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Huh. I'm going to have to do some reading and get back to you. At a glance, I admit that I'm puzzled by the situation and it's a pretty clear refutation of my claim.
A Saudi carpet bombing campaign in the middle of a brutal sectarian civil war is not what anyone was talking about with "guns defeat totalitarianism"- for one thing, it's unclear that it's totalitarianism per se, as opposed to living in a war zone just generally sucking.
This is exactly what would happen when second amendment overthrows totalitarianism in US - devastated land split among warlords, fighting it out in proxy wars between great powers of the world. Many such cases in history.
No freedom of speech and press, no freedom of religion except current warlord's favorite sect of Islam, no justice system except current warlord's will, no human rights whatsoever. If it isn't totalitarianism, it really looks like one.
This Wiki article is not about people killed in bombing and shelling or dying of disease and famine, it is about people arrested and tortured.
Exactly the thing universal gun ownership was supposed to prevent according to theory.
The question is: why guns do not prevent it? Why Yemenis armed to the teeth allow themselves to be arrested and tortured at the whim of local warlord and his goons?
Two reasons:
1/ The same reason why Americans armed to the teeth surrender to spend rest of their life in American hell prisons rather than die with their boots on.
2/ Family ties, much stronger over here than in the western countries. If you fight back, the warlord will make example of your whole extended family, and even if they do not care about their life anymore, average Yemenis care about their kin much more than average Americans.
It’s also possible that the Yemenis with guns are the ones doing the oppressing of their less-well-armed peers, and that’s driving the numbers up.
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