Why don't protestors who oppose Trump/ICE open carry their guns to prevent what's currently occuring in the US ie kidnapping, assaults etc?
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Americans are domesticated cowards
Don't have kids, leave the country if you can afford to.
Yes, we are. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to leave. If I could, my partner and I are unmarried, so it would be hard to find a place we could both move to, and I don't think she's willing to leave her dad. This stress has been at a dull roar since last November. I am not OK. I am not OK.
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We had tanks in Afghanistan, didn't stop us from losing. Nobody in history, no matter how well armed, has ever won a war against a dedicated insurgency.
It's kind of like how many people are afraid of geese. An angry goose can give significant bruises and is basically impossible for an average person to restrain without killing the goose, so the only option is to run away. Because the easy win of breaking the goose's neck is not on the table for most people.
The US lost in Afghanistan because the goal was to turn it into a functioning democracy, and the local culture did not support that. If the goal had been "winning", the Army was entirely capable of slaughtering the large majority of the population and then importing settlers to numerically overwhelm the remnant population. Like our ancestors did to the Native Americans.
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The meta I’ve heard is also that, if you’re gonna brandish or draw a gun, you’d better be prepared to kill with it.
That's dumb as fuck.
Glad I stopped trying to find logic in the average person.
Sounds like you're the average person.
The only reason to open carry to a protest is as a threat. But if all you do is carry then it's an empty threat. Don't make threats you're not willing to follow through on. And this is a dumb threat to try to follow through on.
Also a lot of the people who are against ICE are also against guns, which is pretty obvious. You don't need to be embedded in us politics to know this.
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Is this not the reason the second amendment exists?
Regards
An Australian
Edit: I'm not advocating for violence. More so "a well regulated militia" which could be established by protesters or Democratic Governors for genuine self defence.Because people won’t open carry when it’s against the law so they don’t get arrested. Unlike ICE, they’re following the law.
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So your suggestion is to disarm yourself for them?
When did I say that?
I think the opposite should be true the whole point of the 2nd amendment is to fight tyranny which is what we are seeing by marching soldiers into cities
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Aiming a gun isn't the same as brandishing or drawing it.
Maybe your father should've spent less time teaching you about guns and more time helping you with your English homework.
Glad I stopped trying to find logic in the average person.
Thanks for reinforcing this.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Aiming a gun isn’t the same as brandishing or drawing it.
I think it's a distinction without a difference when you're in a situation where both parties have firearms (and one party has the backing of the state and a monopoly on violence).
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Are you fucking stupid?
Aiming a gun at a cop is significantly worse than brandishing. Why would I try to argue what you're saying unless I'm an idiot?
Oh, wait a minute. Gotta tap the sign.
Glad I stopped trying to find logic in the average person.
Also ignored. I know I won't be able to tolerate any more drivel from someone like you.
Are you an ammosexual?
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Nobody in human history has ever won a war against a dedicated insurgency. You're historically/militarily illiterate and a coward.
If you define failed movements as either "not wars" or "not dedicated", sure. A recent depressing example I am assuming is definitioned out of your view is Hong Kong, which is firmly under the control of mainland China. A slightly more distant example is Northern Ireland, which is firmly part of Britain.
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I'll give you a real answer instead of all of these other dork ass answers.
First, there aren't enough of us to do so.
Second, you really haven't thought through the repercussions of open carrying. Which relates to the first reason.
Open carrying puts a huge target on you. You need lots and lots of people to remain "safe". And you won't be safe. What are you going to do, shoot an ice agent if they try to arrest you? If that's your goal, why open carry? Do you think that the government here is going to suddenly follow constitutional law around a citizens right to bear arms? As they're literally illegally arresting people?
Sooner or later the amount of guns in this country is going to catch up to the ruling class but it's not going to be at a protest.
I live in a city that's half black, in one of several gayborhoods. I keep wondering when black and pink panthers will form and start patrolling. Probably when we get hit with our first localized stochastic terrorism incident. There's a rainbow crosswalk that rednecks love to come do burnouts on. Tensions run high with highly conservative MAGA folks dominating the rural areas just miles from our very flammable houses with rainbow flags.
