At this point, if your state reps are still driven to make more gun laws, they’re not helping. They are ensuring that maga is grandfathered in to gun ownership while the people looking to become gun owners this year are pushed back.
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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At some point it just becomes "try to only point your security blanket at yourself, I guess" levels of helplessness.
But to anyone considering buying a gun:
Owing a firearm makes you (as of 2020) 8-35x more likely to kill yourself with it https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html. And considering this is a purchase during a... let's just say "immensely stressful" period... yeah.
But also... what purpose does it serve? A single ice nazi comes knocking on your door, you spot them through the peephole, and have time to grab your gun, load it, and fire through the door? Then... you flee Everything in the hopes that the cops don't decide to label you a "cop killer" on top of that?
This is why gun nuts make their entire lives built around "systems" to always carry a gun and be able to quick draw. Because the reality is... whoever shoots somewhat accurately first probably "wins". Which leads to "Well... maybe that phone in their pocket they weren't even reaching for is a gun. I am legally justified"
But that also basically works for only the first few people to try it. Everyone else gets a squad of ice nazis either kicking down the door and flashbanging them (and themselves) or just unloading on the house from the curb.
I realize the world is scary. I am scared shitless more often than not. But think through what buying a gun can even accomplish versus all the risks.
Because "If I can't protect myself, who will" is a very valid question... but... the sad reality is that none of us (alone) can protect ourselves. This is WHY republicans and the like are so pro-gun. They know that a "well armed militia" hasn't been able to do shit for decades.
And maybe consider reaching out to your local community organizers to figure out what CAN be accomplished.
I don't imagine one person protecting themselves from ICE with a gun, but I'd kinda like to see some local armed militias prevent ICE from terrorizing people.
Like I said: Even an organized and well trained militia are pretty much useless against a modern military. Police departments around the country have armored vehicles for these situations and any militia that gets too "uppity" is begging for a drone strike... or even just a mortar.
But yes. Individuals can't do anything. We only have strength when we work together and look out for each other. An individual buying a gun to "protect themselves" isn't gonna do shit and is mostly just going to escalate things rapidly. Whereas a community protecting themselves, with firearms or otherwise, can at least buy time.
But that requires coordination and a LOT of focus on "optics". Again, The Black Panthers are historically one of the best examples of this. Yes, they have guns and do armed patrols. But mostly it is about community service and outreach so that killing one Black Panther means you are accepting the murder of that entire community. That isn't going to stop things once things accelerate to a full blown civil war (just look at Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan for what the US military will gladly do to a village...) but it DOES buy time.
But Americans have this mindset that just buying a gun turns you into John McClane and you are going to single handedly solve all the worlds problems in three respawns or less.
Even an organized and well trained militia are pretty much useless against a modern military.
Just going to ignore all the times modern militaries have lost to insurgent groups?
Civilian deaths (North and South Vietnam) 405,000–627,000
The Korean War (1950–1953) resulted in a massive civilian death toll, with estimates ranging from 1.5 million to over 3 million, often cited as exceeding 50% of total casualties
...
Not including combatant casualties.
In skirmishes? Sure.
In terms of wars? Not so much.
The quintessential example is the US (and USSR before us) in Afghanistan. Yes, the Taliban and the Brave Mujaheddin Fighters (TM). And... hit and run tactics... sort of worked. Moreso against the USSR where those militias were being armed by a different military superpower... and where the USSR troops were already behind the curve gear wise. Against the US? It is less that the Taliban et al "won" and more that we lost. We were bled out during an unpopular war where we had no meaningful objectives and no desire to actually fight and kind of just... left.
You aren't going to bleed out the US Military to the point that they and the christofacists leave the continental US (or even Hawaii... Alaska we would sell to putin in a heartbeat). Instead, you are going to see something a lot closer to the nazi occupation of Western Europe where you just have mass punitive executions until people turn on the guerillas.
We aren't at the point of pitched battles. People are calling for resistance.
