While it is possible for them to ban guns like they have in previous places like Australia and the UK, I think they will judge public opinion and determine how far they can go and still be tolerated with gun laws, and push it just past that point and wait a short time until that is the new line of scrimmage and they can take it further.
They will not likely come door to door welcoming confrontation about an issue that in some places is ingrained from early on as in undeniable right. Only in places where people have previously been conditioned to view them as a privilege by having lots of licensing and checks and paperwork will people accept that suddenly an abused privilege can be taken away from people. This exists in places like Chicago and New York and several other key areas, but is far from the case in many parts of the south and rural areas of the nation.
So I see more of the appraoch of slowly increasing the percentage of Americans who are ineligable to posses them, and decreasing the types available, and restrictions and paperwork and extra hoops to jump through increasingly added until after a couple generations few have actualy jumped through all those hoops and the general opinion is that since they have little experience with them that banning them is really not that big of a deal, and may even seem logical as the only general experience with them will be through criminal news stories and police use, as well as in extreme violent entertainment in the media.
Combined with putting more people on probation for all offenses..misdemeanor of otherwise which forbids possession of firearms for any crime, and adding additional criteria for lifelong bans other than felonies like the existing domestic violence lifetime ban, and the drug or battery or other non felony crime bans in various states. As well as a growing list of felonies and crimes that make people ineligable. So that a large portion of the population is legaly ineligable. As we see in neighborhoods where this occurs like some inner city areas, they are prodomiantly anti-gun, especialy since all these ineligable people are in danger every day by likewise ineligable thugs who continue to wield firearms they cannot legal have protection against.
Where the hassle of purchasing a gun is nothing like purchasing another tool at the store, but such a giant fiasco that requires very serious paperwork and checks and waiting and obstacles that less purchase one. Eventualy only old timers, a few new people, and hunters who are okay with all the scrutiny and restrictions as long as they can still eventualy get out and bag that deer will be the pro gun crowd. This is the case in many European nations now, where they are essentialy banned, but it is still possible to jump through many hurdles to go hunting on occasion.
Part of the problem is the mindset. More people are trained now by society to be passive and submissive or only confront indirectly. Of course when confronted with a serious threat this does not mean shooting it to stop it with a firearm if needed, but to try to get away, look the other way, somehow make it stop happening without actualy taking direct action. This is why a few people on airplanes with knives and some decent fighting skills could take on hundreds of passengers. This is why 1 gunman can take on labs and classrooms filled with hundreds of students armed with tools and desks and metal objects without even being injured. People have become so passive and desiring to search for indirect ways out of a conflict that they are not trained and willing to take immediate and direct action unless they are in a profession that teaches that like police etc anymore. Gone are the days when everyone was conditioned to be thier own hero and savior and that of innocent bystanders, those are wackos now. Now you wait and let the professionals eventualy arrive and hope you managed to hide or survive until then. So of course they are going to see a pro active tool of self reliance like a firearm as a negative thing. They want to avoid ever having to make any of the decisions or take any of the action and by merely being unready to do so can make problems magicly not exist (I am not saying everyone should be gung ho to get involved or escalate things either, merely prepared and ready for the possibility mentaly). Having a gun, and especialy going through the obstacles to posses and carry one do not fit in with this mindset. More power and control and checkpoints and technology in the hands of law enforcement scrutinizing and protecting and controlling them does. It magicly leaves the responsibility for personal safety outside of thier hands and makes them rest easier without having to really deal with the problem.
Police do not protect people, they hold bad guys accountable after the act which deters. They contain ongoing situations, assess problems, and do investigations so that people are held accountable for thier actions. They protect society as a whole, but they do not protect individuals, that is up to you. However most see them as the guards and protectors and think granting them bigger budgets, more authority and more power will make them safer and more secure everytime something like this happens. That they can simply throw extra privileges and money at authorities and not have to be capable or ready or actualy confront the issue of being forced to rely on themselves, friends, family, or coworkers for personal protection from armed people intent victimizing them. This leads to the ban em all and let the police protect us copout (pun intended) response.
