Guns bad...case closed

[Tero]

Hillary and me.

[laklak]

I hear she can be a real party animal.

[Tero]

Yes she is. I remember all the shots. But no shooting!

[Seth]

Seth:

No it doesn't. Once again you're trying to blame the lawful commerce in and possession of firearms for criminality and once again I point out what a fucking stupid and ignorant attempt this is.

Tero:

Not registering allows straw purchases.

And how does registering prevent straw purchases?

As soon as the buyer is in the gun shop parking lot, we've lost track of the gun. He can give it to the criminal right there.

He can do that anyway. All he has to do, if ever asked (ever hear of filing off the serial number?) is claim the gun was stolen from him in the parking lot, or somewhere else.

Solution: national registration. You would only be allowed to sell back to gun shop or pawn shop who put that serial number back in system as "to be sold."

Once again, that only works if everybody obeys the law. Interestingly, it's a well-known fact that criminals don't obey the law, which means that your "solution" isn't actually a solution...for anything other than government confiscation of firearms owned by law-abiding citizens who dutifully comply with registration requirements.

In case you didn't know it, there is a sort of defacto gun registry in existence. It's called the BATFE Form 4473 that every buyer of a firearm of any kind from a licensed dealer is required to fill out. The dealer must keep those records pretty much forever, and if he goes out of business, must forward the forms to the federal government. That's how they "trace" guns. Of course, such traces are pretty much useless because, as you note, the moment that a transfer occurs that is not recorded, the gun becomes invisible to the system.

What the BATFE has discovered is that most crime guns were legally purchased to begin with but then entered the black market, usually through theft, where criminals were able to procure them.

But private transfers between law abiding citizens is not even a minor source of crime guns, with or without a mandatory NICS check and Form 4473. Neither are "gun shows", according to the FBI. This is because the vast, vast majority of gun owners are law abiding and responsible citizens who refuse to knowingly transfer a firearm to someone they don't know is not a criminal. Therefore, a transfer between, for example, a father and his son of a firearm used for lawful purposes does not need to be recorded or approved because the likelihood of that gun being used for criminal purposes is vanishingly small. As I said, less than 4 ten-thousands of one percent of all firearms in the US are EVER used by ANYONE in ANY sort of crime. So why waste the money and time trying to register and track the other 99.9996 percent of firearms. That's just pointless.

One has to view the magnitude of the problem the registration law seeks to solve along with the magnitude of the market involved, the magnitude of the costs in terms of money and time to attempt the solution, the probability that the solution proposed will actually produce measurable results and the unintended potential consequences to the rights of the citizenry to keep and bear arms posed by a national, universal gun registry before one can make a reasoned conclusion about whether such a solution is viable or even necessary.

And that calculation has been done pretty much every year for the last 100 years by Congress because of the unrelenting efforts of hoplophobes and anti-gun zealots to pass gun registration laws, both nationally and at the state level, in spite of the massive body of evidence that gun registration schemes produce no measurable results at all, much less results that would justify the enormous cost of doing so.

That's precisely why Canada gave up on it's universal registration scheme after spending three billion dollars and seeing pretty much zero benefit from even attempting it. Nor have draconian regulations and registration requirements prevented criminals from getting guns in any nation on earth. Moreover, of late, in the US, most of the guns used by mass killers were lawfully purchased by the killers. Those that weren't, were stolen, which means that the registration system was again useless in preventing a deranged killer from obtaining them.

Let's look at "straw purchases" for a moment. We find that a large number of guns flowing into Mexico come from straw purchases. The problem is that a "straw purchase" is a purchase performed according to the existing laws requiring a NICS check which, except for the intent on the part of the buyer at the time the purchase was made to transfer it to someone they knew was not eligible to buy it for themselves. Thus, for all intents and purposes the purchase is entirely legal unless and until the buyer transfers it to someone who is not permitted to possess it.

However, once that legal purchase is completed the clock is reset and that person is free to sell or transfer the gun to someone else so long as he or she does not do so knowingly to a prohibited person.

So, what we see with respect to Mexico crime guns is that the "straw buyers" are usually people who either don't know or don't think that buying a gun for someone else as a "gift" is illegal (which it's technically not) or that the person they are buying it for is a disqualified person. Gun runners create relationships with people ignorant of the law in order to induce them to buy a gun on false pretenses, and the "straw buyer" complies for reasons other than criminal intent. Then the gunrunners abandon the straw buyer and divert the gun to Mexico (with the able assistance of the BATFE by the way), which is a long serious of serious criminal acts both in the US and in Mexico. If the gun shows up in Mexico and gets "traced" back to the US, what does the BATFE end up with? Somebody's former girlfriend who had no idea her boyfriend (or her boyfriend's cohorts) were illegal gun runners and she gets nailed for something she didn't know was a crime.