And of we do end up at all out war with the government, the military will likely shatter and be considerably less effective than the military that couldn't defeat the Taliban.
And do you think this would be a popular war? Fairly certain it would be less popular than any war the US ever fought including the US civil war. That at least had a purpose a reasonable number of people supported.
Which is a very different topic than "Just going to ignore all the times modern militaries have lost to insurgent groups"
But sure, let's address your new argument while ignoring the old one:
People are calling for resistance.
Yes. And we need to understand what resistance is going to make a difference. One person owning a gun to protect themselves... isn't even going to accomplish the stated goal. A well trained militia... ignoring the fact that getting one of those takes a lot more time than we have, is also going to be of very questionable value once the civil war goes hot.
But going to protests and speaking to the community organizers and figuring out how to protect each other? THAT is proving incredibly effective... at least for this phase.
And of we do end up at all out war with the government, the military will likely shatter
Having spent years having to work with military folk and officers... I doubt it. That is an entire org built around "just following orders" and "being apolitical because I serve the office, not the man". Yes, people will bitch and moan. But they'll get told "It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the war. What matters is that you look out for the man in the trench next to you". And once the bullets start coming back, they will gladly hose down however many protesters or militia soldiers they can because "it is them or us".
be considerably less effective than the military that couldn’t defeat the Taliban.
Again, the Taliban did not defeat the military. The US government did. In fact, in most skirmishes (that weren't just ambushes and IEDs), we massacred them.
Because, "victory" in that case is convincing the christofacists to leave "their country". Which is the exact same reason the taliban just stuck around, waited for the coalition to leave, and went back to oppressing people.
But this also has the added factor that we already see with fuckface: It won't take too many massacres by the military before the soldiers that we thank for their service realize they will be massacred if they lose.
The only way a civil war goes beyond "We put down isolated groups of terrorists" is if the military (whatever branches) tends to align with different forks of the government. I... am not optimistic with that and suspect any isolated bases deciding to not support the christofacists will realize how quickly they run out of supplies. But it could happen.
The militias will, at best, be cannon fodder to stand in trenches. Which... is what we see in Ukraine. Trained soldiers can engage in maneuver combat and take ground. Conscripts/militia can get given a gun, pointed in a general direction, and try to prevent those maneuvers from working. But a well equipped combat force is still going to steamroll over them.
We've seen already instances where ICE has backed down when there was some actual resistance
And we have seen instances where the ice nazis murder first and fabricate an excuse later.
If they think someone in an apartment has a gun, they aren't going to run away. They are going to just shoot. What makes ice back off is when the community stands up and makes it clear that they are going to have to murder a LOT of people to get what they want.... and that works for now.
Which is why fuckface is working so hard to get the us military to "support" ice. They are actually trained for this and will just chuck some grenades into that apartment.
Just to add on. This is nothing new. This is why cops/swat do so many "no knock raids". The idea is "Well, this person might be armed so we are just going to sneak up, kick down the door, flashbang every crib we can find, and shoot anyone who resists".
And that works because even if you "train a lot" and carry your glock in your waistband 24/7, shock and awe tactics disable brains at all "training levels".
Ok so what’s your advice? If you’re just here to convince ppl not to arm themselves you’ve gotta have a better option?
And maybe consider reaching out to your local community organizers to figure out what CAN be accomplished.
That is my advice and it always is that.
Individuals cannot do anything no matter how high your killstreak was in Call of Duty last week.
Communities... can't do as much as we would like but it is about strength in numbers and protecting your fellow human being. And community organizers ARE the people working on this.
But people get pissy when you tell them that they aren't going to solve everything by buying a PSA rifle and maybe going to the shooting range a few times a year.
As for what that kind of resistance is? A lot of it is just actually talking to other human beings to help them work through the terror we are all living with. Some of it is keying in on the weirdo who set up a stingray detector and getting them a bullhorn. And some of it is literally getting off your ass to provide an unarmed front that says "if you want to get to these people, you gotta go through us" to ice. Which is what we have seen work incredibly well throughout the country.
