Time to break free of traditional political ideological labeling and divisions. Time to abandon old, divisive sociopolitical labels like "liberal" and "conservative".
A new political party based on a vastly, commonly held virtures lends itself to embrace over 66% of Americans, and it clearly embraces progressive principled thinking. In the most ideal American sense of unity, a political party should not be able to be defined or placed as "to the left" or "to the right" of where the Democratic or Republican parties currently are. Just let it exist organically based on present-day principled thinking. The American Progressive Majority.
Originally Posted By u/Atlanticbboy At 2025-03-23 04:38:18 AM | Source
I agree with every single one of those except for the taking away my guns part. The second amendment is vitally important for the exact reason of what we are going through right now: the overtaking of the US government by oppressive fascists.
It doesn't say anything about taking away guns. It says gun control laws. These often include things like a waiting period to purchase a gun if you don't have your concealed weapons license. Or bans on people owning guns if they have previous convictions for assault/battery.
The first they try to do to prevent crimes of passion. Basically if someone finds out their spouse is cheating on them and they find out, they don't walk into a pawn shop, walk out immediately with a gun go shoot the person they cheated with, their spouse and then themselves. Instead the hope is that they walk into the pawn store, buy the gun, they tell them they can come back in 5 days and pick it up. And hopefully in 5 days they will have calmed down enough they have found a better way to deal with the situation. States like Florida had these rules for handguns because they are easier to conceal while shotguns and rifles you could walk out with same day. Desantis I believe changed the gun laws recently though, so idk what they are anymore. I've bought guns in Florida and Tennessee, and I always thought laws like that were reasonable.
Waiting periods are ineffective, especially against their other supposed use, suicide prevention. The likelihood of suicide (in the applicable suicidal people) is highest the day the sale completes and remains elevated for months. Besides, everyone has a bottle of [redacted] at home and a [redacted] within 5min of their house they can go to, and that second method is more effective than guns actually. (Redacted because suicide ain't cool kids, seek professional help if you're considering.) Also they don't significantly impact crimes of passion, if the guy can't get a gun he can still go OJ on them as well, and then there's the whole "he probably still wants to kill them next week if he wants to today" thing. It can help those instances, but often it doesn't. And though you mentioned it (which is rare), afaik all states that have them do so on all applicable gun purchases not just first time which is clearly ridiculous, if someone already has one the waiting period is useless. Furthermore it can also actively cause harm, think for instance a woman escaping her abusive husband and taking the kids to her mom's. If he has guns or even just a bat, and she has nothing but police 11+ min away (natl avg response time to emergencies), she may need a gun to stop her soon to be ex from family annihilating like Chris Benoit, and artificial waiting periods (artificial because it's not that they do additional background checking, the NICs clears and then your 3-10d wait begins) could prevent her from doing so and allow the husband to murder them.
Previous convictions already do come into play, but only felonies or misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. Frankly that's sorta fair (except I don't think non-violent felons should be barred, actually). I want to agree because assault and battery sounds bad even at the misdemeanor level, but in reality that could be anything from "beats Asian people up for fun" (looking at you Mark Wahlberg, he prob shouldn't have one) to "spit on a cop one time while blacked out." Like, yeah, spitting on cops is bad and stuff, but I don't think it's bad enough to warrant loss of rights for life, and I say that as a (not cop) that has been spit on, fuck that guy forever but he should still keep his rights, we were kids, we fought it out, it's fine. Both of those count as assault, for instance.
You say waiting periods are ineffective but there isn't evidence of such. You say a bottle of pills is not effective but evidence shows otherwise. Sites I see say you are 45x more likely to die from attempting suicide with a gun than with pills.
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I never said a bottle of pills is not effective, just that it isn't statistically as effective as guns (though more easily/widely available), and I'm right, and your pic actually says some of that itself. (And do I need a source for my claim that OTC medicine is more commonly owned than guns? I think it's fairly self evident.)
It's the second method that is actually more effective statistically than guns (actually it may be the only more effective method widely available lol. And again, nobody out there kill yourselves, it's bad and uncool).
As to waiting periods not being effective in curbing suicides, research into california's (then 15-day) waiting period showed the potential is highest the day the sale completes, and remains high for a couple months after when they already have it. As in "suicidal man goes to buy gun, gets told to wait 15 days, waits 15 days, gets the gun, and goes home and does it, or doesn't, buuuut then next time he feels suicidal he already has one and then he does it." 15 days isn't really long enough to get people out of suicidal ideation, it likely isn't even enough time to get them to their first therapist apointment.
Nah, I read your words as saying it doesn't matter if you have a gun because everyone has pills at home. And I was saying pills aren't nearly as effective. (Must have been a miscommunication) In your next example you saved a person from committing suicide, and gave them more time to think/work out a better solution. 15 days later will he commit suicide? Maybe. But he didn't commit suicide 15 days prior. You walked him back off that cliff by taking away the cliff for 15 days. It's about hope I guess. You hope they get better in time.
