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Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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628 points nodea2345 | 3 comments | 01 Oct 19 11:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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nvahalik ◴[01 Oct 19 13:30 UTC] No.21125093[source]▶
> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator

This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

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swarnie_[dead post] ◴[01 Oct 19 13:34 UTC] No.21125127[source]▶
Non-American here, i never really understood your second amendment or how you cling to it in the modern age.

What are a couple of rednecks with assault rifles (which arguably they shouldn't be able to purchase anyway) going to do against semi-autonomy kill droids being flown from a bunker in the desert?

powvans ◴[01 Oct 19 13:54 UTC] No.21125321[source]▶
Your estimate of "a couple of rednecks" is off by orders of magnitude. There are millions of AR-15's in private hands in the United States. Those are just a fraction of the 300 million privately owned guns in the US. This country is armed to the teeth.
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rplnt ◴[01 Oct 19 14:33 UTC] No.21125719[source]▶
Still wouldn't do anything to a malicious government controlling the army. And for overthrowing government you don't need to be armed - see dozens of examples all over the world - the army is made of citizens as well after all.

So, no, it doesn't make any sense in the current age to say you own guns to protect yourself from the government.

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1. ekianjo ◴[01 Oct 19 14:46 UTC] No.21125843[source]▶
> Still wouldn't do anything to a malicious government controlling the army.

Except that an army cannot fight on 10 fronts at the same time. When you have a whole country turning against you, you can't be there at every single place every second with a regular army. On the contrary a regular army would be beaten up in no time.

You also have to take in account that it's much more likely there would be rogue generals turnings against the power in place so general + armed people is a good catalyst.

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2. amanaplanacanal ◴[01 Oct 19 15:28 UTC] No.21126419[source]▶
Look at politics in the US. It would never be the whole country against a dictator. A much more likely scenario would be something like 50% supporting the dictator and 50% rebelling. I don't know how it would play out, but I know it would be ugly. The reasonable course for most people would be to flee.
3. rplnt ◴[03 Oct 19 07:07 UTC] No.21144473[source]▶
I took that into account and explicitly mentioned it, adding that you don't need the people to be armed for that to happen.