I still wonder how people in USA with all that awesome self protection with own guns believe that this self protection system works so well while having homicide numbers comparable with the Third World.

i could argue that its just as reductive to try to argue that increasing the size of government for one purpose won't end up with resources being dedicated to peripheral agendas to your own

especially considering the context - the us where it is fact that the government has been taking resources from citizens to start wars and fund wars both internationally and domestically with examples like the war on drugs popping to mind

well its how the country was formed to begin with so... 

i still wonder how people in europe still believe in government protection after the communist/socialist regimes of the 20th century where millions of citizens were murdered by their own governments... although i suppose we just pretend that shit never happened now

Yeah, that was just another example. A red herring is something meant to mislead or distract from important information (e.g. when a film intentionally leads you to believe that X is the killer so that you don't notice the evidence pointing to Y). If I remember correctly, the name comes from someone using the smell of herrings to mislead the noses of bloodhounds hunting them. 

"Cliffhanger" is the most widely used example I can think of (that isn't a swear word anyway; "fuck" probably takes that crown). When someone says a film ended with a cliffhanger, they obviously don't always mean it ended with someone literally hanging off a cliff (though that is where the name comes from), it just saves describing the specifics.

Anyway, we should probably cut this conversation here before I drag things any further off topic Feel free to PM me if anyone ever brings up one you're not familiar with.

That's the solution. Of course people like you do not understand that police brutality will naturally decrease with the lowering of civil gun ownership. It's a win win.

uh what the fuck?

soviet union? nazi germany? maoist china? etc etc etc you realise they had gun control right? did that stop the government from slaughtering millions of people?

what does the word dictatorship mean to you? you think that there's private gun ownership under dictatorships?

or are you coming at this from the position that dictatorships are a thing of the past and people have evolved beyond that and there's no way that it could ever happen in the future?

What does the police brutality in the US have to do with a totalitarian state? The brutality isn't government mandated.

Do you think there is any danger of government overreach in states like Canada, Australia or Germany? Do you think anyone there fears their government because they don't have guns? This argument to have guns just to protect yourself from the government is ridiculous. Unless you think the US army are all pussies and are scared of a few handguns.

It's America. We love to get driven into hysterics and fall for fear mongering for 99% false truths and exaggerations. This honestly doesn't surprise me one bit.

Stay sure that if a dictatorship took hold of the US government tomorrow, with your current military expenditure, the guns you legally own would be as usefull to protect yourself as a toothpick to defend from a lion.

People who disagree with the "protection against tyranny" perspective of gun ownership always use this angle. "The US Govt. already has planes, battleships, jets, etc. Gun owners would just be massacred". It's not that simple. Do you think that if a tyrannical government took the power tomorrow they would have all of the military on their side by default?. Moreover, even a tyrannical government would think twice before using the big guns against its own people to avoid putting moral people in the military against them. Besides, there have been guerrilla movements that have defeated powerful centralized governments for centuries. They may not have had the biggest and most powerful guns but they at least had basic stuff they could use to defend themselves, win battles and eventually get bigger weapons.

Btw, I am not American. But I come from a country that is currently under one of the worst dictatorships of modern times. One of the first thing these scum did when they took power was limit private gun ownership until it basically became outlawed. And so nowadays we fight with stones and bottles while getting gassed on the streets and thrown to prison with 0 chance of getting our freedom and democracy back.

Never throw the concern for tyranny away so easily. It may come for you and your people before you even realize it.