Quote Originally Posted by Vuk View Post
Being armed is a fundamental part of freedom. The government, a dictator, a crime boss, etc. may allow you to do whatever you want for a long time, but that does not mean you are free. You can do what you want only because you are being allowed to do it. It is a like a 1950's housewife with a husband who allows her to mostly do what she wants. She has no real, concrete rights she can back up, and so her freedom is not real freedom, because it is only had at the mercy of another.

Guns are great equalizers. They give an 80 year old woman in a wheelchair a fighting chance. No, it will never make people completely equal, as a much healthier, most skilled person with a better weapon will have a significant advantage over a physically impaired, less skilled person with a worse weapon. Still though, it is enough of an equalizer to make the more skilled, better armed person serious reconsider attacking, even if they have the advantage.

As liberals are always whining about equality, I find it funny that they do not support the greatest equalizer ever in human history.

It allows nearly anyone to become incredibly dangerous. We will never have equality or a world with very little crime until every individual is extremely dangerous, and every other individual and group thinks twice about depriving them of their rights.
The last period in human history with this was called the Middle Ages. The murder rate has dropped 90-99% since then. And no, that's not because of nobility power abuse vs the normal population. That's because letting someone else having the monopoly on violence means that you don't need to pull your gun to defend your honour, show yourself to be dangerous or any other stupid reason violence is used in vain. Oh, and both sides are usually armed in gang murders, yet oddly enough, they're quite common.

The good outnumbers the bad as you said. What does this mean? Are criminals easier to catch? No, because no criminals in a western nations aren't safe because they outgun someone, it's because they can "hide" so to speak. More guns won't change that. It might, if the good old lynchmobs are coming back, but thier accuraccy are usually quite poor.
What the outnumbering does, is giving power to the people against the goverment. That's true. But it's vastly more efficient to use that power to influence those in power and prevent them from using the monopoly of violence against their own population. Can guns help against a dictorship? In some cases, yes. It does only help against the rise of a dictorship in it's final phase though. And it may as well backfire. A small scale rebellion will cement the new goverment's power and the belief that it will be the magic bullet will weaken earlier opposition.
For fun, a modern day peasant rebellion would be a violent underclass city rebellion. Eventually taken down, but forcing the goverment to reduce the burden for that class.