Yet according to California often they don't find a solution within 15 days, they sit stewing on it until they're able to get the gun. Most suicidal people aren't just having a bad afternoon (or a bad 15 afternoons), y'know? It's usually months/years.
Sure it can slow them down and they may suddenly see the error of their ways within that 15 days, and I'm sure that has happened, but it can also stop someone who needs to protect themselves from a stalker/abuser and I'm sure that has happened as well.
Honestly the only way I can see it helping is if they let their plot to harm themselves or others slip and someone does something about it like an adjudicated IVC within those 3-10 (it's no longer 15) days, which is unlikely, but I'm sure that has happened as well.
I mean realistically what is you owning a gun gonna do against a drone strike or whatever other tech the military has? The only way a revolution happens in the modern day is if the military lets it. I can definitely see the value in guns for protection against paramilitary groups trying to go after people but beyond that guns aren't gonna stop the US government from doing fascist stuff if the military is on their side.
Edit: Also at a certain point if you're actively fighting and resisting against the government getting access to guns even if they are illegal isn't gonna be the biggest problem you have.
All of that tech is reliant on logistics. People in trucks, moving stuff from where it is, to where it will be used.
With guns, that logistics network is vulnerable.
The Russians spent 10 years fighting Afghan resistance, and lost. The US spent 20 years fighting Afghan resistance, and lost. The American civilian populace is much better equipped than Afghani fighters ever were. Any forceful defeat of the American populace will require civil disarmament.
guerilla warfare is still helped by having weapons and is probably still somewhat effective against a military that doesn't want indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
I mean I would make an argument that it's a lot easier to convince soldiers to shoot down civilians if they're armed versus unarmed. So while it might help with guerilla resistance it most likely wouldnt really help towards the ultimate goal of overthrowing a fascist regime.
Americans would not be fighting alone in such a case.
Untrained unequipped combatants in the Middle East have killed over 20,000 US soldiers in the last 25 years so not sure your point stands
And yet at least in Afghanistan the US propped up government wasn't overthrown until the US military left. Like I said in another comment you can do damage but you're not gonna successfully overthrow the government unless you get the military to defect or let you do it. Combine this with the other points I made that even if guns are illegal you can definitely still acquire them and that gun control is the only way we can combat mass shootings and gun violence and I don't see the positives from being able to own guns outweighing the negatives.
Could I get the right to bear nukes?
If you become powerful enough to have them, and get them, you have given yourself the right to have them.
How did Afghanistan turn out?
Yes the ukranians should just give up their guns too, since they're useless against FPVs and GRADS right? I mean, c'mon, Russia has BMPs, what're you gonna do with your AK?
/that one cool S.
I mean resisting an invading force is much different than attempting to overthrow your own government. Sure you can cause some damage but at the end of the day the only way you're actually overthrowing your government is if the military defects in large enough numbers or lets you do it. Also if you're at the point of violently resisting your government then you're already breaking the law so acquiring guns illegally isn't gonna be the biggest hurdle you have to face. I can't imagine it was legal for the IRA to have guns but they still got them anyways. And at a certain point you need gun control otherwise we're going to continue to have the problem of mass shootings and gun violence in general.
Are there differences? Yes.
Are rifles effective in both cases? Yes.
The efficacy of rifles isn't dependant on the nationality of your adversary.
I'm not saying it's different because of nationality, I'm saying one of those conflicts is a defensive war against a stronger force. Where as what was being talked about is more of a resistance or revolution against an already established government. They are different kinds of conflicts and at least in modern times we haven't really seen revolutions succeed in large countries with sophisticated militaries without the support of the military or that military eventually deciding to leave in the case or the US in the Middle East. And since this would be happening in the US the military isn't just going to give up so you need them to actually switch sides or let you win to actually win and stop the fascists. And at least my personal opinion is having guns and using them tends to make it easier to justify to the military to kill you compared to if you're an unarmed protestor.
Pacifism is a noble cause, sure. Have fun with that. I for one think having rifles is better than having no rifles, and history shows that to be true. Sure, the larger force often wins against rifles, but it always wins against nothing.
And yet, from outside USA looking in, I can clearly see that the moment has come and passed without a single gun owner doing anything. Keep polishing I guess.
From the inside looking out I’d say everyone is still in disbelief and denial that things are as bad as they truly are and that is the reason for the lack of action. And I don’t think it’s too late.
I’m rooting for you.
You're going to hand over your guns without making a fuss the microsecond that the gestapo knock on your door, and you know it.
Absolutely officer, that's all the guns.
The liberal gestapo or the conservative one?
Yes