This is really about as bad as gets.

Tyranny 101:
1. Setup laws such that EVERYONE will inevitably break some of them.
2.Selectively enforce those laws

Now your law enforcement can use discretion to not enforce the letter of the law on some folks, while putting others beneath a microscope where you examine them for even the smallest possible infraction.

Now, it may be possible the overcompensating officer in the video pulled our guy here over randomly. However, you can't ignore what a great poet of my generation has also observed:
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses

The media being targeted by the government is step one towards totalitarian despotism.
Stand up. This is democracy itself under siege. If you take it sitting down or as just a spectator, you deserve the authoritarian dictatorship you'll wake up in tomorrow. If you live in Philadelphia, you have a duty to stand against tyranny. Get out there.

The president said we should shoot the THUGS in Philadelphia....they're easy to identify, they're wearing all blue with helmets. Aim for the armpits or crotch.

Note, no reason was ever given for the arrests (making this a kidnapping) and the governor had to get involved, they have been released now with his apology.

You talk like it matters if "an overwhelming majority of Americans support gun control and background checks right". It doesn't.

The founders of the USA foresaw this sort of issue and wrote an extremely strong constitution preventing government from effectively regulating arms.

That's the thing about being a republic, the tyranny of the majority is thankfully neutered.

BTW, don't be dumb and assume my stance on gun control.

Your video, D&D Tyranny of Dragons, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

On the chance your 'jokingly' isn't obvious, MLK, Ghandi and Mandela's causes ALL had support from those willing to use violence, aka better weapons would help.

Malcolm X would be the next most prominent figure beside MLK. Indian independence wasn't won with peaceful hunger strikes alone, and again lots of violence in South Africa.

Ghandi even bridged the gap to working alongside the effective army fighting for India's independence:
" I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.
But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment, forgiveness adorns a soldier."

Speaking more to the point of America today, pretty much no civil war has been fought exclusively with civilians on one side, and the government, police, army and all other branches of the state united on the other. The reason being that if that kind of unity within the government against the civilian population exists, you ALREADY have tyranny.

In America, the example would be if a president or a particular political party decided to try for tyrannical over reach, would the American public be better equipped to resist that with or without guns? In civil war, guns give power to the majority of public opinion that would need to be there otherwise. In a nation with an unarmed public, whatever the majority of soldiers side with is likely gonna win. With an armed populace, the civilian opinion matters more.

I think it's an overall modest observation, and one that really doesn't in anyway make it obvious that the modest benefit is worth the costs. That is another matter, but you can't factually claim that there isn't a meaningful difference between an armed and unarmed population when facing civil war.

As @jimnms alluded to re Afghanistan, civilians may not be able to 'win', but well armed civilians can certainly make it hard, bordering on meaningless for their opponent to win either.

No, automatic weapons don't guarantee liberty from tyranny. On the flip side, try opposing a tyrannical government without them.

Not really, what I was taught is that it has a history of being successfully invaded by empires that often bankrupt themselves in the effort. We've done a half decent job of following suit.

Not really again to your second point. I'm pointing out that the argument that an AR-15 somehow safeguards you from tyranny is nonsense, and you would need equivalent military weapons, training, and numbers to stand a chance against your own military....an absolute impossibility in America, and unlikely anywhere except third world countries with barely a military. I'm not, however, advocating allowing that level of weaponry into private hands.

I would suggest you read about what happened at waco or watch one of the many docos before using it as an example of resisting tyranny. They attempted to use the media, not guns to champion their cause. The FBI denied them that ability.

Golly sir, I sure am glad you’re here to explain it to me, but just for shits and giggles, let me take a stab at it.

Elon Musk wants to make humanity a multi-planet species, otherwise we are at risk of some kind of planet wide extinction level event. Having looked at the problem, he thinks the fundamental issue is one of economics. If he can get the price per person for a trip to Mars down to $500k, he figures he’ll get enough mad, bad and rich AF people to give forming a colony a go.

But that first step from earth to orbit is motherfucking expensive and aside from crazy unproven tech like a space elevator, thanks to the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation there really isn’t a cheap way to do this in terms of energy expenditure.

Ok, thinks Elon, what’s the other major cost in this whole shooting things into space gig? Hmm, the big fucking rocket costs a lot... be nice if we could reuse that instead of building a new one each time.

So he works on building a reusable rocket, and after many hilarious videos of “rapid unscheduled disassembly”, fuck me if the damn thing doesn’t start to stick the landing!

So now we need to do the same, but with a bigger rocket and a heavier payload. Can’t really risk an actual payload (see previous video of RUD) so what to do?

