Guns are useless.

Everyone who believes guns are some kind of savior or last-ditch protector is fucking stupid.

There is a reason why, during westward expansion, the first thing towns did when they got two nickels to rub together to buy bricks to build a church was ban guns.

There are so many real-world examples of guns being useless that it defies logic and belief that people cling to the myth.

There are so few examples of guns being useful that those examples are the irrelevant exceptions to the norm.

Every single valley in Afghanistan has a small village along the valley stream where every household has at least one automatic rifle. That is what a society saturated with weaponry looks like: paranoid, tribal, and rapey.

In the US, the second "the good guys" show up with their AR and wish.com tacticool gear and start to pose any actual threat, the bad guys will retreat behind fortified walls and fences and start dropping JDAMs.

The United States Military is the most terrifying institution of force in the history of the human race (history of the universe as far as we know). It achieves a level of training, discipline, organization, morale, combat effectiveness and general formidavlbility that makes the median Marine among the best soldiers on the planet anywhere, all backed by a logistical apparatus unrivaled by any conceivable combination of private sector actors working together. Unrivaled now, maybe ever.

And it got its ass kicked in Afghanistan. Trillions of dollars and countless lives later and a bunch of Pashtun tribesmen with AK-47s and RPG-7s have the country back, and a bunch of our materiel for our trouble.

Because the only thing on the planet more dangerous than a United States Special Forces operator is a man with nothing to lose.

What exactly are you saying here? Are you saying that guns can't defeat a modern military, or that it would be better if we just always let those in power do what they will? Because you're mixing the two, here and in the comments. You accept multiple times that guns can be used with success to throw off a modern military, but each time you do you pivot to trying to argue that the revolt was pointless anyways. Are you saying that no matter what the government does, no matter what it takes from you, no matter what crimes they commit -- it would always be preferable to just lie down and take it?

Because I can tell you, most of your countrymen do not agree. Most of humanity doesn't agree. And as long as there are so many examples -- from the French Revolution to Vietnam -- of people rising up against their oppressors, people will hope that should times become hard enough, they could do the same.

The idea is that guns are useful because it makes pacifying the population more difficult.

If it's the coup or something your own army may not be willing to trade fire with civilian groups but may still be willing to engage in.softer subduing efforts like arrests, water cannons, etc.

It's rich to call people stupid when you're missing the obvious point while engaging in a fantasy of all out war between civilians with guns and an army trying to exterminate them.

Like with the Viet Cong and the Afghanistan people who were conquered and absorbed into the American or Russian systems, right?