But you know what happens when the panthers start patrolling? Suddenly, gun control.
Our cops wouldn't arrest them but the feds would probably escalate it. I am not sure how it'd play out today.
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Is this not the reason the second amendment exists?
Regards
An Australian
Edit: I'm not advocating for violence. More so "a well regulated militia" which could be established by protesters or Democratic Governors for genuine self defence.Best and simplest answer is that technically they're still considered law enforcement. Nearly everything they're doing is constitutionally illegal, but only the courts have the right to determine that.
If we start threatening police with guns, every single nook and cranny of our legal system justifies the police murdering us. Maybe some cops would get paid leave for a few weeks, or possibly even lose their badges, but that's about it.
And then they'll use it to justify an even more inflated budget for ICE, and everything will get exponentially worse.
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I believe open carry is illegal here in Illinois.
The meta I've heard is also that, if you're gonna brandish or draw a gun, you'd better be prepared to kill with it. I'm not prepared to die shooting cops so I don't feel like carrying. In the confusion of a gun fight I don't think I'd have much to add by shooting anyone
Like if someone told me that the 2nd amendment just causes more shootings and doesn't actually protect people on average I'd say yeah...
the meta youve heard js harmful.
“Brandish or draw a gun…better be prepared to kill with it.” — Normative, but the law is dead serious.
Illinois doesn’t have a standalone “brandishing” statute; threatening display can be charged as assault (often aggravated assault when a deadly weapon is involved). Separately, deadly force is only justified if you reasonably believe it’s necessary to prevent imminent death/serious bodily harm (or a forcible felony). Drawing in a way that threatens without lawful justification can be a crime.
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When did I say that?
I think the opposite should be true the whole point of the 2nd amendment is to fight tyranny which is what we are seeing by marching soldiers into cities
You're entire argument is that guns are bad and haven't helped anyone fight off the oppressor. It's why you called out gaza and Cambodia...
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Are you fucking stupid?
Aiming a gun at a cop is significantly worse than brandishing. Why would I try to argue what you're saying unless I'm an idiot?
Oh, wait a minute. Gotta tap the sign.
Glad I stopped trying to find logic in the average person.
Also ignored. I know I won't be able to tolerate any more drivel from someone like you.
Keep going, you'll cum soon.
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Best and simplest answer is that technically they're still considered law enforcement. Nearly everything they're doing is constitutionally illegal, but only the courts have the right to determine that.
If we start threatening police with guns, every single nook and cranny of our legal system justifies the police murdering us. Maybe some cops would get paid leave for a few weeks, or possibly even lose their badges, but that's about it.
And then they'll use it to justify an even more inflated budget for ICE, and everything will get exponentially worse.
So, cowardice. Gotcha.
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So, cowardice. Gotcha.
I see u! How much are they paying you to ferment chaos?
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So, cowardice. Gotcha.
It would just escalate things. A few armed confrontations one week and the next week it would be tanks and Apache helicopters. Cops love to escalate.
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The answer is that people aren't willing to die in the tens of thousands to millions when they hope to unseat the scum in 26 ot 28
Those are absurdly unrealistic numbers but you're not wrong about the delusional hope of voting their way out keeping a bunch of people complacent for the moment
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If you define failed movements as either "not wars" or "not dedicated", sure. A recent depressing example I am assuming is definitioned out of your view is Hong Kong, which is firmly under the control of mainland China. A slightly more distant example is Northern Ireland, which is firmly part of Britain.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Hong Kong was definitely not even close to a dedicated insurgency, in large part because the majority of the population appears to understand that they're better off with China than they ever would be with the UK. China never even came close to deploying tanks and bombs either, terrible example.
Northern Ireland was much more successful while they were still fighting, then popular support for the IRA waned due to concessions on the part of the UK because they could see they weren't going to win.
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It's kind of like how many people are afraid of geese. An angry goose can give significant bruises and is basically impossible for an average person to restrain without killing the goose, so the only option is to run away. Because the easy win of breaking the goose's neck is not on the table for most people.
The US lost in Afghanistan because the goal was to turn it into a functioning democracy, and the local culture did not support that. If the goal had been "winning", the Army was entirely capable of slaughtering the large majority of the population and then importing settlers to numerically overwhelm the remnant population. Like our ancestors did to the Native Americans.