But the guns end up in Mexico despite all the "registration" and background check requirements because as I tell you so often, criminals will ALWAYS find ways to get their hands on guns...illegally. Therefore, additional registration requirements wouldn't do anything to prevent this sort of trafficking.

You wrongly think that Jim Bob, who is a felon, goes to his buddy Joe Bob and says "Hey Joe, would you buy a handgun for me, I'm a felon and can't pass the NICS check but I really want a gun." and Joe Bob is just going to say "Gee, Jim, I know you're a felon and you're not supposed to have any guns, but you're a good friend, so I'm going to risk five years in a federal penitentiary and a $250,000 fine just because you want a gun, so sure, let's go down to the dealer right now and you can tell me which gun you want."

Given the fact that the "straw buyer" is the one whose name is on the paperwork, and therefore is the first one the police are going to come looking for if that gun shows up at a crime scene, do you really think that this is what happens?

No, it's not. And as I've shown you, all the registration paperwork on earth won't prevent that gun from getting into criminal hands if the criminals want it badly enough. Nor will gun bans, as we see in your nation and every other nation on earth.

This ain't our first rodeo, pardner. We've been examining and debating this issue for a hundred years and each and every time it comes up, the numbers don't show it to be worth the time, trouble and expense of doing it.

[Seth]

Registering guns is obviously going to make it harder for a criminal to get an unlicensed gun.

No it won't.

If your gun is registered and you want to sell it, you know that it can be traced back to you.

Ever hear of a thing called a "file?"

Make it compulsory for you to see documentation proving the buyer's identity, and his right to own the gun. Make it compulsory for the buyer to provide copies of those documents.

Law-abiding gun owners don't sell their guns to known criminals. But, as it happens, I agree with you. Here's my proposal: The NICS system should be opened up to private individuals to make criminal background checks available for private purchases. You come to me and want to buy a gun and I demand that you present your ID, at which time I call the NICS hotline and I give them your ID information and they say yea or nay, within 3 minutes. I don't tell them my name, or the type of gun, much less its serial number. All I do is confirm that to the best of the FBI's knowledge you are not disqualified from owning firearms. If I get a yea, I sell you the gun. If I don't, then I don't.

There's no reason for the government to know anything about me or the gun now is there? If I'm not a law-abiding citizen, I'm not going to call the NICS hotline no matter how easy it is because I know that you, the buyer, are either disqualified or the situation is ambiguous and I don't care about your status, in which case no registration system is going to prevent the purchase if I want to sell the gun, and I don't want to queer the deal by demanding ID.

We do it with cars, for fuck's sake.

You don't have a constitutional right to keep and bear a car, and that registration can be used by the government to come take your car if it wants to, as a number of Land Rover owners learned when the federal government came and seized their illegally-imported (non EPA compliant) vehicles...most of which the owners didn't know were illegal and had purchased from another person domestically.

We don't allow gun registration because of this threat to one of our most important individual civil rights: the right to keep and bear arms. Protecting that right by keeping the government from tracking guns and knowing who has them is more important than making useless and expensive efforts to register firearms to prevent transfers to criminals.

As for the cost, that's down to gun owners. If Canada spent money on a registration scheme, they should have charged that cost to the gun owners, with the option of handing in the guns, if they don't want to pay.

Why? Original gun owners are not responsible for what the buyer does with the gun. If you want the buyer checked and the transfer recorded then YOU pay for it.

And if you burden gun owners with all the costs and trouble they will simply ignore the law and claim the gun was stolen and you'll have a hell of a time proving otherwise.

[Tero]

And how does registering prevent straw purchases?

I make you prove every year that you still have the gun. If you gave it to someone ten minutes after buying it, we give you a big fine. if you do it twice, no permit for 5 years. Just like cars.

[Seth]

And how does registering prevent straw purchases?

I make you prove every year that you still have the gun. If you gave it to someone ten minutes after buying it, we give you a big fine. if you do it twice, no permit for 5 years. Just like cars.

And how does that prevent straw purchases? It doesn't.

