I'm advocating more forms of resistance for the law abiding citizens, who are the only ones to abide to gun laws in the first place.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

The thing is - at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified, guns actually were an effective deterrent against the state. The idea is that if government ever stopped serving the people, they could forcibly overthrow the government and win their freedom.

But technology's moved on since then, and a gun is no more effective against the U.S. military than swords and slingshots were in 1776. Ask the folks at Waco or Ruby Ridge how their guns worked out for them.

If you really want to hold true to the spirit of the 2nd amendment, the best thing you could do is declassify all nuclear state secrets and make plutonium available on the market. Or, failing that, at least create a consumer market for anti-tank RPGs and man-portable surface to air missiles.

When I suggest this, every person I know has reacted with horror. "But...the terrorists will win and destroy us all!" they sputter. To which I'll just point out the end of your last sentence: "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." That's the point - the Declaration of Independence was suggesting that the terrorists should win, because during the American Revolution, the Americans were the terrorists.

I'm actually quite content with my sheeple existence, but I also enjoy pointing out the inconsistencies in many people's political views. It's ironic that many of the people that are the most pro-gun also support things like the Patriot Act and state control of military secrets. If you really support the right of the people to bear arms, where are my nukes?

There's a saying that "an armed society is a polite society". If people know you're going to be armed, they're much more cautious about performing potentially threatening or violent behaviors.

It also makes it easier for simple disputes to escalate very quickly. What happens when your first reaction is to whip out your gun instead of your fists?

There are enough heavily armed populations out there that you can gather real evidence about whether that's a problem or not, rather than just leaving it as a hypothetical. As far as I understand, it turns out not to be a real problem. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I think that it would largely depend on culture. If you were to give everyone in NYC a gun tomorrow, you could not expect there to be no issues. If you transitioned over a period of time, then maybe not (but that's mostly because the culture/mindset of the people has time to adjust).

New Yorkers are culturally probably close enough to other Americans that it wouldn't be as great a factor. If the difference between New Yorkers and, say, Vermonters is big enough to make a difference, so would the difference between Vermonters, Idahoans, Texans, Alaskans, and Arkansans. (All states with between 40% and 60%[1] firearms ownership: http://www.schs.state.nc.us/SCHS/brfss/2001/us/firearm3.html). And yet, the cultural differences from those states don't seem to make much of a difference.

Again, it's a very reasonable and intuitive assumption that allowing more gun ownership would result in more impulsive shootings. But reasonable and intuitive arguments are wrong all the time. That's why it's so important to look at the actual evidence.

[1] 40-60% is pretty much what you get in gun-friendly American states. "Giving everyone in NYC a gun tomorrow" is a straw man.

1. The phrase "everyone is polite in a well-armed society" implies that people are only polite because they are afraid that if they piss off the other guy, he will retaliate with bullets. If you're saying that increased gun ownership does not increase the number of impulsive shootings, then why use this phrase at all as a talking point (I'm using a general 'you' here not philwelch specifically, seeing as he wasn't the one the used the phrase)? [ It kind of irks me that the phrase is a lead in to some discussion of how being pro-gun is good, but "if everyone in NYC was given a gun" is called a straw man. ]

2. Most of the pro-gun advocates that I've encountered (online) have used the "if everyone had a gun" hypothetical in their arguments at one point or another, so how is using that in a counter-argument a straw man?

3. One thing that came to mind is that if 'everyone has a gun' then you could shoot anyone and then try to justify it with self-defense (and probably have great success), "I thought that he had a gun," or, "he was reaching for his pants." It's one angle that I've never seen discussed.

1. I think you misunderstood what cookiecaper meant by this. He immediately clarified with, "If people know you're going to be armed, they're much more cautious about performing potentially threatening or violent behaviors." Which means that he's not counting on armed people to be impulsive at all--simply capable of self-defense.

No sane person would advocate the right to bear arms based upon the idea that people retaliate with bullets against literal impoliteness, and I think it's a bit of a straw man to suggest that's what's going on, especially when cookiecaper explicitly clarified that he meant something completely different.

2. It's a straw man because we're discussing the actual effects of not restricting gun ownership, which in practice result in about 40-60% of the population owning guns, not 100%. If you want to discuss some sort of universal conscription scheme in which every citizen is armed and trained by the state, that's a separate discussion.

"If everyone had a gun" is shorthand, though. In reality you only need maybe 25% of people to be armed before home invasions, for instance, become too dangerous to attempt.

3. This actually does seem to be a problem--not with private gun ownership, but with the police.

  > This actually does seem to be a problem--not
  > with private gun ownership, but with the police.

It's slightly different w/ the police. While I don't agree with the way they operate most of the time, there are more people gunning for police officers than your average citizen.