suicide rates, 12 and 11.8 per 100k. In the US 50% are done with firearms, in the UK 50% are done by hanging.

So you have one modern western nation with readily available guns, one modern western nation without. Same suicide rates. The point is debunked.

Nice logic, because we know that the United Kingdom and America are so interchangeable. There can be other factors at work beyond, Scotland has a higher suicide rate that the rest of the UK for example.

I'm not saying that guns are the reason that a lot of people kill themselves I'm saying that them being readily available gives people an "easier" option. It might be a small percent out of the total that do kill themselves with guns, but it's probably still there.

So... put some numbers up then. Provide some proof that your idea of trampling all over the rights of a nation would actually accomplish anything.

Rest of the western world.

so again, ignoring the fact that gun crime went up in places like britain after the handgun ban?

when asked for proof, you just make a comment like the rest of the world actually has less gun crime because of their gun control, when the exact opposite is true factually.

"Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soars-35.html#ixzz2sBk3aZCn

"use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned. The Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College in London, which carried out the research, said the number of crimes in which a handgun was reported increased from 2,648 in 1997/98 to 3,685 in 1999/2000. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm

And now it's gone down, and it was never anything like the level in the USA, and UK gun crime includes things that aren't gun crimes in the US. Yes. Let's not bother to look at Canada, Japan or France.

Americans, you have a problem with guns.

Admit it. Accept it. Decide to do nothing about it because having lots of guns is more important.

That's fine. We understand. Just try to stop being in denial.

Please.

In the same token you can admit Europe has a problem with alcohol, since 195,000 who die yearly in Europe do so because of alcohol related causes.


http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/alcohol-use/data-and-statistics


http://ec.europa.eu/health/archive/ph_determinants/life_style/alcohol/documents/alcohol_factsheet_en.pdf


A lil' qualifier, not talking prohibition, but with all of the support for the alcohol industry over there, in spite of the carnage and other problems it causes, why are you so down on gun ownership?

Just as a reminder, the population of Europe is about 700 million people (depending on how you choose to define it). On my phone so will not go any more into the topic.

And to echo KK's comment about your previous stats - The UK does have different classifications of crime than the US. I understand that we also put crimes commited with replica weapons and crimes where the perp pretended to have a gun in our firearm crime stats.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 easysauce wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Spoiler:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Lordhat wrote:
I just want to know why we feel like we can tell people that they're not allowed to end their own life.

That's not really what the article is saying. It's that people can come through their depression and if they didn't have readily available firearms they wouldn't be able to kill themselves comparatively easily to the other suicide options.

This is hardly overlapping into the Euthanasia debate.

And that is a purely facetious idea. If someone is dead set on suicide, they will do it no matter what implement they have handy to do it with. The US and UK have near identical suicide rates, 12 and 11.8 per 100k. In the US 50% are done with firearms, in the UK 50% are done by hanging.

So you have one modern western nation with readily available guns, one modern western nation without. Same suicide rates. The point is debunked.

Nice logic, because we know that the United Kingdom and America are so interchangeable. There can be other factors at work beyond, Scotland has a higher suicide rate that the rest of the UK for example.

I'm not saying that guns are the reason that a lot of people kill themselves I'm saying that them being readily available gives people an "easier" option. It might be a small percent out of the total that do kill themselves with guns, but it's probably still there.

So... put some numbers up then. Provide some proof that your idea of trampling all over the rights of a nation would actually accomplish anything.

Rest of the western world.

so again, ignoring the fact that gun crime went up in places like britain after the handgun ban?

when asked for proof, you just make a comment like the rest of the world actually has less gun crime because of their gun control, when the exact opposite is true factually.

"Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soars-35.html#ixzz2sBk3aZCn

"use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned. The Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College in London, which carried out the research, said the number of crimes in which a handgun was reported increased from 2,648 in 1997/98 to 3,685 in 1999/2000. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm

And now it's gone down, and it was never anything like the level in the USA, and UK gun crime includes things that aren't gun crimes in the US. Yes. Let's not bother to look at Canada, Japan or France.

Americans, you have a problem with guns.

Admit it. Accept it. Decide to do nothing about it because having lots of guns is more important.

That's fine. We understand. Just try to stop being in denial.

Please.

In the same token you can admit Europe has a problem with alcohol, since 195,000 who die yearly in Europe do so because of alcohol related causes.


http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/alcohol-use/data-and-statistics


http://ec.europa.eu/health/archive/ph_determinants/life_style/alcohol/documents/alcohol_factsheet_en.pdf


A lil' qualifier, not talking prohibition, but with all of the support for the alcohol industry over there, in spite of the carnage and other problems it causes, why are you so down on gun ownership?

