The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights

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11. Portland wasn't the time

I doubt any of us here can really conceive of a time when taking arms against the government would really be necessary because our votes still mean something.

In discounting armed resistance you discount 3 things.

1) If the citizens really took up a meaningful armed resistance against the government that they wouldn't have the backbone to die for a cause. Read the history leading up to the revolution. Some of our patriots died in the street at the hands of the British for verbal protests. The inability of the British to hold on the violence was one of the things that steeled citizens against the government. We presently don't have a government anywhere near that. We haven't seen it since Kent State.
2) You underestimate the effectiveness of an armed populace against an army. The military has great and sophisticated weapons they could turn against us, sure... but it's a numbers game. We outnumber them by a lot. Generally speaking in the Revolution 1/3rd of the populace were pro-British. 1/3rd were ambivalent. 1/3rd were revolutionaries. So if we got to the point that 1/3rd of the populace were in arms... that would be a handful for the powers that be no matter how sophisticated they are.
3) You assume the members of military would play along. How many in the US military would take arms against our own populace; how many would join a revolution and bring their toys/expertise with it?

Speaking of that, people mess up the lingo. We can't have any more "revolutions" since we're not under some other power. We can only have a civil war.


At any rate... the chances of that happening even in the current political climate is next to nothing.

Voting is still the right way to effect change in this government. The gun is the wrong choice not because it would be ineffective, but just because it would be wrong.