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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

I hear this one a lot. "The military is so big, they have missiles, drones, etc etc etc, you could never defeat them in battle."

It's actually reminiscent of the "got nothing to hide" argument re: surveillance!

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To be fair, though, you can dismiss the argument all you like, but they do have missiles and you don't. It does seem like a rational argument. I don't know that I necessarily want tactical nukes over the mantel but isn't that what it would actually take to balance things out at this point?

Firstly, I think it unlikely that the White House would drop a nuke on New York to quell political unrest/rebellion.

Secondly, yes the gap in power has widened. But just look to the Revolutionary War. The British had the world's greatest troops, and the world's greatest Navy. (Hell, the Queen's Navy was like the prototypical American Navy) The power gap was already tremendous.

I'm not a philosopher on the issue or anything, but the crux of the matter, the thing that makes revolution different from war, is the government does not need to crush. It needs to obtain consent. It wishes to govern, not to conquer, for a government without people is nothing at all.

Firearms are one of the ways the populace can resist in some fashion, can refuse to consent.

You do have a point, the British weren't prepared for guerilla warfare. But I don't think it necessarily carries over to the modern day, our military's at least got some experience in urban warfare and the like. It probably depends a great deal on how far the government's willing to go and how far the military's willing to go.

I understand the principle and I respect it. I just really, personally and at a visceral level hate the idea of armed uprising. I want the system to be salvageable. I want dialogue and compromise. But I suppose if it came down to real, true tyranny then you'd be correct. Everyone has the right to stand against that.

Sure, nobody wants to engage in an armed uprising. It's supposed to be a backstop, a last resort. A final option when all attempts at dialogue, salvage, and compromise have failed.

I wouldn't say nobody, I am from Texas. We threaten to secede over just about everything lately, it seems.

Maybe that's the reason you guys and gals are still pretty true to the 2nd amendment, at least relatively.

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