Just as a reminder, the population of Europe is about 700 million people (depending on how you choose to define it). On my phone so will not go any more into the topic.

And to echo KK's comment about your previous stats - The UK does have different classifications of crime than the US. I understand that we also put crimes commited with replica weapons and crimes where the perp pretended to have a gun in our firearm crime stats.

Page 16 of this report where it states that in the 90's, in Russia, three quarters of all male deaths and half of all female deaths per year were estimated to be from alcohol related causes, should give even you pause.

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/128065/e94533.pdf

 djones520 wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

I'm kind of with Nuggz. That makes no sense at all.

Ignorance is bliss? you hand of more and more control to the government, but keep on jabbering about your gun rights, the rights that were given you by the founding fathers to oppose the tyranny of the government. Freedom is not the Superbowl.

Clear enough?

Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

and

Ignorance is bliss? you hand of more and more control to the government, but keep on jabbering about your gun rights, the rights that were given you by the founding fathers to oppose the tyranny of the government. Freedom is not the Superbowl.

I'm with Nuggz and DJ...

 Jihadin wrote:

Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

and

Ignorance is bliss? you hand of more and more control to the government, but keep on jabbering about your gun rights, the rights that were given you by the founding fathers to oppose the tyranny of the government. Freedom is not the Superbowl.

I'm with Nuggz and DJ...

I think he is saying that we are handing more and more of our "freedoms" away (Privacy, etc) and are okay with it, but once a person talks about taking guns away from the population everyone gets pissed off.

The first problem is that you assume we are ok with it.

I can assure you that many people are NOT ok with it. And more likely would join them if we knew about all the shenanigans that the government was getting up to.


And also, even if some people are saying they're ok with more surveillance but still want their guns its not hypocritical. Its just someone having a preference of one over the other.

And surveillance isn't really a loss of freedom, its a loss of privacy. You aren't less free to do something just because someone is watching, you may feel inhibited but that's entirely you.

 Ninjacommando wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:

Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

and

Ignorance is bliss? you hand of more and more control to the government, but keep on jabbering about your gun rights, the rights that were given you by the founding fathers to oppose the tyranny of the government. Freedom is not the Superbowl.

I'm with Nuggz and DJ...

I think he is saying that we are handing more and more of our "freedoms" away (Privacy, etc) and are okay with it, but once a person talks about taking guns away from the population everyone gets pissed off.

the opposite is true however... protectors of the 2nd amendmant are not ok with any thing taking away anyone's freedom.

I find that the people "getting pissed off" as you put it, or actually standing up for their rights as I put it, about guns, also defend other freedoms as well.

while the people who complain, and blanket every 2nd amendment defender as someone who doesnt care about the 1st, generally just complain about losing the 1st amendment rights, and never get out of the house to try to do anything about it.

in the end, the reason why the 2nd is perceived as the "last right to be taken away" and draws so much support, is because it has so much grass roots support across every demographic. Its appeal being that it literally protects all the other rights from being taken away by powers foreign or domestic.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

I'm kind of with Nuggz. That makes no sense at all.

Ignorance is bliss? you hand of more and more control to the government, but keep on jabbering about your gun rights, the rights that were given you by the founding fathers to oppose the tyranny of the government. Freedom is not the Superbowl.

Clear enough?

Two questions:

1) What freedoms are you saying that we've lost? Be specific.

2) What makes you think that gun owners are OK with losing any freedoms at all?

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well it seems that Americans love their guns more than their freedom (wasn't that the prime reason for having guns in the first place?)

Maybe the solution is the opposite from what most Europeans want, less is more! Everyone should have a minigun for home-protection!

I'm kind of with Nuggz. That makes no sense at all.

Ignorance is bliss? you hand of more and more control to the government, but keep on jabbering about your gun rights, the rights that were given you by the founding fathers to oppose the tyranny of the government. Freedom is not the Superbowl.

Clear enough?

Two questions:

1) What freedoms are you saying that we've lost? Be specific.

2) What makes you think that gun owners are OK with losing any freedoms at all?

Patriot act, invasive searches because of the "terrorist threat" at airports, NSA spying on its own citizens, police brutality on the rise, censorship of the internet etcetera.

Basing what you see off media or experience?

Isn't it adorable watching people talk who don't know anything about what they are talking about?

Could be an ex pat from the US who lived to long in Japan..

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Isn't it adorable watching people talk who don't know anything about what they are talking about?

