@Brandon9000,
Quote:...if 4 armed people invade your home, you'll do much better with a semi-automatic rifle than with a hand gun or no gun.
Do you really live in a place where you're in fear of gangs of armed men invading your home? Do you wear a flak-jacket n your home, just in case? As InfraBlue pointed out, assault weapons aren't really suitable weapons for "home defense"
or much else.. If you're really that frightened and owning an assault-styled weapon helps you to sleep at night, okay, but the weapon should never leave your home.
Quote:Would the citizens of a dictatorship find it easier to rebel against it if they did have guns or if they'd been disarmed?
You guys are really hooked on this scenario, aren't you — what are you imagining, something like you see in the Central American banana republics or Somalia, with paramilitary groups and warlords? Well the closest thing we have to them in the contemporary USA are the members of the right-wing Christian nationalist white supremacist groups. For christ's sake, Trump attempted a
coup and the conservatives in this country still support him. I've said before that I don't fear a government dictatorship as much as I fear demagogues who inspire their followers to terrorize local communities as was done following Reconstruction.
Quote:The Declaration of Independence points out that it is the right and duty of citizens to throw out bad governments.
The Declaration of Independence was written by people trying to overthrow a government so of course they'd say something like that. But it doesn't say anything about an armed insurrection.
Jim Crow laws dictatorially imposed repressive laws on African-Americans but civil rights were extended without black people taking up arms. The armed racists (who are still around) couldn't prevent it from happening. Firearms aren't the answer to unwelcome political change. Mass popular movements are more effective.