As for things beyond that? Maybe don't talk about that on public facing social media?
A Lemmy user trying to encourage people not to buy guns to protect themselves? Simping with maga?
people need to arm themselves to protect each other in the moment, not as some grand attempt at a revolution. nobody thinks Americans would win against the military through battles alone, but 200 armed citizens against 50 ICE nazis would be better odds at saving someone during a protest or demonstration or kidnapping.
we have to be willing to suffer consequences if we truly want to protect each other.
If there's a protest with 200 people openly armed and standing in ranks, I imagine it would keep the 50 ICE clerks far enough back that they couldn't kick old ladies or shove photographers. I also imagine they would quickly call it an illegal demonstration and bust out the tear gas.
If there's a protest with 200 people scattered through the crowd with concealed handguns, it's not going to change ICE tactics at all.
Buy a gun (or even a replica) and train with it. Just being familiar handling a firearm will drastically increase your effectiveness should you find yourself in a situation using a gun. Maybe you're issued a gun as part of some militia and have minimal time to prepare by that point.
https://youtu.be/lYJk_ioERK8?t=513
Just having a gun and not training with it will only introduce an element of lethality into your life that previously wasn't there. At least if you train with it than you're deriving value even if you never have to use it for real.
Not to diminish your comment, but this research is tautologically flawed:
Men who owned handguns were eight times more likely than men who didn't to die of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Women who owned handguns were more than 35 times more likely than women who didn't to kill themselves with a gun
I mean… obviously? I bet sailors get bit by sharks more than Great Plains farmers. This is the wrong denominator — they should be looking at all cause mortality and all types of suicide in gun owners vs others.
I definitely do believe owning a gun would have a higher suicide rate by making it more convenient to use the gun in a moment of weakness/impulse.
That article brutalizes the original research for a scarier popping headline.
From the actual paper, the important bit:
Rates of suicide by any method were higher among handgun owners, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 3.34 for all male owners as compared with male nonowners (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.13 to 3.56) and 7.16 for female owners as compared with female nonowners (95% CI, 6.22 to 8.24).
Handgun owners did not have higher rates of suicide by other methods or higher all-cause mortality. The risk of suicide by firearm among handgun owners peaked immediately after the first acquisition, but 52% of all suicides by firearm among handgun owners occurred more than 1 year after acquisition.
This is the interesting bit for me. If you remove people buying a gun for purpose of suicide, all cause mortality is the same, which indicates that purchase of a gun for suicide is a relatively small proportion of all gun owners.
Also important to note: this type of statistic does not differentiate no difference from not enough data to say there’s a difference, which is important. P value/frequentist statistics cannot say no effect, ever.
A firearm is not a good solution to anything. It's a tool of last resort. If i believe I, or some one I love is going to die. At that point, i don't care if i can beat the military, or if im labeled a cop killer because the alternative is Im dead. This isn't about being a hero, this isn't about saving my neighborhood or my country, this isn't about beating the military. Owning and carrying a firearm is about giving yourself one last option when all else fails. When you know you will die without it, may as well have the chance to do something.
Firearms also work as a deterrent. They are a show of force. Without it, the government has a monopoly on violence. Cops, ICE, the military, whoever. When they are they only ones with the ability to do that, we will always be under their thumb.
I'm not saying we should be resorting to violence unless there is absolutely no other choice. The very last thing i want is a shootout or fight with any government agency. I will not win that fight. But I would rather die standing and fighting then die on my knees.
I strongly believe that it is everyone's responsibility to do their best to protect themselves and those they love. Go exercise. Go learn martial arts. go learn how to shoot. Not because you plan to use violence, but so when violence is used on you, you are not helpless.
I'm not going to point out the flaws in your statistics. Someone else already did that.
Next you are going to tell us that buying a firearm with threaded barrel is a scary feature and should be banned like WA state has already done.