Quick question on gun confiscation.

[Mister Agenda]

OTH, the percentage of families that own firearms has been going down in the USA. The people that do own guns tend to have more guns than they used to though, I think the average is 8 per gun-owning household.

[Cyberman]

It becomes exponentially more difficult when the populace is well armed not only with the guns, but an ideology that justifies their use against such action - even and especially by their own state.

Actually, by havng such unfettered access to deadly weaponry - even to the point of downright encouraging it - the populace is voluntarily locking itself into a militia state. Big Bad Gubbinment doesn't need to lift a finger.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not sure why you think so (or why you think access is unfettered). Despite our mountain of guns..we don't seem to have been locked into a militia state voluntarily or otherwise.

[Opoponax]

It becomes exponentially more difficult when the populace is well armed not only with the guns, but an ideology that justifies their use against such action - even and especially by their own state.

I had moved away from this^ line of thinking for years, but have come back to it. The rise of Trump and the not unrealistic prospect of our checks and balances in the federal government suddenly being done away with have sheared away a certain degree of comfortable naïveté on my part. I really didn't think that what is now happening was possible.

It may very well be that an armed citizenry is the last bulwark against tyranny. So the conservatives who were so worried about Obama or Hillary doing it were wrong about that, but were right about the more drastic reasons for private gun ownership. The great irony is it that it would be them who would aid an oppressive government and possibly even count on leftists being unarmed, easy prey. Strange that.

[Cyberman]

I'm not sure why you think so (or why you think access is unfettered). Despite our mountain of guns..we don't seem to have been locked into a militia state voluntarily or otherwise.

It might just be the popular perception - I don't know the US beyond what is portrayed in the media - I'm basically going off the anti-establishment, "pry it from muh cold, dead hands", arms-stockpiling types. The ones who pray for the class war that never quite happens. If I wanted to take someone down, I mean really take them down, all I would do is plant the seeds in their heads and their own paranoia does the hard work for me.

[The Grand Nudger]

So, lets clear some things up then.  Militia people, are nutballs.  Even rednecks think they're nutballs, we have better shit to do in the woods with our guns.  We have all the guns....you hear that there is a gun or more for every man woman and child, but the vast majority of them are located in single households with multiple guns (you're about to see one reason for that, btw, below)....tucked out in the ass end of the woods - legally purchased by people who can legally possess them.  America isn't riddled with guns, rural america is...though, strangely, rural america is not riddled with gun crimes.  That would be the woefully undergunned urban centers...and in that, one individual gun often accounts for a spattering of individual crimes across different perpetrators. Hot pistols move.

Not even the wild west was quite as wild as pulp novels made it out to be.  

Our state has vast and broad ability to limit guns, and does, particularly in the interests of the state itself...determining what can and cannot be possessed, by whom, where, and their legally permissable use (fun fact, some guns aren't "lethal enough" to use for hunting...and others are "too lethal" and it varies state by state, game animal by game animal, and even month to month - which is the primary reason and impetus for sport hunters to have a handful of firearms), as well as the ability to tax, deny, or confiscate. There are age requirements, background checks, licenses, fees, fines, permits, and regulations for every conceivable scenario for every existent type of firearm and every owner thereof from federal, to state, to county, to city...and even down to individual -buildings- within all of the above.

[brewer]

Just got a letter from the NRA. Some site must be selling my contact info. Thought you guys might like to hear their pitch.

"Dear Fellow American,

I'm sending out this notice because gun owners like you and me now have one last chance to finally take back our country and our freedoms. 

You and I know that our enemies are not going away if we lay down our arms now. They have more resolve than ever. And they are promising to fight on and never surrender.

Every day we're fighting hundreds of anti-gun judges and gun-hating bureaucrats who want to ban our guns... media elites who demonize law-abiding owners like you... and elitist billionaires who poor millions of dollars into dismantling our fire arms freedoms.

They will make firearms ownership a privilege--not a right." (their bold, not mine)

It goes on, blah, blah, blah. Excerpts: Fight anti media bias, stand up for freedom, legislation and regulation will march Americans down the road of destruction, now is the time to stand shoulder to shoulder and fight. Yakety Smackity. 

I thought gun ownership was already a privilege. Regulation = destruction, to rich!

While I wouldn't like giving up my toys, I would if it was the law of the land. BTW, since Trump got in, my very anti-Trump wife says that I can't sell my extras and wants some training. (she would never consider going near one before) Trump may have made her a little nuts.

[The Grand Nudger]

At present it's a right.  When/if it becomes a privilege I'll still enjoy it, and if my guns become illegal (which some of them have and then haven't..in a short few years), I guess I'm made a criminal by default of possession,  the worst kind of offender.  

[brewer]

At present it's a right.  When/if it becomes a privilege I'll still enjoy it, and if my guns become illegal (which some of them have and then haven't..in a short few years), I guess I'm made a criminal by default of possession,  the worst kind of offender.  

How is it a right and not a privilege? Don't you have to "qualify" to own a gun legally? I know that I had to.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because it's ensconced as such in...wait for it...the bill of rights?  We set "qualifications" for our rights, reasonably and justifiably so, without making them any less of a right.  In contrast, public library access is a privilege which can be revoked regardless of whether or not you "qualify" for a library card.