Earlier this week, Cam ran a story on former Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks about gun control. The truth, though, is that he’s far from the first to talk about all the fire and destruction the United States military would visit upon citizens, either. Perhaps the most egregious example is that of Rep. Eric Swalwell.
The failed presidential candidate once joked that a rebellion against a tyrannical American government would be short-lived because the United States has nukes.
However, this anti-gun talking point that the American military might is simply too powerful to be stopped by a few guys with rifles betrays a fundamental understanding in how a rifle might be used to defend against tyranny.
Now, don’t get me wrong. A rifle is a horrible tool to use against nuclear weapons or air-to-ground missiles. There’s just not a lot an AR-15 is going to do defend against those kinds of weapons.
The question to ask, though, is, “So what?”
The M-4 rifle also sucks at these things, yet we still issue them to our troops going into harm’s way. More importantly, though, is the fact that our military has been fought to a standstill more than once by farmers with rifles and little else.
After all, the purpose of the rifle in such an uprising against tyranny isn’t just to shoot the tyrannical, but also to acquire heavier weaponry and ordinance. No, an army of freedom-loving patriots won’t have artillery and tanks. They’ll have to work to acquire those. They’ll have to work to get their hands on explosives for things like IEDs, etc.
For all of those things, they’ll need a rifle to start with. More importantly, they’ll need something more than the ubiquitous hunting rifle. While I’ll argue those have their place on an insurgency battlefield, they don’t need to be the go-to.
People like Swalwell and Biden should be thankful, though. They should be praising the American rifle. After all, aren’t they part of the crowd that likes to preach about how Trump is a tyrant? Aren’t they the ones who believe he wants to appoint himself dictator for life?
Aren’t they also the crowd that has gone out of their way to vilify law enforcement in recent years, calling them all sorts of nasty things along the same lines of what they’ve called Trump?
If he’s and the police are all of those things, why on Earth would anyone want them to also have a monopoly on firepower? I don’t trust any man with absolute power except maybe myself, but I’m not even that sure about me.
The best check on that is an armed populace. Yes, the United States military has Hellfires and nuclear weapons, but there are hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of private citizens.
Plus, both Swalwell and Biden are assuming that if a tyrannical government sprung up, the military would remain on the side of the government. This is the United States. That is never a smart bet.