Well, the sensible, cost effective thing would be just a big heavy weight. But that’s got fuck all viral marketing appeal, so if you’re gonna shoot something into space as part of a multi billion dollar rocket program, what’s a measly couple of hundred k compared to the millions in free advertising for both Tesla and SpaceX this will generate!

Well, look at that. Turns out I do understand this!

But if think sending an expensive sports car into space WASN’T a frivolous waste of money, I invite you to spend time with someone sleeping rough or a family who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from.

As I said, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, but don’t pretend this was anything other than a billionaire doing something insanely cool and expensive because he thought it was cool.

I don't really have a problem with owning guns and it's certainly not "all or nothing".

My issue with the gun arguments in the states is that they're asking the wrong questions. The problem isn't the guns, it's why you seem to think you need them.

No other developed nation has this issue. The rest of the world all have guns, we're just responsible with them. We're ok with reasonable legislation and we don't have a lunatic fringe screaming about tyranny if we can't own assault rifles.

Most importantly, no civilised country thinks you need a gun for self-defence. A) we have police for that and b) most of us just aren't afraid that someone is coming to kill us... because they aren't.

I don't think there's an easy fix to America's gun problems. Fundamentally I think the issue is cultural rather than regulatory, but honestly, at this stage, you're like a bunch of kids, who need their toys taken off them until they can prove they're mature enough to use them properly.

If someone is an alcoholic, the most important thing isn't taking the booze away, it's getting them to admit there's a problem. But sometimes, you need to take the booze away long enough for them to sober up and admit there's a problem.

Let's step back then from arguing against other people's claims.

The claim that tyranny is pretty universally based upon an unarmed civilian population provides at least some real world evidence that civilian armament and freedom have some correlation. Whether that warrants allowing citizen's access to weaponized anthrax and cruise missiles is another matter. Can you agree that a well armed population is incompatible with historical tyranny(Mao, Stalin, Saddam, Gadhafi, the Kim's)?

I don't think anyone suggests that civilian disarmament encourages tyranny, merely that civilian armament discourages tyranny.



In any case, there are a variety of applications that aren't "fighting hitler".

No country goes on forever without some domestic strife. Could be domestic war, could be economic collapse, could be the government scapegoating "your kind", could be a weather disaster, could be whatever.
In such an unlikely event, if you happen to be around at the time, you may wish to guard your family, food, fuel, etc.

Note that these events affect a LOT of people when they do happen (as in millions at a time).
Even though they are less frequent than a random shooting, the sheer quantity of people makes them significant.

Eg. The last Houston destruction by hurricane was in 1979 (38 years ago). That's not so infrequent, in a city of 2.3 million people (ish).
That's an upper bound of 60'000 people affected per year on average.
Either way, it's a lot of people that need to guard their homes from looters, etc.
Granted not everyone is on a destroyed street - but you see what I mean.

There have been plenty of disasters and riots in the last few decades where you wouldn't want to be caught helpless - just in case.

That's also a commentary on society. During the Fukushima disaster, nobody was looting or robbing, or whatever. Japan has a better behaved society.

-scheherazade

@newtboy and @scheherazade,

I think I may have come up with a shorter line of evidence for a well armed population being protection against tyranny.

Granted, a poorly armed population with strong arms control laws doesn't necessarily devolve into tyranny. We can all demonstrate this with counter examples like up here in Canada. However, can anyone name an oppressive dictatorship that had 2nd amendment level freedoms for every man and woman in their state? I can't think of a single example myself.

As I said before, that doesn't lead me to immediately declare zero restrictions on guns are thus worth any cost to forestall future tyranny. However, I have to acknowledge that the NRA style argument for protection against tyranny isn't entirely without merit.

That leads to my objections with declaring that it is objectively obvious that gun freedoms must morally be pulled back, while at the same time objectively obvious that idealogical/religious practice freedoms must not. We have ample examples of extremists gathering together to plot violence, mayhem and death on a grand scale and putting some extra lines in the sand of when that becomes unacceptable is no more obviously immoral than restricting gun ownership.

Since the mechanization of war, armed citizens stand zero chance against a better trained, armed, and armored military. You can barely buy a rifle that might penetrate a hummer, and they are the least armored vehicles.

You forget, armed coups happen all the time without the support of the populace. See, when the military is overwhelming, no one balks at paying exorbitant taxes, at least not after a few public executions on the spot. Willing public support is definitely not required to retain power. If it were, we wouldn't have a word for tyranny or draconianism.

"I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say misogyny now, misogyny tomorrow, misogyny forever..." The 13th Doctor's Haters.