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

> 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".

I always find this sentiment a little silly - if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces? And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion. I truly do not get it.

The US (with its support of the military) has been at war in the Middle East for nearly 2 decades now with insurgents.

The argument is not that a rebellious citizenry will necessarily win a war, it's that it will draw out a bloody civil war so long and so expensive as to be a form of mutually assured destruction, the risk of which acts as a check in and of itself.

The fact is that the dictator would still win. The rebellious citizenry would live a life of absolute misery, just as those in the middle east do.

The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles, not computer-guided missiles. If there was ever a true US dictator, the 2nd amendment would mostly be used by the oppressed to rob, attack, and oppress one another.

There's an interesting sci-fi dystopia in there, maybe. Everything up to light machine guns are available with no restrictions to anyone who wants to buy them. The government constantly talks up the sanctity of the right to bear arms, and the importance of being prepared at all times to defend innocents against <insert scapegoat group here>. The dystopian military enforcers wear bulletproof powered armor, and private ownership of any weapon that can pierce that armor is a "grievous threat to public order," punishable by summary execution.