good point about the WWII Japanese but they like any invaders would have a lot of ground to cover. attack one shore and you have a long coast line with a whole lot of land beyond that. it would be hard to invade us. our own army doesn't have to worry about the space between the two coast lines or the top and bottom of the country either as they have weapons and men in every little town and large bases inbetween. they aren't invading, they are all ready here. Like I said in the other post, I have a bunch of tanks and other heavy equipment within a block of my house as does most people. the connect all the men & equipment as one large force wouldn't take much doing as they also have a network to such a thing. we the citizens would have what? Facebook to connect us all until the govenment shut that down. it would be one on one and maybe small groups against a well armed, well equiped force. if the ground forces didn't get us the force from the air would. there is a squad of F-16s about 50 miles from me soon to be replaced by F35s either the old planes or the new would be able to stop a bunch of guys with guns without even having to send up the whole squad. this isn't "Red Dawn" where the guys with guns actually worked, this is us against the strongest army on the planet...I don't think we would win. that reason for having guns is outdated. we could have won back in 1776 when the playing field was equal.
as far as a gun being just a machine, you are right, it is and its only use is to shoot a projectile. that is what it is in plain simple terms. it is like saying a bomb is just a machine made to blow up things, a flame thrower is a machine made to shot fire and so on. the thing is those machines were made for kill and that is their only purpose. if I needed to dig a hole, I could use my hands, a shovel or a backhoe. with all three available, I would go for the backhoe. if only the shovel and my hands were available, I would go for the shovel. if no shovel or backhoe was available, I'd use my hands. considering the three options, my hands would do the least amount of good digging the hole, the shovel would work but it would take some time and but the backhoe would fly thru the job. same thing applies to guns. if I wanted to kill and there were the options of my hands, a 22 pistol and a semi-auto rifle with a clip that held a crap load of rounds, which would do the job better? I don't disagree with you on the tool/machine but since it is the tool of choice to kill, that is the problem. you can't change the intent of the person using the tool/machine but we also don't need to make the work easier for them by providing them with military style weapons with clips that hold a ton of bullets.