As I said, most true straw purchasers are ignorant dupes, so registration doesn't prevent the sale OR the illegal transfer to a disqualified person, it merely allows the state to prosecute someone who breaks the law, even unknowingly, if the state can prove the case. And in cases where the straw buyer isn't a dupe and knows full well it's illegal, registration requirements do not prevent the sale nor do they prevent the illegal transfer. At best they act as a deterrent to law-abiding people who are concerned about breaking the law. If the straw buyer is, let's say, a probationary motorcycle gang member who intends to become an outlaw but hasn't yet been disqualified as a gun owner, he won't give a damn about the law against straw purchases because he's going to soon be a criminal anyway.

And moving a "registered" firearm out of the system is ridiculously simple if you have criminal intent: you just call the cops and tell them your gun was stolen. How are they going to prove otherwise unless they can get the criminal you sold it to to turn on you? And if the transaction takes place in an alley, in the dark, with no ID exchange, how is the criminal going to know who you are so he can rat you out to cop a plea? He can't.

And then there's the times that the gun escapes the system because it is legitimately stolen.

And so the whole registration scheme becomes entirely pointless and useless when it comes to crime guns (which are the only guns of concern) because only non-criminals register their guns and there are so many ways that a gun can escape the system that do not produce liability on the part of the registered owner that the whole effort is pointless, futile and incredibly wastefully expensive, as Canada discovered when it tried to do exactly that.

Moreover, the whole "straw purchase" law is so vague and ambiguous that it technically prevents a father from buying his son a .22 rifle as a Christmas present, and so it's largely unenforceable because the legality of the later transfer depends entirely on the intent of the person transferring the firearm and the eligibility status of the person receiving it.

And your requirement for annual re-registration just proves what I've been saying about the purpose and intent of your plan, which is to create registration records that permit the government to go out and seize firearms, which is something we will not allow.

Oh, and it's not at all like cars. You see, I can sell a car to anyone I please, any time I please, without getting permission from anyone, merely by signing over the title. The buyer can take the car and do as he pleases with the car, including not transferring the title or registering it for use on a public highway. The risk is all his of course. If he doesn't transfer the title then he will have difficulty selling it to someone else, and if it's stolen and recovered, he'll have some tax issues and other paperwork with the state before he can get it back because he has to prove it's his, not mine. And he won't be able to use it on the public streets legally.

But I have zero liability for the vehicle, or what is done with it, the instant that I take the cash from the buyer. I don't even have to give him the title if I don't want because no law requires me to do so...unless I want him to be able to register the car for use on the public highways. If I'm selling it (or just donating it) to a charity, for example, and they intend to scrap it, or I sell it to a private person who intends to part it out, or I'm selling it as scrap because it's unsafe to drive, no title or registration transfer is required FROM ME. Now, the buyer might have some obligation to pay a sales, use or ownership tax on the vehicle, but that's his problem, not mine.

So once again you show that you simply do not understand the issue.

[Tero]

Once again, that only works if everybody obeys the law. Interestingly, it's a well-known fact that criminals don't obey the law, which means that your "solution" isn't actually a solution...for anything other than government confiscation of firearms owned by law-abiding citizens who dutifully comply with registration requirements.

We punish law abiding citizens for selling/ handing over guns to those criminals in the parking lot. You lot are not quite taking this gun ownership seriously. We will put the second time offender in jail for the straw purchase participation. First time, stiff fine. The criminals we can do nothing about so we need to tightly control the guns to go only the Seths. They only turn criminal when they go nuts.

[Seth]

Once again, that only works if everybody obeys the law. Interestingly, it's a well-known fact that criminals don't obey the law, which means that your "solution" isn't actually a solution...for anything other than government confiscation of firearms owned by law-abiding citizens who dutifully comply with registration requirements.

We punish law abiding citizens for selling/ handing over guns to those criminals in the parking lot.

Er, if they sell a gun to a criminal they are not, by definition, law abiding citizens. On the other hand, if they sell their gun to someone who is not a criminal there is no crime.

You lot are not quite taking this gun ownership seriously.

Of course we are, which is why out of 310 million guns in the US, fewer than 200,000 are ever used by criminals.

We will put the second time offender in jail for the straw purchase participation. First time, stiff fine.

Second time offender for what, selling a gun to a qualified person? That's not a crime. Straw purchases are already illegal and one can be jailed for a first offense.

The criminals we can do nothing about so we need to tightly control the guns to go only the Seths. They only turn criminal when they go nuts.

