I know handguns have military applications, but that didn't really answer the question. I know they are protected by the 2nd amendment. The question is does the 2nd amendment even make any sense in a modern society? Does anyone here think that normal US gun owners would actually be able to fight the US armed forces if they turned all oppressive on you? And I agree about the military grade encryption software. However, that is just another modern tool of opression you can't fight with handgunds.
So does the 2nd amendment actually do anything to protect the people (in a modern society) if the government starts turning oppressive? I feel the US government/society is actually in many ways more oppressive than the European counterparts. I hear people criticizing the restrictions of e.g. free speech, corruption (i.e., Big <insert here> paying for politcal campaigns) and lobbyists, but I don't see anyone fighting the fight with guns.
If the premises for the 2nd amendment are no longer valid, I think it's quite incorrect to still use it as an argument for reduced gun control.
Do you consider our military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq to have been wildly successful? Why would a theoretical military action against armed US citizens be significantly different, especially considering the vastly larger scale on which such an action would take place (across the whole US).
Rocket launchers, IEDs, and suicide bombers. Those are the reasons that the Afghanis have done so well. Small arms alone aren't remotely damaging to the military.
This is a simple falsehood. You speak from a position of ignorance. There is nothing about the military that is more fundamental than the rifleman,
expecially in the era of 4th generation warfare. Granted, the US miltary are the world champions at 4th generation warfare, but there are
more veterans trained in those tactics living as citizens than are active members of the US military. As others have said, a domestic insurrection isn't about "winning" in any traditional sense, and it's not the same game as a foreign occupation. The term "war is economics by other means" is very true, the US military is expensive, and it doesn't need to be defeated if our leadership should ever turn full tyrant, it only needs to be
starved. The US military cannot outright attack US populations, because that is where they extract their salaries & resources from. To do so would not subjugate the insurrection, as give it fuel by destroying the infrastructure, capital & human resources that had previously been part & parcel of it's support structure. If one city, or even one state, were to revolt; it wouldn't matter. But if 5 states, or 10 (depending on which ones) were to
tax revolt, that very action would cripple the government as well as the standing US military. As for the availability of military grade hardware such as missiles, states actually
do have them, both as 'guard' gear & as privately owned weaponry. Certainly not anywhere near to the degree that the US military presently does, but the US military already knows that they can be resisted by a non-trivial portion of the US population, and they certainly know that wouldn't work out well for either side.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_warfare