Zep said:
How many times must we rehash this topic? When will people go outside their doors and have a long hard look at the reality out there?
Many American citizens do NOT own guns, or maybe a handgun or two. The US military, with the President as command-in-chief, owns lots of guns. Big guns that shoot lots of bullets fast and far. And tanks and howitzers and combat aircraft and naval vessels...
So you can bleat all you like about protecting yourself from "the government" but let's face it, in a fire-fight, YOU WILL LOSE! Big time.
Sundog is right - want to protect your rights? Then VOTE. Funny - it has always seemed to work for the last 200+ years...
Okay, first my
bona fides. Until September 11, I had never owned a gun; nor had I any desire to do so. And when, a week or so later, I broached the possibility to She Who Must Be Appeased, I was prepared to drop the subject entirely if she did not immediately and wholeheartedly sign on.
But she did, and we bought a revolver. We took the appropriate safety courses, and I've spent enough time at the range to be confident in my ability to drop anyone who breaks into my house. But I'm not happy about it.
We bought a gun, not because we were frightened of our own government - we're not - but because we were easily able to visualize a scenario where terrorists wiped out the power grid in our nation's capital and in the ensuing confusion and panic, and before the militia could restore order, roving gangs of bad guys (rioters, mobs, call them what you will) might decide that our comfortably middle-class neighborhood presented a tempting target.
So I'm not some wild-eyed "gun kook", but I do sleep a little better at night knowing it's there.
Now, does owning a .38 Special make us safe from our own government in the hypothetical event of a military coup?
By itself, of course not.
What makes us safe from our own government is not the fact that tens of millioins of Americans own their own guns. It's not our Constitution. It's not our detestation of tyranny. It's not our military's respect for civilian institutions.
It's ALL of those things, together. No single one of them guarantees our freedoms. But we have a military that respects civilian control; if you don't believe that, ask Douglas MacArthur or any other general the president or secretary of defense has fired for popping off his mouth too much. Without that, we'd be no better off than some banana republic whose military steps in every time they don't like the general drift of things.
And even if our military were to overthrow the elected government, we have millions of armed citizens who hate hate hate the idea of being ordered around by a military junta. Is my .38 Special a match for a howitzer? Of course not. But an armed citizenry can make life miserable even for a modern army. Look what a relatively small number of Iraqis are doing today. By contrast, look at what happened in Tiennamen (sp?) Square. Those brave Chinese students could stand up to the tanks with nothing more imposing than their chests.
And, FWIW, I never fail to vote on election day. Never.
), people whose job justifies a special need for carrying a handgun, and hunters. "Civilian" gun owners are in a minority as people view protection of their safety as a task for the police forces and are certainly not encouraged to take it into their own hands given what happens in more gun-friendly countries. 
