"Americans have long convinced themselves that there is a link between guns and overall freedom. The more guns there are in the hands of individuals, the more difficult it would be for a dictator to take power.

This is the freedom guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1791.

They argue about the meaning of the wording but not over whether this thinking still makes sense in the modern age.

And yet this week they watched a dictator overthrown in Egypt - with no recourse to violence. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 394259.stm

Xela

You don't need guns to start revolution and bring government down. Gandhi didn't use any guns, did he? But once revolution is over, you need guns to ensure new order and newly acquired freedom.

Guns certainly do not ensure freedoms. People ensure freedoms. Sometimes they do so peacefully. Sometimes they have to resort to guns. The massive civil unrest that pushed forward the rights of women and minorities in the USA was largely peaceful and did not resort to guns, although there were incidents, much like there were in Egypt. Freedom in the US was secured through arms, The French Revolution required them, the Mexican Revolution, etc...

Guns are a tool and like any tool they can be used properly or they can be misused. A person protecting themselves or their loved ones from an attacker is, in my opinion, a proper use. People protecting themselves from oppression (Like the Deacons in the 1960's) is proper use. Using guns to rob, murder, and intimidate like gangs do, is improper and must be stopped. Using guns like the racist militia movements and today's idiotic minutemen do is improper and must be stopped.

People can have very different opinions on guns, but the fact remains that guns are tools of self defense up to and including national defense. To think that human beings have outgrown the use of guns is as naive as Chamberlain thinking that surrendering the Sudetenland would stop the German military from pushing forward.

The quotes are all from the article (just to be clear who I am responding to):

Americans have long convinced themselves that there is a link between guns and overall freedom. The more guns there are in the hands of individuals, the more difficult it would be for a dictator to take power.

Who had power in Egypt and who had the guns? How is in power in Egypt now and who has the guns? See a relationship?

And yet this week they watched a dictator overthrown in Egypt - with no recourse to violence.

A dictator overthrown is not the end of tyranny. I'm not ready to "call it." Either power is going to remain in the hands of the military or not. If the military does not relinquish power then the revolution will have been a revolution in name only. If the military does relinquish power, there is still no guarantee that power will be democratically managed.

The same media outlets which have been hailing this as the e-revolution have also begun mentioning that the military actually wanted Mubarak to go away. But that does not count, right? It does not count that Mubarak basically had a gun against his head, in the form of the Egyptian military. No, for those staunchly against private gun ownership, it cannot count because that would destroy the idea of a gunless revolution. As to the relationship between the disarmed populace and the military, I see one of two possibilities. The military merely took advantage of a movement which developed independently. They did not quite know the population would revolt but once it did, the military was enchanted because they could kick Mubarak out while giving the impression to the rest of the world that it was really the population who wanted him out. Of course they were not going to shoot the demonstrators because the demonstrators were giving legitimacy to the military's desire to see Mubarak go. Alternatively, the military could have actually incited the population to revolt. I do not know that there is evidence for this but I would not discount it just yet.

Okay,

Now having read the article, I just think that the author is an idiot. He had an idealized version of what his childhood was like and now he thinks that it has all gone to hell. The overall theme of the story to me is that some people like to live in fantasy worlds. I live in a fairly decent neighborhood. I used to leave my doors unlocked until my wife moved in (she insisted). There have been a few burglaries in the 11 years I have lived at my current address. I bought my first firearm in early 2001 when my ex wife told me that her crazy drug using mentally ill bf had made threats against my son and myself. I called the police and they told me that they could not really do anything unless something happened.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that whether or not people own guns is not important or not nearly as important as their attitude and behavior towards guns and towards violence in general.

Guns do not make people unsafe nor do they make them safer. They are tools, like a fire extinguisher. Your house may still burn down or you may be able to stop the fire. You may be able to use your firearm to stop an attack, or the attack may succeed despite your being armed.

What makes people feel safe or not is the constant bombardment of media about the horrible crimes that happen everyday that make everyone think that we live in a society where violence happens constantly. It does happen. I happens some places more than others. The statistic that has always amazed me is that crimes and violence has typically gone down over the years, but media coverage of crimes and violence has shot up ridiculously over the same period.

Tell me which is more responsible for the feelings that might lead someone to buy a gun? You don't see ads for guns anywhere in the mainstream media. What you do see is constant depiction of crimes from around the world and the constant beat of the drum that someone out there is planning to get you.

An interesting article:

http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculatio ... objective/

The author talks about how we are predisposed to think in terms of archetypes and how the press has been interpreting the Egyptian events as the archetype of "democratic revolutionaries toppling an oppressive dictator." He argues that reality does not fit archetypes. Well, besides that insightful observation I've also learned that Mubarak was prepping his son to take power and the military was not happy with that. Yet more evidence that what appeared to be a democratic revolution is in fact just the guys with the guns taking the power away from the guy who used to control the guys with the guns.

Here's another one:

http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2011/02 ... onary_tale

This article talks about the financial interests of the military and how the actions of the military during the "revolution" could just be the military making sure that its financial interests are protected.

The more I learn, the less I convinced that what we witnessed is really what the media made it out to be: i.e. a revolution which will achieve real positive change for the masses in Egypt.

Hardly bloodless. They have 300 dead, probably not including people killed during looting/theft attempts.

Excellent points made, by everybody.

Amnesty International says the military tortured protesters:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-upda ... 2011-02-17

Note here what happened: while the protest was happening, the military arrested some protesters and tortured them to try to learn about the plans of the protesters.

But yeah, the Egyptian military is the friend of the protesters.