Ipse dixit quod erat demonstrandum

You have just proven beyond any doubt that your intentions are not to prevent criminals from having guns, which you admit you "can do nothing about," but rather your intent is to create a system to deny guns to law abiding citizens on the specious premise that because some tiny fraction of them might possibly "go nuts" the rights of the rest of us have to have our rights infringed and our personal and societal safety compromised.

Whereas my solution is for the citizenry to be armed so that when someone does "go nuts" and starts shooting people they can shoot him instead, which is, of course, the ONLY way such events can be stopped, as is the case in every mass shooting. Eventually the police arrive and the killer gets shot or commits suicide because he's been confronted by someone who is effectively armed and knows his attempt to take advantage of "gun free zones" to kill with impunity are over.

Your plan does absolutely NOTHING to prev)ent or stop such events. It must be noted that a large number of the recent mass killers obtained their guns legally and were "registered" when they bought them (which is how the police know they bought them legally, after passing a NICS check) so all your registration plans would do nothing whatever to prevent the crime.

Only someone else with a gun and the willingness to take action can stop such attacks before the killer has satisfied his urge to kill. Even you ought to be able to figure this simple fact out.

So, I conclude that you don't actually care how many innocent people get killed by guns that easily escape your registration scheme, you only care about infringing on the rights of the law abiding. This is quite typical gun-banner rhetoric and it's completely stupid, ignorant, misinformed, bigoted, biased and unworthy of anyone with even a smidgeon of intellect.

[Jason]

You lot are not quite taking this gun ownership seriously.

Of course we are, which is why out of 310 million guns in the US, fewer than 200,000 are ever used by criminals.

I'm not even going to ask for a citation on that.. but I do want to comment on your idea of proportional response re the preventative role of guns in combating gun violence. That's 1550 'lawful' guns to every 1 'criminal' gun. To put that into perspective, you'd arm every nation-state on earth with the nuclear destructive capacity to annihilate our home planet in order to combat, say, Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Yes weapons exist and will continue to do so forever, but isn't a politely disarmed society preferable to eternal MADness?

[Tero]

Second time offender for what, selling a gun to a qualified person? That's not a crime. Straw purchases are already illegal and one can be jailed for a first offense.

Good start, but it's not working. Simply owning a gun seems to turn too many into criminals. I don't go around buying liquor to minors and making a profit.

You have just proven beyond any doubt that your intentions are not to prevent criminals from having guns, which you admit you "can do nothing about," but rather your intent is to create a system to deny guns to law abiding citizens on the specious premise that because some tiny fraction of them might possibly "go nuts" the rights of the rest of us have to have our rights infringed and our personal and societal safety compromised.

You misread. The intent is not to prevent guns going to you. Even if you go nuts. Simply to prevent straw purchases 100%. Whatever inconvenience that presents you, you have to pay that price to get your gun.

[Seth]

I'm not even going to ask for a citation on that

Here it is.

In 2014, an estimated 1,165,383 violent crimes occurred nationwide, a decrease of 0.2 percent from the 2013 estimate. (See Table 1/1A)

When considering 5- and 10-year trends, the 2014 estimated violent crime total was 6.9 percent below the 2010 level and 16.2 percent below the 2005 level. (See Table 1/1A)

There were an estimated 365.5 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2014, a rate that declined 1.0 percent when compared with the 2013 estimated violent crime rate. (See Table 1/1A)

Aggravated assaults accounted for 63.6 percent of violent crimes reported to law enforcement in 2014. Robbery offenses accounted for 28.0 percent of violent crime offenses; rape (legacy definition) accounted for 7.2 percent; and murder accounted for 1.2 percent. (Based on Table 1/1A)

Information collected regarding types of weapons used in violent crime showed that firearms were used in 67.9 percent of the nation’s murders, 40.3 percent of robberies, and 22.5 percent of aggravated assaults. (Weapons data are not collected for rape.) (See Expanded Homicide Data Table 7, Robbery Table 3, and the Aggravated Assault Table)

So, out of 1,165,383 violent crimes in 2014, 262,211 were aggravated assaults using firearms, 469,649 were robberies using firearms, and 13,984 were murders. This means that in 2014, at best a total of 745,844 firearms were used in violent crimes, disregarding the potential for double counting when gun possession is counted in multiple categories for a single criminal episode, as in a botched robbery that was an aggravated assault for one victim but a murder for another, which would represent double counting the firearm used. This number is therefore the most liberal number I can come up with easily.

