Gun Political Issues Megathread. (Control for or Against?)

[LindyAF]

tbh most of the hypothetical people who it's being proposed shouldn't have a gun is the sort of thing that's taken care of by like... people using basic common sense, a right to refuse service for any reason or none, and a high trust society.

Most of the hypothetical people being mentioned are not going to be able to get a gun (legally) easily on their own right now. For starters you've got to be able to either drive to the your LGS or research the parts you need to order and manufacture the gun yourself, which (almost?) always requires machining as well.

If someone is not mentally or physically competent to live on their own without assistance, they are essentially precluded from owning a gun, barring the case where those close to them believe they should own one and are willing to offer assistance to make that happen- in which case they presumably have a good enough knowledge of the person to make a determination themselves.

 

[Captain X]

I would also ban leftists from owning firearms.

 

[King Arts]

I would also ban leftists from owning firearms.

I'd ban leftists' from speaking.

 

[LindyAF]

I'd ban leftists' from speaking.

I would ban leftists.

 

[Wargamer08]

Pretty much every single time any kind of "reasonable" restriction has been implemented or proposed it has always been taken further then people expected and very, very rarely rolled back. No restrictions, they never end.

 

[Megadeath]

Pretty much every single time any kind of "reasonable" restriction has been implemented or proposed it has always been taken further then people expected and very, very rarely rolled back. No restrictions, they never end.

So, you'd be happy with the silicon valley varsity and Hollywood elite enforcing their ideas of social justice with their carrier task force? Bill Gates operating his own private army doesn't bother you? Have you considered at all who can afford the best equipment if all restrictions are lifted?

 

[King Arts]

So, you'd be happy with the silicon valley varsity and Hollywood elite enforcing their ideas of social justice with their carrier task force? Bill Gates operating his own private army doesn't bother you? Have you considered at all who can afford the best equipment if all restrictions are lifted?

You do realize that weapons are very expensive right? Bill Gates won't be the richest man in the world after he not only buys a carrier, but has to pay for it's upkeep paying for it's fuel, power, and crew is not cheap. Armies don't turn a profit they are there to destroy stuff. I doubt a corporation would spend enough to outgun a government.

 

[Wargamer08]

So, you'd be happy with the silicon valley varsity and Hollywood elite enforcing their ideas of social justice with their carrier task force? Bill Gates operating his own private army doesn't bother you? Have you considered at all who can afford the best equipment if all restrictions are lifted?

Sure, as soon as he finds someone to sell him the carrier, the planes, the ordinance and the thousands of trained sailors and pilots needed to operate it. Along with the constant need for parts, fuel and food. Then pays for wages and upkeep of said men and women. Then once he has it, he needs to protect it from others wishing to steal or destroy said ship.

Anything legitimately dangerous to large groups of people are already owned by other countries that I trust less then private citizens and require money on the scale of nation-states.

 

[Captain X]

Uh... The East India Company?

 

[prinCZess]

Businessmen trying to enforce their preferred social mores with force is rather implausible.
US has been trying in foreign locales for many a year. Any of them paying even the slightest attention should have noted how shit of an investment it is. Especially compared to their soft-power stuff of infrastructural/tech pushing.
If it happens, there do exist rival businesses, though. The Gates Military Corporation will face steady losses in its drone-fleet of doom to Apple-brand Stinger missile launchers provided for a low, low price to the anti-vaxxer insurgency.

Of course, we all know how that ends.
Taco Bell becomes the national restaurant hegemon. (Or pizza hut, if you're European)

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Uh... The East India Company?

The East India Company was a PMC given free reign to conquer a sub continent, even if weapons restrictions were completely lifted by ROB, the U.S. Government would never greenlight that or or allow it on a scale which made the TEIC profitable as it would be a PR disaster.

The only way a company can get and maintain an army that large is to take a massive amount of resource rich land and that's all taken these days.

To only further prove my point there were other similar colonial company ventures charted in this period and only the East India Company had success because they lucked out and found a resource rich place divided by infighting.

 

[LordsFire]

Uh... The East India Company?

The proportionate cost of sailing ships, cannon, and musketmen compared to steel-hulled Cruisers, modern infantry, tanks, APCs, AA, artillery, Helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft is incredibly steep.

The economic realities of the modern day make it nigh-impossible for a megacorp to pull such a thing off, and if they do, it would be in some third-world hell-hole like Somalia, where a decent chunk of the population would happily support anyone who comes in and provides some stability and security, not a functioning nation-state.

So, focus on preventing the collapse of the nation-state instead.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Yeah at best you might see the corporate equivalent of a handful of medium sized Coast Guard Cutters or maybe the LCS and a few helicopters and maybe a battalion or two of infantry . Anything larger would be too damm expensive to run.

