It is well known that dictatorships and totalitarian states disarm their populations.
It is well stated by the pro-gun lobby. It is not well known. For example, the Weimar Republic disarmed everyone and passed strict gun control laws. Hitler and the Nazis came to power and actually weakened them.
Also a large number of countries have stiffened gun control laws and not become oppressive regimes. It's a nonsense argument.
In the 20th century, FAR more people were killed by their own governments than were by criminals. China's Great Leap Forward. Camodia's Khmer |Rouge. Stalin's purges. Dictatorships everywhere kill opponents at will.
Mao Zedong armed his followers in order to win a civil war. The import and sale of guns had been banned in 1912, 15 years later Mao armed his followers in violation of this law (as per his famous quote "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"). In 1957 a ban on the manufacture of guns was added to the bans from 1912 (with the Great Leap Forward starting in 1958). So really, it wasn't Mao who banned them, but rather the government that feared Mao's uprising. And by the time Mao had banned the manufacture, millions had already been killed. So I'm not buying your argument here.
As for the Khmer Rouge, gun control laws were passed in 1920 and 1938. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were in power from 1975-1979, during which time no gun control laws were passed. Like Mao, they went around arming themselves. They did take weapons from people they didn't like and arm themselves, but that's not gun control; that's a violent, murdering rampage and the laws are irrelevant.
Stalin is about the only dictator who did indeed pass gun control measures.
But I don't get the argument. Even if your claim that dictators ban guns is true, what does that have to do with a debate on gun control in a democratic society?
Hitler came to power in a country that had strong gun control, as did Mao. Meanwhile Stalin came to power in a country that didn't. Ergo gun control laws neither cause nor prevent genocidal dictators from coming to power. So how is that possibility relevant? Besides, even if a dictator came to power tomorrow in the US, and even if your claim that they would want to ban guns is true, no laws today would prevent them from doing so. Even the Constitution. As we've seen in Hungary, a dictator will just replace anyone he has to until they agree with him.
But how has the Venezuelan government been able to stay in power? The Venezuelan government’s civilian disarmament campaign is an oft-ignored abuse of human rights in discussions concerning Venezuela’s political crisis.
Now Venezuelans have no way of defending themselves against a government that is free to muzzle their speech, expropriate their wealth, debase their currency, and starve them to death.
When you ban all guns, you effectively eliminate the ability of the population to kick out of power a government by force. The government takes over the judiciary,an arm of the government, (the dictatorship) it becomes then the organs of state power, then VOILA! welcome to the pleasure dome of totalitarianism.
Please, those of you who advocate banning guns, please tell me:
When an oppressive government arrives, destroys independent media and dissent, destoys an independent judiciary - tell me this:
How do you boot the assholes out?
You won't be able to boot them out with civilian weapons either.
You may want to look at the history of armed resistances. Whenever someone says, "Do you really think a bunch of civilians with ARs can defeat the Army?" the pro-gun crowd brings up Afghanistan and Vietnam.
I'll start with Vietnam. Whether you look at the First Indochina War against France or the Second Indochina War against the US, the Vietnamese forces weren't isolated civilians fighting imperialist powers. They were supplied and equipped by the Chinese, the Soviets, the Laotians, the East Germans, etc. This constant flood of weapons and ammunition was critical. Without it, the outcomes of these wars would look different.
Afghanistan is a similar story. Against the Russians they were armed, supplied, and trained by the US. Against the US they were armed, supplied and trained by the Russians.
I remember reading a few white papers on the topic during my time in the military and they all universally agreed: whether armed or not, a populace required outside support to successfully overthrow a regime if that regime has the support of the military and law enforcement.
So imagine a dictator comes to power in the US, and that dictator has widespread support among the military and police, and that no outside country assists. This dictator bans guns except amongst his followers, setting harsh penalties like execution for those who don't obey. How long do you think the population holds out? Even those who have guns now eventually end up in a position where they can't carry them in public for fear of being caught (which is what we see now in Vietnam and China). Those stockpiled arms become useless.
On the other hand, if the dictator doesn't have the widespread support of the military and police, and if an outside power does assist partisans standing against the oppressive regime, then whether there were ARs in everyone's basement is irrelevant because there will be actual assault weapons being made available instead.
At the end of the day, gun control laws passed by a reasonable, democratic government are not necessarily a sign of tyranny, and should tyranny come knocking in the future, the status of that existent gun control will have no great effect at the end of the day in either preventing or assisting it's rise, or at hindering or hampering a successful restoration of democratic authority.