It is estimated that there are at least 300,000,000 guns in the US, and that is a conservative estimate. This means that only 0.002% (two one-thousandths of one percent) of all guns were used in a violent crime in 2014.

My 200,000 number came from research on this question I did some years ago (which as I recall was closer to 175,000) and thus woefully underestimated the actual number today because both the number of guns and the number used in crime have changed, so I'll restate: In 2014, less than two one-thousandths of one percent of all guns in the US were used in a violent crime.

That hardly seems like a problem that can be solved by trying to register and track the other 99.998 percent of firearms, which are NOT used in violent crime. The solution would seem to be to vigorously prosecute the actual person who held the actual gun while committing the actual crime, as opposed to vainly trying to keep track of all the other guns that he did not use.

.. but I do want to comment on your idea of proportional response re the preventative role of guns in combating gun violence. That's 1550 'lawful' guns to every 1 'criminal' gun. [/quote]

According to the above data for 2014, the ratio is 402 lawfully possessed guns to every one gun used in a violent crime. (300000000 / 745844 = 402.22)

But what does that have to do with anything at all? There could be ten billion guns in private hands that are never used in a crime and it would not affect the fact that guns used in violent crime are used illegally and therefore registering legally-owned guns will have absolutely zero effect on preventing illegally-possessed guns from being used by criminals to commit violent crimes.

I point the number out only to demonstrate what a complete and utter waste of time it is to register the guns of the law-abiding in an attempt to prevent criminals from getting guns.

To put that into perspective, you'd arm every nation-state on earth with the nuclear destructive capacity to annihilate our home planet in order to combat, say, Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

That's not putting anything into perspective, it's fallacious and meaningless hyperbolic nonsense of the highest order. Firearms are not nukes and your analogy is about as stupid as any analogy I've ever heard, not that I haven't heard this idiotic argument from anti-gun hoplophobes with mind-numbing frequency. They seem to think they are being clever, but they are just demonstrating their incredible stupidity and inability to reason logically.

And, as it happens, nations know full well that the better armed their military forces are the less likely it is that a belligerent nation will try to attack them. It's called "deterrence" and "peace through superior firepower." Why do you think the US spends so much of it's wealth building the best-armed and most formidable army on the planet? Don't bother to answer, I'll tell you why: because other nations dare not attack us because they know if they do, they will end up like Germany, Japan, Iraq and every other nation that's dared to do so, which is on the short end of the stick.

The notion of peace through superior firepower applies to nations just as it does to individuals. An armed society is a polite society, and the more law-abiding citizens who go about armed, the fewer criminals there are victimizing people.

Yes weapons exist and will continue to do so forever, but isn't a politely disarmed society preferable to eternal MADness?

And this is utopian idiocy. Yes, if human nature were to suddenly change and Jesus came down to ensure that nobody would ever criminally predate on someone else, in such an utterly crime-free society then there would be no need for weapons of any kind. But no such society exists, or has ever existed, or will ever exist, or indeed can possibly exist within the confines of human nature. There will always be weapons around, from rocks and sticks to machine guns and nukes, and there will always be antisocial types who find it easier to prey on others rather than work who will find or create weapons with which to threaten and harm others. And there are always going to be psychopaths who want to maim and kill others purely for the fun of it, or because they are pissed off at something and choose to take it out on others by hurting and killing them.

Those are simply givens that cannot, as you vainly attempt, be ignored. Therefore your unicorn-fart rainbows, peace and love notions are simply infantile denial of the realities of life and human nature. If you cannot understand and accept human nature for what it actually is, we have a name for that. It's called "being delusional and in need of institutionalization and medication."

So, human nature being what it is, and crime being entirely unpredictable as to when, where and upon whom it will strike, it is the right and duty of each individual to prepare for the eventuality that they will become a victim of violent crime and make rational, well-thought-out decisions about their degree of exposure to violent crime threats, their personal feelings and beliefs about self defense and what, if any, tools they find necessary for ensuring their personal safety to the degree they find reasonably necessary. That is a very individual series of decisions and choices that are not amenable to being turned into statistical arguments about crime rates and the statistical potential that some abstract person might be victimized, as BG constantly tries to do.