 

[Megadeath]

You do realize that weapons are very expensive right? Bill Gates won't be the richest man in the world after he not only buys a carrier, but has to pay for it's upkeep paying for it's fuel, power, and crew is not cheap. Armies don't turn a profit they are there to destroy stuff. I doubt a corporation would spend enough to outgun a government.

You do realise that there's more than just one guy, and the rich people are very rich indeed? If say, Bezos, Musk and Gates wanted to, they could outspend Russian defence expenditure. Now, they're among the richest for sure but they're not the only ones. Add in the rest of the mega rich elite, and a few corporations and you can easily beat India for third largest military budget globally, possibly even beat China for second place.

Now, sure they're not going to beat American spending without ruining themselves, but they don't need to defeat the US armed forces in battle to have a very powerful impact on policy.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

You do realise that there's more than just one guy, and the rich people are very rich indeed? If say, Bezos, Musk and Gates wanted to, they could outspend Russian defence expenditure. Now, they're among the richest for sure but they're not the only ones. Add in the rest of the mega rich elite, and a few corporations and you can easily beat India for third largest military budget globally, possibly even beat China for second place.

Now, sure they're not going to beat American spending without ruining themselves, but they don't need to defeat the US armed forces in battle to have a very powerful impact on policy.

Of course building up such a force is going to have questions asked and all future orders prevented. And to be blunt no nation is going to sell high end military equipment to private individuals or even companies. Sure PMCs exist with decent gear but they're infantry forces

 

[ShieldWife]

So, you'd be happy with the silicon valley varsity and Hollywood elite enforcing their ideas of social justice with their carrier task force? Bill Gates operating his own private army doesn't bother you? Have you considered at all who can afford the best equipment if all restrictions are lifted?

Billionaires already have guys with weapons to enforce their agenda on everybody else. They are called the police and military. I just want everybody else to have weapons so that they might have a chance of fighting back if things get too bad.

 

[Megadeath]

Of course building up such a force is going to have questions asked and all future orders prevented. And to be blunt no nation is going to sell high end military equipment to private individuals or even companies. Sure PMCs exist with decent gear but they're infantry forces

Why would Russia or China not be quite happy to sell to them, when it lets them grow their native defence industries and screw with the US government? Why do you think American arms manufacturers would buck at selling to to fine upstanding Americans when they're fine selling to dealers who work with insurgents and terrorists?

Billionaires already have guys with weapons to enforce their agenda on everybody else. They are called the police and military. I just want everybody else to have weapons so that they might have a chance of fighting back if things get too bad.

Even if we accept the truth of your statement, you think the best solution is to get into a spending pissing match with guys who have a higher income than most states?

 

[ShieldWife]

Even if we accept the truth of your statement, you think the best solution is to get into a spending pissing match with guys who have a higher income than most states?

The billionaires already have their private armies, you aren’t proposing to reduce those forces in any way, only to remove the ability of individual citizens to defend themselves from them.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Why would Russia or China not be quite happy to sell to them, when it lets them grow their native defence industries and screw with the US government?

Because the importation of guns from other countries are limited by the U.S. government to keep international manufactures from driving domestic weapons manufactures out of business?

The Second Amendment has nothing to do with the right to block imports delegated to the government by the constitution.

 

[Cherico]

You do realise that there's more than just one guy, and the rich people are very rich indeed? If say, Bezos, Musk and Gates wanted to, they could outspend Russian defence expenditure. Now, they're among the richest for sure but they're not the only ones. Add in the rest of the mega rich elite, and a few corporations and you can easily beat India for third largest military budget globally, possibly even beat China for second place.

Now, sure they're not going to beat American spending without ruining themselves, but they don't need to defeat the US armed forces in battle to have a very powerful impact on policy.

A lot of Bezos, Musk and gates wealth is tied up in investments, property and other things.

bill gates has around 150 billion dollars, Russia spends 69 billion dollars a year on their milatary.

running a milatary is expensive and going to be honest here countries have the advantage of patrotism that means they can get people to die for them more cheaply mercs are more expensive.

Lets use bill gates as the example.

He's not going to spend a billion dollars a year on his milatary not enough liquid assets to do that every year lets be generous and say he can afford half a billion dollars.

Thats about how much the armenian milatary costs. They have a fighting force of around 800,000 people.

Mercs cost more and you have to factor in getting bases, supplies and other things and the support personal which the general rule tends to be each fighting man needs around 10 support personal. So lets say he is able to get 100 thousand mercs because yes they are more expensive. Once you split off the support personal he's got 10,000 fighting men.

That's enough to knock over a small island country but in the grand sceem of things its not that impressive.