Dumb Ideologies wrote:Gun-ownership is no guarantee of liberty or insurance against tyranny.
It's an American cultural myth. Even in America, the only cause that would unite enough militia LARPers against the gubbermint to pose even a minor threat would be taking away the guns, and if violence ensued it'd probably be seen as terrorism and cause as many to rise in favour of the government as against it, and if they pushed their luck too far they would be completely destroyed by disciplined professionals with the latest technology.
More widely, where such a culture doesn't exist, not enough people will believe it virtuous for it to make good guys with guns a thing, so it'd just mostly help potential criminals arm themselves.
For a myth it's not necessarily a harmful one, exceptionalism around a self-conception as an oasis of freedom is quite a nifty collective self-image that's more resistant than most national myths against being diluted by multiculturalism, globalism etc, but it's not something that can be universalised to other parts of the world that don't have that culture. You do you, it's not for us.
Certainly not, but a ban on gun ownership is a likely indicator of the reverse.