Self defense is very personal and individual and nobody, and I mean NOBODY has even the smallest right or authority to interfere with the decision of a victim who is facing injury or death at the hands of a criminal to come to the fight prepared to prevail and avoid all injury and harm. To so interfere is to devalue the life and rights of the victim in favor of the life and safety of the violent criminal, and that would be, in and of itself, a criminal wrongdoing exactly equivalent to being an active participant in the criminal attack. And I think people who advocate against allowing law-abiding citizens to be armed for lawful self defense should be charged as accessories to any and all crimes which occur because they interfered in something that is utterly not their business.

[Seth]

Second time offender for what, selling a gun to a qualified person? That's not a crime. Straw purchases are already illegal and one can be jailed for a first offense.

Good start, but it's not working. Simply owning a gun seems to turn too many into criminals.

You have exactly zero evidence of this ex-recto assertion and you know it.

I don't go around buying liquor to minors and making a profit.

Good thing because it's a crime to do so. It is not a crime however to make and sell liquor to adults.

You have just proven beyond any doubt that your intentions are not to prevent criminals from having guns, which you admit you "can do nothing about," but rather your intent is to create a system to deny guns to law abiding citizens on the specious premise that because some tiny fraction of them might possibly "go nuts" the rights of the rest of us have to have our rights infringed and our personal and societal safety compromised.

You misread. The intent is not to prevent guns going to you. Even if you go nuts. Simply to prevent straw purchases 100%. Whatever inconvenience that presents you, you have to pay that price to get your gun.

You lie. As I said, nothing you have suggested will prevent a straw purchase and the illegal transfer of a firearm to a disqualified person and you know that. At best it's a mechanism to punish the straw purchaser and do absolutely nothing about the now-missing and untraceable gun.

You know as well as I do your intent is to ban guns and all your devious rhetoric is just that, lies and more lies.

[Jason]

LoL Seth. You haven't changed a bit.

And, as it happens, nations know full well that the better armed their military forces are the less likely it is that a belligerent nation will try to attack them. It's called "deterrence" and "peace through superior firepower." Why do you think the US spends so much of it's wealth building the best-armed and most formidable army on the planet?

Because the US is set to become part of the economic third-world in the future economy which will be largely predicated on the rapid-freight-transit of the 'New Silk Road' being built by China which will connect the economies of Asia, India, Russia, and Western Europe making them almost inseperable while the best the US can hope for is an agreement with Russia that will see the Bering Strait being bridged.. but that's advanced economics for futurists. The short version is the US is being a bully and trying to bull their way into the future from the barrel of a gun. Mao would find it most amusing.

So you see how armament leads to belligerent behaviour at the expense of society as a whole to, ostensibly, benefit the individual whether it be at the level of persons or nations.

[Seth]

LoL Seth. You haven't changed a bit.

And, as it happens, nations know full well that the better armed their military forces are the less likely it is that a belligerent nation will try to attack them. It's called "deterrence" and "peace through superior firepower." Why do you think the US spends so much of it's wealth building the best-armed and most formidable army on the planet?

Because the US is set to become part of the economic third-world in the future economy which will be largely predicated on the rapid-freight-transit of the 'New Silk Road' being built by China which will connect the economies of Asia, India, Russia, and Western Europe making them almost inseperable while the best the US can hope for is an agreement with Russia that will see the Bering Strait being bridged.. but that's advanced economics for futurists. The short version is the US is being a bully and trying to bull their way into the future from the barrel of a gun. Mao would find it most amusing.

So you see how armament leads to belligerent behaviour at the expense of society as a whole to, ostensibly, benefit the individual whether it be at the level of persons or nations.

That's hardly anywhere near the truth. Whatever the economic situation in Europe and elsewhere, the US is still the nation that other nations call out to when they are oppressed by their belligerent behaviors and that's because our military is simply the best military anywhere on the planet. Your claim assumes that the US having a superior military is "belligerent behaviour" when in point of fact it's anything but that. Unlike many other nations, including the UK, the US does not empire-build or take over countries it defeats in combat. In fact, exactly the opposite happens. We win the war and then spend even more of our money rebuilding the nation for the benefit of the people (not the despotic rulers) who live there. Like the 44 million dollars we spent to build a gas station in Iraq. Some people need to end up in jail over that one.

Which of course has nothing whatever to do with personal self defense and the right to keep and bear arms to facilitate it. It's simple logic that when one faces an enemy, be it a belligerent nation or a violent criminal, one's best prospects for survival and avoiding harm come from having defensive (or offensive) weapons superior to those of your attacker. In no case should anyone ever be less well armed than one's criminal attacker, that's just bad strategy and tactics.