An insurgency vs an oppressive government is nothing at all like a pedestrian vs a goose, nobody has ever been killed by a goose. The goal was never to create a democracy in Afghanistan, it was just to plunder oil and opium. Wholesale unrestrained slaughter of the civilian population would have destroyed any plausible deniability about our actual goals and united the entire region far more effectively, giving us less time to loot. Also the US can't afford to slaughter our own population like we did to native americans because we need their labor for our economy to function.
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See, and there it is. Zero to a hundred. It's either popcorn or civil war, no gradient.
I'm not the one who brought up not being able to fight against the military cause they have planes and tanks. No where in my replies have I suggested a civil war.
I mean, for one thing Nazi Germany also wasn't defeated by military cosplayers flashing their gun collection at them, and clearly neither was MAGA America.
Please go through my post history. I've been telling the left to arm themselves for decades now. This has nothing to do with maga, get that out of your head. The gravy seals would be the ones siding with the fascist.
The first one was defeated by a borderline apocalyptic global war, so... in the grand scheme both the military cosplay and the sternly worded letters are pretty much about just as effective there.
Which was fought and won with mostly small arms.
We're still waiting and seeing on the MAGA America part.
Not really. You seem to not live here, ICE is mostly made up from those magats...
But for another, plenty of nonviolent and/or unarmed protest has achieved its goals, historically. From Europe to India to South Africa to the actual United States. The "sternly worded letter" derision is pure action movie fantasy.
No one said to start a civil war. Still your missing the part that being armed can be peaceful. That's why I posted the link to 20k+ armed gun owners peacefully protesting gov overreach and cops left them the fuck alone.
This month alone the governments of Madagascar and Nepal came down after mass protests. Not a single set of camo pants in sight, just... you know, students organizing on social media and One Piece flags for some reason because this is a weird timeline.
They weren't even fully nonviolent, either. There were clashes, there was enforcement violence and dozens of people, mostly protestors, were killed in both countries. And still two governments came down and the situations continue to evolve and push for full regime change.
And burning gov buildings and killing their leaders... totally peaceful... way to contradict your point.
Meanwhile the example I'm being given is some American fascists standing on a street while cops that agree with them wait for them to get sleepy at their military cosplay convention and go home.
Again, it was peaceful because those same cops don't want to start shit and die for a paycheck. This example isn't there to show you that bringing guns to a protest magically makes things get done. I brought it up because left protesters are usually unarmed and are pushed around and arrested on bullshit.
I don't get Americans. I don't think the way they see the world as a culture makes sense, and I am terrified at how much they export it successfully through places like this. Nepal just held a full-on election over Discord and I still understand how that went down better than middle class America's political views.
The right is not being exported by just Americans, it's a growing movement in the world because of poorly educated people and social media.
Most of that is entirely absurd and not worth getting into. I'm sure a pedantic historian can nitpick it if that's the way everybody wants to go.
However, let me revisit your accusation of "contradicting my point". At no stage here have I conflated unarmed protest with peaceful protest. All along I've been frustrated by the US mindrot tendency of accepting no nuance between some My Little Pony version of political action and outright armed confrontation. The worldwide protests that show how bonkers the US perception of the issue is were not peaceful, but neither were they an armed confrontation where protestors attempted to use their armed might to deter police forces. They were... you know, political action. Civil unrest. "Civil" being the key word.
The way you and US leftists in general tend to parse stuff like this is nonsense. The fact that mass protests can escalate to the point they went in Nepal, Madagascar or any of the countries in the general "Gen Z spring" movement and prior protest waves disproves the US perspective because a) it has nothing to do with the level of access to weapons, and b) it shows sufficiently commited public action doesn't have to be either fully nonviolent or an armed insurrection.
Americans look at this as some form ot guarantee their success by either intimidating the other into submission or hoping that the other side will fold immediately. That's not how this goes. "The cops may charge at us, we should bring guns" is some weird overlap of thinking protestors are entitled to painless victory and that there is no possible pressure beyond violent pressure. It makes no sense to me. And yet, here we are, a bunch of posts down the line.
