Yeah both of these points are revisionist bullshit. Go read the primary sources. The gun fetish comes from our origin story being successfully overthrowing the British with civilian firearms.
As to effectiveness: the Taliban just recaptured their country from a US backed military. The point of civilian gun ownership is to force citizen soldiers to decide between defecting and killing their neighbors. That’s exactly what happened in the Bangladesh independence war. The revolutionaries knocked over military depots in Dhaka to acquire firearms. Once the fighting started, Bangladeshis in the Pakistani military defected.
While it's a bit much to suggest 'guns are because racism', I think it's a reasonable point to consider.
Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen.
The US will not be invaded by anyone, and the US government with all it's flaws is considerably more legitimate than most of the people with guns and has been for more than a century.
If the US falls, it will be due to crumbling from within, and given what has happened in the last few years, I'm afraid gun owners, however responsible and conscientious, are as likely to 'Rise Up' against a pack of falsehoods and populism than they are any kind of legitimate reality.
> While it's a bit much to suggest 'guns are because racism', I think it's a reasonable point to consider.
Why? What’s the evidence other than juxtaposition? Arabs are also nuts about guns. People from pastoral honor cultures (like the Scots Irish ancestors of many southerners and Appalachians: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-sco...) often are. Is that caused by racism too?
> Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen.
This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. Tens of thousands of my people died at the hands of the Pakistani army because they had to fight with sticks and rocks until they knocked over some military depots to acquire firearms: https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/bangladesh-liberation-.... The Afghans have now expelled two superpowers from their country with handheld weapons. Guns work.
All of that stuff could happen in America too. Because history isn’t over, civilization is a thin veneer over nature, and there’s nothing fundamentally different about us versus them.
1) During slavery, guns were essential in keeping Black people under the thumb. So for at least 1/2 of US history, guns were an essential fabric of society for that reason.
In much the same way you could argue US gun culture comes from being 'at the frontier' - well - slavery was another big artifact of history.
When the slaves were freed they were a huge portion of the population, and there was every reason to believe there would be retribution and revolts.
Since then, there has been ongoing efforts to suppress that community, which rationally might engender violence.
In pop culture, African Americans have been portrayed as violent, which can make people afraid, and since the 1980s there's been a huge uptick in violence within that community, which also makes people afraid (though the violence is mostly intraracial not interacial).
2) "This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. "
Your arguments here are very poor.
First, the Army 'has guns' as a legitimate form of managed violence. Keeping the Army in check is a central part of managing the powers in a liberal democracy. If the Army gets out of hand, it's going to be very bad.
'Look what the Taliban' did is a horrendous argument, because the Taliban are totalitarian murderous overlords who murder for their own ideology and not the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen.
You're basically arguing that 'Guns Work Because Look How Well The Nazis Murdered Jews!'
That's an argument against the population having guns, because it seems to me the American Right Wing Taliban are the group the most likely to use guns and for all the wrong reasons.
"All of that stuff could happen in America too."
Yes, but it's unlikely to happen because the 'government goes bad'. It's going to happen because a demagogue like Donald Trump will rile up the gun-wading population to commit violence on the basis of a pack of lies. It won't start like that, it may just be a protest, but if starts to get out of hand, some blood is spilled and then each side uses that as justification for increasing the threshold.
The last 6 months have revealed that Trump pressured the military hard for the 82cnd Airborne to be used against BLM protesters and the Pentagon refused. Thankfully, that's the Army standing up against authoritarian leaders.
I don't think there has been in all of American history an example of where American citizens took up arms against the government in situation wherein they had some kind of moral legitimacy.
Liberal Democracy stay intact with education, transparency, oversight, a free and rational press, legitimate institutions, independent judiciary. If it delves into individual militias fighting against government units 'it's all over'. Americans can then expect the quality of life of rural Pakistan.
While there is some argument for 'Guns v. Tyranny' I can't see how it works out in practicality. One idea might be to require the government a Congressional vote to send any troops anywhere, for any reason, to further restrict US forces from being deployed in the homeland etc..
The US had a huge amount of help from France overthrowing the British. Including full support of the French navy and large amounts of French professional soldiers. An inconvenient fact that Americans try hard to forget.
So that refines the question to: how important was the private ownership of guns in the American victory at Saratoga? Well, the Wikipedia article referenced above says that, "militiamen and supplies continued to pour into the American camp, including critical increases in ammunition, which had been severely depleted in the first battle."
"General Fraser was mortally wounded in this phase of the battle, . . . The fall of Fraser and the arrival of Ten Broeck's large militia brigade (which roughly equaled the entire British reconnaissance force in size), broke the British will, and they began a disorganized retreat toward their entrenchments."
So that got me curious about what "militia" meant exactly during this time frame. Well, General Ten Broeck's Wikipedia page says that 2 years prior to the action described in the last paragraph General Ten Broeck was colonel of the Albany County militia, which has a Wikipedia page, which starts as follows: "The Albany County militia was the colonial militia of Albany County, New York. Drawn from the general male population, by law all male inhabitants from 15 to 55 had to be enrolled in militia companies."
>To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows ... if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter.
There is a big difference: The US Government will never leave the US. However everybody (including the Taliban) knew that it was just a question of time before the US would exit Afghanistan.
As to effectiveness: the Taliban just recaptured their country from a US backed military. The point of civilian gun ownership is to force citizen soldiers to decide between defecting and killing their neighbors. That’s exactly what happened in the Bangladesh independence war. The revolutionaries knocked over military depots in Dhaka to acquire firearms. Once the fighting started, Bangladeshis in the Pakistani military defected.