The following is my response to a comment/questions I saw on Facebook about the presumed perspective of citizens who own guns and who don't think gun-control is a good idea. The person asking the question appears confident that their view of 'gun lovers' is already understood, and best addressed via sarcasm. I suppose that's not surprising for a Facebook comment.

The particular scope of this question offered me an opportunity to dig a little deeper than the familiar surface rhetoric that usually accompanies these kinds of questions so I thought it might make for some interesting conversation here on Steemit. I've edited my reply slightly to correct spelling and to clarify ever-so-slightly what I intended to convey, but nothing so drastic as to alter the substance of my Facebook reply.

Anyway, I suppose that's enough of an introduction. My hope in sharing this here is to inspire further conversation that, hopefully, helps all of us to better understand the issue, particularly its more subtle elements, and maybe even to come to some consensus about the best way to proceed where the interests on both sides are reasonably addressed.

The original and complete comment I responded to may be seen in its entirety here:

U.S. Gun Fans are forever repeating this refrain - that they need their guns for the day when the government treads on them. They say that advocates of increased gun control must "explain why they trust THIS government to protect the rights we watch them take away almost daily".

And yet, to date, the Gun Fans have NEVER stood up and used these guns to protect the population from the supposedly tyrannical government.

And yet you also say that the government is "daily" taking away your rights. So: when will this mythical 'Revolution' against tyrannical government take place? How do you define government 'tyranny'? Is it, in fact, something that you only think about when someone threatens to take your gun away? And is it, therefore, just an excuse - to justify your personal interest in continuing to possess overpowered firearms?

It was originally posted by Naphta Mc Naphta (hereafter referred to as NMN). For those who may wish to consult the original comment, it may be viewed here.

I responded to individual points in that comment, which I've isolated for convenience as follows:

NMN: wrote, "U.S. Gun Fans are forever repeating this refrain - that they need their guns for the day when the government treads on them."

You know who else valued that refrain? America's Founders. Or have you forgotten the early text of the Declaration of Independence, which includes this:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

NMN wrote, "They say that advocates of increased gun control must 'explain why they trust THIS government to protect the rights we watch them take away almost daily'."

I don't know about 'must explain', but it would be interesting to consider the details of a rationale that ignores the alleged self-evident rights of 'the People' to throw-off any government that becomes destructive of their right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." How does this rationale presume 'the People' would effectively accomplish this right if their government is armed while their fellow citizens are not? A simple phone call to Congress? An online petition? An organized march/protest outside D.C.?

You'd do well to [re]consider Frederick Douglass' words about power. Though the context of his speech wasn't specifically about guns, his observations and insights into the nature of power seem universal and timeless:

"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

NMN: "And yet, to date, the Gun Fans have NEVER stood up and used these guns to protect the population from the supposedly tyrannical government."

To set oneself in mortal combat against one's government isn't a posture to be undertaken lightly. The same Declaration of Independence that acknowledges the right of the People to take such a stand, also admonishes them not to take that stand lightly:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Given that such a stance would be considered unlawful by the powers that be, those who dare to take such a stand likely must believe that there remains so little hope of reform that they would rather 'die on their feet than to live on their knees'. And, of course, people of such conviction cannot rely on their fellow citizens to stand with them given people who have forgotten our Founders' admonition to jealously guard our Liberty.

NMN: "And yet you also say that the government is 'daily' taking away your rights. So: when will this mythical 'Revolution' against tyrannical government take place?"

If such a stance becomes necessary, it very likely will be too late to take such a stand by the time it becomes obvious to people like you that it ought to occur at all. It's likely that we're already living in a segment where it's too late to matter.

Given that context, the 'revolution' won't likely be one initiated for the People's sake -- that dog almost certainly won't hunt anymore. More likely, in my opinion, it will be one of simple self-preservation. In the context where many/most of 'the People' have decided to comply and do what they're told -- no matter what -- there also will be those who feel that compliance crosses their particular threshold of tolerance. These latter folks likely will decide for themselves that 'enough is enough'.

Given all the material available to people for what's commonly referred to as 'bug out' situations, I imagine they'll attempt to find some remote area in which to live out the rest of their lives with relatively little interference from either the tyrants or the cowardly populace that decides it would rather 'live on its knees than to die on it's feet'. I think the days of the principled citizenry are mostly relegated to nostalgia and idealism. The powerful have risen, and the cowardly serve them out of an underlying fear (rationalized as freedom; ironic, yes?).

NMN: How do you define government 'tyranny'? Is it, in fact, something that you only think about when someone threatens to take your gun away? And is it, therefore, just an excuse - to justify your personal interest in continuing to possess overpowered firearms?"

Definition is a convenience -- an indulgence, even --for an un-infringed-upon intellect. I believe this: by the time tyranny becomes obvious to the masses, you won't need a definition to recognize it. And, at that point of mass recognition, it almost certainly will be too late for you and anyone else to wonder whether anyone could have realized such a thing was plausible.

Eventually, as the surprise wears off, your mind may return to conversations like this and you'll be thrust into a state of cognitive dissonance. At that point, you'll have to make a decision: acknowledge the truth as it is and decide (much too late) whether you have an opportunity to do anything about it, or, fabricate some delusional framework of interpretation in order to minimize the dissonance -- and perhaps even to soothe the ego from having to admit that it was narrow-minded, short-sighted, and essentially bigoted when it had a genuine opportunity to see things as they were (before they degraded to the then-undeniable depths to which they surely will have descended).

In conclusion, I'll share this for your consideration: I'm ex military and I don't own any guns. My views are rooted in the context of history that reaffirms the necessity of a populace to be well armed if they're to have any power to dissuade a non-responsive government from ultimate encroachment. I'm making a principled case, not one of any personal, immediate relevance to my presumed status as a 'gun lover' or as a gun owner.