In my humble, outsider (i.e.: non-US) opinion, when weapons get involved (on any side), things escalate. In other words, would something like the Kent University massacre have gone differently if protesters were armed (not considering the ideological weirdness of such a scenario)?

I see what's good in the argument that people should be able to respond to tyranny with force, but I'm wondering how often this could actually happen on such a big scale that it would matter instead of being crushed by the State in a matter of hours or days, at best.

And I furthermore wonder whether weapons being legal would matter much in such a situation.

> magazine limits are political theater imho

Wow. Seriously?

The best chance of subduing (by any means) an attacker is when they aren’t actively shooting at you. That only happens when they need to stop to reload or change weapons.

Firearms; the support of a large fraction of the population, government, and army; and an occupying force which is trying to avoid excessive casualties. In most cases, an oppressive government looks more like Russia, China, Syria, etc. where the power imbalance is insurmountable. If it ever comes to a civil war in the U.S. it’s going to depend on those factors, not a bunch of 18th century LARPers.