"I never understood the US-Americans’ paranoia about being able to defend themselves against their own government. "
Most Americans never worry about this type of thing since it’s logistically impossible for a military takeover in the way that you’re talking about. A fringe of people may worry about the US government fighting against the people, but they are a small minority and probably way overhyped by the media who feeds on the idea of pumping up radical and fringe groups for their own benefit.
Let me ask you something: Do you think American kids would ever really attack their own brothers and sisters? Not a chance! I have several family members who have served and are serving in the US military. I’m 100% sure that my family and friends would never go along with any plan to hurt American citizens or disarm them. I’m not afraid that my brother or some other member of my family serving in the military will be busting down my door anytime soon to start a totalitarian takeover. It would take a foreign army to invade, and I don’t think I need to explain to you why having 300 million+ extra guns and trillions of extra rounds of ammunition would be useful in a war the scale of which would be required to fear a mainland US invasion.
American soldiers are mostly good kids that just want to serve their country. A lot of them are only in for some quick money or education so they can move on to other things. They’re definitely not going to go in for 2 years and then turn on their family. It’s completely unrealistic. And if your argument is that it’s unrealistic that we should have guns because no army can invade the US since the US army would never turn on us, then that must surely be a trick to get us to disarm so you can invade us unsuspectingly and only fight the military! We know those Brits want their colonies back you’re probably just lulling us to sleep with your sweet talk, so they can prepare to attack us when we’re at our weakest! Joking aside, Americans own guns for a variety of reasons. Staving off an invading force is just one of many good (but highly unlikely) reasons people might own firearms.
“People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed guns.”
Well, people are brilliant and creative, but yes, people are also stupid. However, this argument only looks good on the surface because of the ‘stupid people’ element:
People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed alcohol.
People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed knives/hatchets/axes/chainsaws…
People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to text while driving.
By the way, you said people so I assume you mean everyone in the world, since stupidity is ubiquitous in every level of society? Or do you just mean certain elites and bureaucrats would keep their guns and the slave populace would get rid of theirs?
“Guns are certainly not necessary, and in most cases not even useful.”
If guns are “not necessary”, then why do the governments around the world have so many? If all guns are unnecessary, are you suggesting a total gun ban, or only a ban for people who aren’t rich enough to pay for the government-certified bodyguards with machine guns to follow them everywhere? Would the US have risen to the status of a “world power” and have a “world reserve currency” if guns were “not necessary”? The higher standard of living Westerners enjoy compared to many other nations are a direct result of guns and military power; I’d say that guns, and more specifically military power, is very crucial to shaping world history/maintaining society and I’d define that as “necessary”. I think it’s obvious that being able to defend yourself, your nation, and your sovereignty, leads to a better quality of life.
If you’re a proponent of a totally gun free planet, I’m interested to know how you’d implement a total destruction of all guns worldwide and subsequently prevent their manufacture forever thereafter to give us a gun-free world. Even more challenging is the confiscation of the firearms from private owners and doing it in a nonviolent way. Ironically, the only feasible practical way to confiscate guns would probably be at gunpoint under the direct threat of force.
With the rise of things like 3D printing (which is expensive now, but as we’ve all seen, technology moves at breathtaking speed and only gets cheaper, smaller, and better as time goes on) and other future technologies that we can’t even fathom, it could conceivably become impossible to stop independent owners of such machines from printing copies of firearms and assembling them right there in their living room. I don’t believe that all of the regulations in the world would be enough to stop black market developers of these types of things, so what do you do when everyone can print a machine gun?
“Hunting is a hobby - it’s not necessary for us to go hunting for animals with rifles and shotguns.”
Maybe you’ve never lived on a large property or on a farm (you’re not missing anything, farmers work all day and barely have anything to show for it nowadays), raised livestock that needs protected from predators, or hunted and grown your own food. I’m pretty sure you’ve never been in bear country if you think guns are useless, because karate kicks and begging doesn’t work with bears (not that I’ve tried, I’ll leave that test to the anti-gun crowd). I can imagine you trying to explain to farmers and people who use guns on a regular basis that guns are unnecessary, and I think they’d strongly disagree with you. You seem far removed from nature, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Someone has to grow that food that ends up on the table or slaughter it before you get it, and not all of us live in an apartment in the middle of a big city.
It seems to me that you’re taking your own personal experiences and extrapolating on that by reasoning that since YOU don’t need firearms, NOBODY should need them. That’s like someone who lives in the city saying driving is unnecessary because public transport can take you anywhere. Sure, it can take you anywhere in the city and that’s great if you live in the city, but people in the country know that public transport doesn’t come out here and if you want to get to town you had better own a vehicle unless you plan on walking, biking, or going on horseback. Your unique situation in your unique part of the world is different than mine and many others.
Most of the people who talk about abolishing or perverting the segment of our constitution that gives us the right to bear arms are insincere. They don’t really want to get rid of all guns, just certain people’s guns, like poor and “undesirable” people. They want a society in which certain elites and bureaucrats would keep their guns, while the slave populace would get rid of theirs and turn to the government in blind faith for protection. As is ALWAYS the case with people like Bloomberg, Rosie O’Donnel, and other rich elites who desire a supremacy for the oligarchy & gov’t, they will preach on and on about how guns are bad for the public, while maintaining armed thugs who follow them to every place they go. Their actions are akin to just saying, “I’m important enough to be defended with firearms, but you’re not.” I can’t understand how anti-gun activists can fail to realize that Bloomberg and the likes do not care what the laws are because they will always be able to use special exemptions (for only them of course) to circumvent them. Sorry, but I don’t think Bloomberg is more important than me and I don’t think his life is greater than mine.
Americans will never accept a stratified society where there are special groups with guns and the rest of the citizens are disarmed. Individual liberty, freedom, and an egalitarian populace without kings and queens at the head telling everyone what to do is quintessential to the American belief structure, and it’s what America was founded on. At least not today’s America. Maybe a terribly decadent American society will one day decide that oligarchs should have a small arms monopoly, but I hope they never stratify society in such a way.