Gun Control and Government Genocide/Mass Murder

[plzleenowhammy]

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Are you saying that fire is more dangerous than governments or that governments can be both controlled and useful to some people?

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I mean that they can be controlled and useful to many people. If you want to abolish government due to potential danger you should ban all weapons, all cars etc. as well.

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Who controls the government? Do they? Do I?

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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Who controls the government? Do they? Do I?

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Well, you can do to some extent. If you are the only one doing it you are chanceless though.

[plzleenowhammy]

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I still don't understand though.. How could anyone be against eliminating the most dangerous force on Earth?

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Thought exercise - your policy is to eliminate the most dangerous force on earth. You eliminate the most dangerous force on earth. What is your next move?

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Eliminate the next most dangerous.

Is your policy that we should allow the most dangerous forces on the planet because we can never fully eliminate dangerous forces?

[Metric]

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Equally important -- can anyone find 20th century examples of government genocide against a fully armed populace?

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What a ridiculous standard...

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I'm not imposing an arbitrary standard -- I'm simply pointing out the most obvious way to refute the OP's argument. He points out a bunch of 20th century government genocides/mass murders of their own citizens involving heavily "gun-controlled" populaces. The obvious counterargument would be to point out a bunch of 20th century government genocides/mass murders of their own citizens involving heavily armed populaces. If you can't do that, fine -- try a different argument or wave your arms around or something.

[John Kilduff]

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Equally important -- can anyone find 20th century examples of government genocide against a fully armed populace?

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What a ridiculous standard...

So to be a good counter-example it has to be:
1) a government genocide (internal)
2) against a FULLY ARMED populace

I am trying to imagine how small a potential sample size we are dealing with Government genocides in the 20th century (how many are we talking here????) coupled with FULLY ARMED populaces (how many fully armed populaces even exist???) So silly.

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I agree that "against a fully-armed" is an extraordinary and absurd standard. So, let's make the test "against a well-armed populace." So far, the examples shown have been against disarmed populaces.

There are doubtless other examples, and I too am curious if there are examples of government mass slaughter or genocide against not a disarmed, but a well-armed, citizenry of their own.

I'll try to help the opposing views out a bit: perhaps Saddam's slaughter of the Kurds via poison gas would qualify (I just don't know to what extent the Kurds were armed or disarmed).

[Metric]

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I'll try to help the opposing views out a bit: perhaps Saddam's slaughter of the Kurds via poison gas would qualify (I just don't know to what extent the Kurds were armed or disarmed).

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Super-quick web search:

"They are always saying that the Arabs and Muslims are behind the terrorism and the killing," said Hussein Kadhum, 26, a traffic policeman in the heavily Shiite city of Najaf, south of Baghdad. "But America has terrorism and they are exporting it to us. We did not have this violence in the Saddam era because the law was so tough on guns."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...1701805_2.html

What a surprise.

[John Kilduff]

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Kilduff, why are you not an AC-ist if government is the most dangerous force on earth

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Well, here is what I wrote:

"I'm not an AC-ist, but I am convinced that government is potentially a far greater danger to everyone than any street criminals or any rare random dangerous lunatics with a gun."

I believe government should be kept highly restrained, not completely destroyed. I believe government can be a useful tool to help ensure protection of basic rights against usurpation by others, and that government can also be a useful tool for national military defense.

In order to effectively restrain government, its powers must be strictly enumerated and narrowly interpreted; and government should also be kept on a very lean financial diet in order to reduce its tendencies to bloating and inefficiency, and its inclination to grow. Keeping government very leanly funded, would also reduce the opportunities for politicians to extend special favors to special interest groups.

[AlexM]

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Equally important -- can anyone find 20th century examples of government genocide against a fully armed populace?

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What a ridiculous standard...

So to be a good counter-example it has to be:
1) a government genocide (internal)
2) against a FULLY ARMED populace

I am trying to imagine how small a potential sample size we are dealing with Government genocides in the 20th century (how many are we talking here????) coupled with FULLY ARMED populaces (how many fully armed populaces even exist???) So silly.

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Switzerland has a nice fully armed populace. Strange how Hitler went around them and respected their neutrality.

[Bremen]

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Even so what can the Iraqi population do against a determined us government?

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Even so what can the Vietnamese population do against a determined us government?

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Even so what can the us population do against a determined British government?

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Even so what can the Afghan population do against a determined Soviet government?

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We're talking about a government genocide. None of these cases involve that, which is precisely why the populace could successfully resist. If we randomly executed 500 shia/sunni for each violent act committed in Iraq I'm sure we'd "win" very quickly.

If you want an example of the futility of an armed populace against a DETERMINED government force just go down to Georgia and ask about General Sherman.

[Bremen]

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Switzerland has a nice fully armed populace. Strange how Hitler went around them and respected their neutrality.

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Not to nit pick but more likely was that the panzers just couldn't climb mountains. Heavy battle tanks of WWII had about 200HP and weighed up to a ton (my numbers may be off a tad, but they were hideously underpowered regardless).