Quote Originally Posted by Reverend Joe View Post
Henry, I find your arguments interesting, but does it not occur to you that the same slippery-slope situation is occurring among the American populace? Because it is; there's far more paranoid anti-government people in the US than there were 50, 100, or 200 years ago. Anyhow, I would advise you to examine how your local Catholics handled the situation, because it's remarkably similar to how the drug users in the US face the "Drug War": just slip it by. Don't get caught so you can practice your God-given freedoms out of Big Brother's gaze.
Aren't guns supposed to be registered? So if a ban did come about, the state would have a pretty good idea who owns what. And besides, consciences, or even drugs, are much easier to hide than weapons.

However, the more I've been thinking about this the more I've come to see the argument of gun-ownership as a defence against tyranny as a bit of a non-issue. Of course, it would be an obstacle for an unscrupulous government, but certainly not an insurmountable one.

Imagine the scenario: it's a time of crisis, and a strongly authoritarian government is elected, with a wannabe despotic President who believes only he can save the United States through strong action. Say he doesn't have nearly enough support in Congress to amend the Constitution to ban guns. A sudden wave of nihilistic, psychpathic terrorism sweeps the country, secretly staged by this evil government. Horrific school shootings, machine guns fired into crowds by seemingly hitherto normal people, mortars being fired from private houses. All of this would never be possible if the most deadly item a citizen could carry was a shotgun. People now clamour for the law to be changed. A few stalwarts might keep the old cry of liberty, but in view of the terrible circumstances they are largely ignored. The constitution is amended, and there you have it, the government can commence their ruthless programme of creating a dictatorship.

All pure hypothesis of course, but if a government really wanted to get rid of gun rights to impose a tyranny, I believe it could do so with relative ease.