Sure, limits to weapons can be implemented. Best statement ever by mom on CBS news item was

[Skidmore]

"We don't allow people to produce plutonium for personal use." We limit access to weaponry all the time. Let us not forget that when addressing the issues surrounding one type of weaponry.

[peacebird]

1. And when they say the guns are needed to protect them from govt becoming a threat, just remind them

that the govt has bigger badder scarier weapons........

[tclambert]

2. Oh, now they're coming for our plutonium? Darn libruls.

They refuse to respect our Second Amendment rights to noocular weapons.

[Volaris]

3. Fuckers don't want us to have the TIME TRAVEL, THAT'S what this about...

Flux-Capicator enabled Time Travel.
Next they will come for our used pinball-machine parts...and then our Hoverboards.

[cantbeserious]

4. Oh Nooooo .... - When Will It Ever End, My Right To Own Anything And Everything Destructive

eom

[mike dub]

5. When reading the 'we need all manner of guns to protect against government tyranny' meme...

The first thing I always think of is the government's available, almost unlimited firepower ("bigger, badder, scarier weapons" says it all--- weapons far badder than even the biggest gun enthusiast owns)

But before that, our government has mere *noise-making* devices that will make human ears bleed.

I wonder if a citizen with, say, an AR-15, would be able to operate that weapon (against the black-helicopter personnel they fantasize/obsess about) while their ears and body are being overwhelmed by an acoustical pulse weapon.

[NYC Liberal]

6. If we didn't have a standing army, that argument might make more sense.

In the 18th century when the government's firepower was more evenly matched with the general public's, it might have made sense.

Today it might make sense in theory; in practice and in reality, it's really, really stupid.

[Lizzie Poppet]

9. That assumes that the entire military would stand on the same side.

Contemporary examples of widespread insurrection don't generally support that scenario. When the situation deteriorates to actual violence (and if the insurrection is indeed widespread - a few kooks in a compound don't count), the military of the effected country tends to fall out on both sides of the conflict.

There is no reason to believe the US is any different in this respect.

[frylock]

11. and the first time one of these insurrectionists gets waco'd..

I think you'll see a pretty significant drop in enthusiasm for such activities by these tough talkers.

[TheKentuckian]

7. Damage dealing capability does not equal ability to occupy.

We could not subdue Iraq even at ruinous cost and lots of blood. We had to bribe the warlords to make any ground or for "The Surge" to work.

We can all be wiped out but maintaining command requires boots on the ground aka soft targets, this is why totalitarian governments disarm their populace.

I maintain there is a deterrence factor, maybe even the silent pillar that holds up civilian control of the military at certain sticky points.

I also question why such a balance of power is a good thing? All such a balance means to me is two options-either the populace is not sufficiently armed or the military is too powerful and must be restricted in capability, footprint, or technologically to ensure such might not fall into the wrong hands and our nation be lost.

A population of a free people must at least be a match for their military should the military go off the rails as has happened throughout history all the way down to the present.

People who have lived to see military coups should not be so smug that we are somehow exceptional or point to a few decades peace in Europe as some end all be all that allows all of human history to be ignored on what might be a brief period of exception. How many times have those folks been conquered or under the thumb of various dictators?

[uponit7771]

8. Most Americans don't want to fight a war against it's government and think vise versa...MOST

...the others we don't pay too much attention to

[Mojorabbit]

10. I don't think countries that end up in that position

wanted it for the most part. It does happen though and frequently.