Just keep on those pink glasses and listen to HAL9000 everything is ok Dave.
Back to topic, Gun love is so ingrained in American society that making major changes will cost the parties only votes.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:


Patriot act, invasive searches because of the "terrorist threat" at airports, NSA spying on its own citizens, police brutality on the rise, censorship of the internet etcetera.

hate to break this too you, most pro gun people I know are anti patriot act, and the patriot act was, and still is, being supported and expanded by both political parties. All this latest BS NSA stuff, has been expanded under obamas government, and hes done just as much to erode the 1st as bush.

but its much easier to just blame other people for the erosion of 1st amendment rights to justify your support for the erosion of the 2nd amendment rights.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The first problem is that you assume we are ok with it.

I can assure you that many people are NOT ok with it.

And how much are your guns helping you to regain those freedoms?

Thing is, look around the world. Look at the countries where guns are heavily controlled, and you find no more chance of them being a totalitarian hellhole than countries where guns are much more freely available. Tight gun laws didn't cause Britain or Australia to slide in to government oppression, and lots of personal firearms didn't stop Iraq from being crushed under Saddam's thumb.

Civil liberties are protected through strong activism, and the threat of the ballot box. That's how you'll roll back the government over-reach on personal freedom, not by waving a gun around.

 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The first problem is that you assume we are ok with it.

I can assure you that many people are NOT ok with it.

And how much are your guns helping you to regain those freedoms?

Thing is, look around the world. Look at the countries where guns are heavily controlled, and you find no more chance of them being a totalitarian hellhole than countries where guns are much more freely available. Tight gun laws didn't cause Britain or Australia to slide in to government oppression, and lots of personal firearms didn't stop Iraq from being crushed under Saddam's thumb.

Civil liberties are protected through strong activism, and the threat of the ballot box. That's how you'll roll back the government over-reach on personal freedom, not by waving a gun around.

You're misunderstanding. Gusn aren't there to protect civil liberties. That's what the ballot box is for. It's once the ballot and soap box don't work, that's when the armed disobedieance comes in. It's the parachute to be used only after everything else has failed.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The first problem is that you assume we are ok with it.

I can assure you that many people are NOT ok with it.

And how much are your guns helping you to regain those freedoms?

Thing is, look around the world. Look at the countries where guns are heavily controlled, and you find no more chance of them being a totalitarian hellhole than countries where guns are much more freely available. Tight gun laws didn't cause Britain or Australia to slide in to government oppression, and lots of personal firearms didn't stop Iraq from being crushed under Saddam's thumb.

Civil liberties are protected through strong activism, and the threat of the ballot box. That's how you'll roll back the government over-reach on personal freedom, not by waving a gun around.

You're misunderstanding. Gusn aren't there to protect civil liberties. That's what the ballot box is for. It's once the ballot and soap box don't work, that's when the armed disobedieance comes in. It's the parachute to be used only after everything else has failed.

When everyone's armed, who decides when everything else has failed?

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Isn't it adorable watching people talk who don't know anything about what they are talking about?

Just keep on those pink glasses and listen to HAL9000 everything is ok Dave.
Back to topic, Gun love is so ingrained in American society that making major changes will cost the parties only votes.

Just as love of alcohol is so ingrained in European society even though it kills tens of thousands of people each year and erodes the quality of life for many more., When it's at the point, as it was in Russia, where three quarters of all male deaths per year and half of all female deaths can be attributed to alcohol, it should make you think what the realdanger is and why you support an industry that kills that many people for the sake of recreation.

 sebster wrote:
Tight gun laws didn't cause Britain or Australia to slide in to government oppression,

That's true. It was all the speech laws to make everybody more PC.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The first problem is that you assume we are ok with it.

I can assure you that many people are NOT ok with it.

And how much are your guns helping you to regain those freedoms?

Thing is, look around the world. Look at the countries where guns are heavily controlled, and you find no more chance of them being a totalitarian hellhole than countries where guns are much more freely available. Tight gun laws didn't cause Britain or Australia to slide in to government oppression, and lots of personal firearms didn't stop Iraq from being crushed under Saddam's thumb.

Civil liberties are protected through strong activism, and the threat of the ballot box. That's how you'll roll back the government over-reach on personal freedom, not by waving a gun around.

You're misunderstanding. Gusn aren't there to protect civil liberties. That's what the ballot box is for. It's once the ballot and soap box don't work, that's when the armed disobedieance comes in. It's the parachute to be used only after everything else has failed.

When everyone's armed, who decides when everything else has failed?

When there's enough people who decides.