I am personally concerned that I may be the victim of genocide, and far more people have died from genocide perpetrated by governments than by school shootings. I’m not trying to be dense, I’m simply saying that history of demonstrated this. I’m also concerned that I will be the victim of violent crime and I’ve also had to defend myself from violent criminals in the past. Have you had any of these experiences? I’m curious to hear your thoughts if you’ve ever feared for your life in this way? Call me selfish, but I personally don’t want to be hurt. Thank you for your response.

In my case, the criminals physically left because I had a firearm. That week the police response time was anywhere from three hours to three days. This was in Portland, Oregon and our car had been stolen three times before, my girlfriend‘s bike was also stolen and my car was broken into three times, my other car was totaled by a drunk driver without any repercussions. We left Portland shortly after meeting a British person who had been kidnapped and forced to withdraw money from ATMs.

I would love to live in a world where everybody has what they want but we don’t live in that world. That being said there is no excuse for somebody taking something that does not belong to them. I was deeply hurt by these experiences and forever changed in the way that I think and act. I learned that sometimes when I told people about the things that had happened to us, I felt that that person had sympathy for the criminals and no sympathy for me. I learned that it is a fact that police cannot be everywhere, they cannot react instantly, and even if they can react sometimes they won’t for political reasons. I still think of the time where I was sucker punched by some man on the street for no reason which is what initially lead me to purchase a firearm for self-defense. I can’t fix society, but I can protect myself and my loved ones.

There aren't any other solutions that empower the individual. The problem is when the police are underfunded and don't show up, or the judiciary continually lets dangerous individuals out on bail. We should be able to rely on the system, but it's not hard to see why people want firearms when the system fails.

An armed person won't stop a genocide, but an armed populace might.

A general strike did not work in the past against most communist governments and it is much less likely to ever work in the future, anywhere.

In all the countries of the Eastern Europe where the communist governments were removed, this was possible only due to traitors inside the communist top layer, who had reached the conclusion that their chiefs are too incompetent, so it will be more profitable for themselves to remove all the figures well known to the public and to convert themselves into capitalist businessmen, ensuring the surviving of their power in another form.

For a general strike to exist, it must be coordinated. There must exist someone who must say "Let's do this" and everybody else must start the strike.

This is impossible under a competent tyrannical government. A half of century ago it was impossible because every company, institution or school was infiltrated with informants, who would report immediately any kind of criticism against the government, then the reported person would disappear, e.g. by being interned in a mental health institution. If somehow a strike succeeded to start in a single place, that place would be instantly isolated, with no communications, then nobody outside would learn what has happened, except perhaps many years later, and the strikers would disappear.

Nowadays, this has become much simpler, because the government no longer needs a huge number of loyal human snitches (which had to be redundant, as none of them could be trusted), it can use electronic surveillance monitored by AI.

As someone who has worked all over the world with several different cultures and types of people, including in war zones, saying “the rest of the world shakes their head” is an extremely broad generalization. Different countries have very different experiences with guns, governments, and resistance. I'm sure you have your own perspective that is valuable, but speaking for “the rest of the world” comes across as dismissive and small minded, rather than engaging with the point that was made.

No, we don't. Don't speak for the rest of the world, for not everyone lives in your country, let alone in your bubble.

I think your "offense" Is downright naive, if not moronic. You should know how difficult politics are, and what you are asking for, the civilians, the military, just sitting down to "protest" is not only an imaginative fantasy, but I would also wager downright impossible.

I don’t think everyone in the entire world disagrees and I think many people in the world do agree with my point of view . I also think it would be more constructive for people who disagree to disagree respectfully rather than shake their head in disapproval - with the understanding that two rational actors can arrive at different and reasonable conclusions because they value parameters differently. I work with statistics and probability every day. It’s my understanding that certain assumptions and modeling were made in the statistics so that the probabilities may not apply to me in general. I also think that governments may not act generally tyrannically, but specifically tyrannically and target certain groups, and may even have the popular support of most people in the country like what’s happening with the Uyghurs in China right now. In this case a general strike wouldn’t be useful at all because the majority of people in the country would be happy and productive.

I hate to say this - but having known refugees from a tyrannical government, I have to shake my head at this. If a population tried a general strike against a truly tyrannical government, pretty soon that government will start bringing out gunmen. Like in Ukraine in 2014. Sometimes it will work out, but not without sacrifice.