Simple - and serious - question - why is anything other than a handgun, shotgun or rifle needed?

[thucythucy]

109. The examples you cite illustrate the absurdity of the

"over throw" argument. Was that your intention?

The Afghan rebels you picture (and is that bin Laden up there?) are shown with rocket propelled grenades. Is the gun lobby arguing now that they be included under the 2nd amendment? They were also equipped with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, provided by the CIA. Is anyone seriously arguing that citizens be able to purchase a Stinger surface to air rocket, for daily use in their own neighborhood? Because, in this day and age, that's what's needed for a successful insurgency, even in terrain as unfriendly to occupying forces as Afghanistan.

American Revolutionary War -- was only won after the intervention of the French army and navy. Otherwise Washington et al. would have been hung for treason. And this was the case even though the range of lethality of the weapons on both sides -- muskets and smooth bore cannon -- was roughly equivalent. You might have also included the American Civil War -- another insurgency in which the 2nd amendment was already in place -- that failed without foreign intervention.

The French resistance, likewise, had no possibility of driving the Wehrmacht out on its own. As I recall, that took 60 or more American, British, Canadian and Allied divisions, with thousands of strategic bombers and close air-ground support, tanks, heavy artillery, flame-throwers--not to mention the 200 plus Soviet divisions on the Russian front, without which even that effort would have failed.

Likewise the Dutch resistance didn't liberate a single inch of Dutch territory until the Allied armies were on the scene. And the link you posted on that discusses how the Dutch resistance was predominantly nonviolent.

German resistance: not even the German military (or portions of it anyway) were able to overthrow Hitler. Besides which, they used bombs, not guns. Every attempt on Hitler's life, as far as I know, was done with a bomb.

Native Americans in US: really? Do I really have to point out the obvious?

Maybe I'm reading you wrong here. Maybe you meant to say that small arms (guns, rifles, even machine guns) are useless when fighting a repressive regime? I'd say that was definitely your point, but I can't be sure. Or are you saying, yes, private citizens need to be armed with rocket propelled grenades, surface to air rockets, etc.? Not to mention, it helps being aligned with and receving aid from a foreign power?

Either way, "the right to bear arms" in the current American context has nothing to do with "resisting tyranny"--unless by tyranny you mean unarmed people flocking to see a movie premier.