I really think that the chance of a shooting war in the United States within our lifetimes between the government and civilian population has about the same likelihood as imminent alien attack on Tokyo Tower, and that legislation should be made accordingly.
And no, those numbers wouldn't make a difference in the land war portion if the bulk of the military supported the government (even if every gun owner rose up against the government, which, by the way, wouldn't happen even if Zombie Hitler was running it). Unorganised untrained infantry with assorted small arms don't mean crap in the open field against a modern military. Remember when Saddam Hussein had the "world's fourth-largest army" in Desert Storm? Didn't do him a lot of good, and his army would be better than your 59 million gun owners by an order of magnitude. If the bulk of the military didn't support the government, it wouldn't matter. And in any case, the entire scenario is ridiculously, stupidly, implausible and not worth discussing.
Making legislation based on fairies and moonshine that has actual, real-world, negative consequences is bad legislation. If you think military-grade weaponry ought to be available to random civilians, then why don't you support that idea based on something that might actually apply to the real world.
All this "resist the tyrannical government" nonsense resembles greatly the arguments of people who try to justify the use of torture by arguments like: "But what if there a nuclear bomb about to go off in New York in two hours, and we caught the only guy who knows where it is? What about your laws against torture THEN, you bleeding-heart little liberal man!?" Making up wildly implausible scenarios to support your point just suggests you don't have any actually decent arguments to support your point.
"The right to defend yourself" is more than adequately covered by pistols. If you think more than that is necessary, I'm open to arguments why that aren't based on fairies and moonshine. And they'd better explain where your stopping point is and why, unless you also think civilian ownership of nuclear weapons is a desirable end goal.
And no, those numbers wouldn't make a difference in the land war portion if the bulk of the military supported the government (even if every gun owner rose up against the government, which, by the way, wouldn't happen even if Zombie Hitler was running it). Unorganised untrained infantry with assorted small arms don't mean crap in the open field against a modern military. Remember when Saddam Hussein had the "world's fourth-largest army" in Desert Storm? Didn't do him a lot of good, and his army would be better than your 59 million gun owners by an order of magnitude. If the bulk of the military didn't support the government, it wouldn't matter. And in any case, the entire scenario is ridiculously, stupidly, implausible and not worth discussing.
Making legislation based on fairies and moonshine that has actual, real-world, negative consequences is bad legislation. If you think military-grade weaponry ought to be available to random civilians, then why don't you support that idea based on something that might actually apply to the real world.
All this "resist the tyrannical government" nonsense resembles greatly the arguments of people who try to justify the use of torture by arguments like: "But what if there a nuclear bomb about to go off in New York in two hours, and we caught the only guy who knows where it is? What about your laws against torture THEN, you bleeding-heart little liberal man!?" Making up wildly implausible scenarios to support your point just suggests you don't have any actually decent arguments to support your point.
"The right to defend yourself" is more than adequately covered by pistols. If you think more than that is necessary, I'm open to arguments why that aren't based on fairies and moonshine. And they'd better explain where your stopping point is and why, unless you also think civilian ownership of nuclear weapons is a desirable end goal.