So yes I think firearm rights will disappear, but not in sweeping legislation with police or soldiers going door to door like some imagine, but in a gradual alienation of firearms from society and progressive bans/ineligable people and restrictions and a conditioning of the public mindset. They will become the symbol of destruction and violence associated with war and criminals and sanctioned police. Something so evil and so serious that it is only safe for movies and video games, where they are used to create serious mayhem, and obviously since that mayhem is not wanted in real life, real guns are not wanted either. Authorities and government in general do not want armed threats to them, they feel vulnerable as anyone would ruling over millions of people that could disagree with something they do and pose a threat to them. Playing devil's advocate: Imagine you ruled over people you would not want them capable of harming you or your forces opposing decisions you made either, even if that meant less safety for them, it would add more security to your safety and authority and add comfort in willingness to weild your authority making choices whether people agreed with it or not since all legal means of force were on your side under the control of people your legislation dictates policy for. Think about it, if you had to make some happy and upset some and change lives for better or worse on daily basis through legislative decisions you would not want those upset with your decisions to be armed either. So governments are always going to lean towards disarmament unless otherwise prohibited from doing so, which our founding fathers understood.
SO I think burying your firearms will be unnecessary because they will become illegal one at a time through laws you will try to comply with to protect your right to keep the others still legal. But by all means be prepared if it makes you feel safer. Maybe they will do something sweeping and you will be able to keep some from your insight into the future. However you would be a criminal and subject to serious penalties if you ever used them even in self defense, so saving your life to spend it in prison would be all they were good for anymore. Or resisting tyranny? Nah not as glorious as you imagine, you would just be viewed as part of the problem, your story never told, and made out to be a psycopath and not have support by the general populance to be an effective guerrilla or "insurgent". So you may still have them, but they wont be of much use to you when possession or use of them even in self defense is sure prison time and maybe the end of your life outside of jail, and the imagined resistance that will take up arms with you is so few and spread so thin and obviously not making themselves known to you because they are outlaws too, that it basicly won't accomplish anything before being exterminated as terrorist nutjobs. What you died or lost your freedom for and the story behind it will not be told or told as those in power choose to dictate it, which is that you were simply some criminal nutjob harming innocent people. They are not going to further your "cause" by explaining your real reason for resistance. Life will not magicly change to some desolate battlefield because guns are outlawed, no in fact society will resemble exactly what it does now, just less free and less safe for victims, but little different on the surface. So do you think suddenly all the armchair commandos are actualy going to fight well trained police and military for a right or simply go to work, go home to thier wives and be good citizens? Remember those that do resist will just have thier story told in the media from the perspective that authorities simply ran into an armed criminal who resisted and died. No glory, no support from those that hear about it, no furthering of a cause, and in fact your reasons or facts about the circumstances neither important to or told by the media.
Take Timothy McVeigh (whose actions I absolutely do not support or condone) who went and bombed the HQ of the very people responsible for Waco and Ruby Ridge. That was thier regional HQ. He was nobod'ys hero, he did not get any sympathy and the news most definately did not connect his actions with fighting against wrongs by the government. No they instead focused on the children, the dead children kept in the daycare of the federal building. All you heard about was the dead innocent children's lives this evil man was responsible for cutting short.
So how exactly would you take up arms against them? By dying when they send a swat team to you? By dying or killing when some random cop pulls you over one day and your in possession of illegal firearms that subject you to years in prison? By having to escape as a fugitive after a justified shooting in self defense against a criminal because shooting is a criminal act in of itself as is you possessing the firearms and your commiting a felony and killing someone while commiting that felony making you a murderer even if in self defense? Or are you going to take the fight to them and be the next terrorist that attacks some government location and is only seen as some wackjob that hurt whatever innocent people or people who are "only doing thier jobs" happen to be there? Honestly if your guns are illegal your uses for them after you dig them up will be few. Having them in your home to protect your family will subject at least you and possibly the rest of your family to the very loss of life you have them to protect, whether thier physical lives or thier freedoms by going to prison. Thier only use would be offensive in nature, and what are you going to attack? The government is not some single location, or single individuals. It is a collection of what is considered the norm and acceptable by the average American. You could kill off every person in politics and government office now and the government would still be very much the same with the same laws and restrictions. So what exactly are you going to destroy to change things? You have to create something to change things, and what can you create that is better than the form of government we have? You would just be killed or hunted down as a terrorist and most people would never even know you existed or resisted. Just another normal criminal killed by police keeping us all safer
. I am not saying your willingness to keep your inalienable rights whether legal or not is bad, or that I don't support it, but I don't really think things will be as you imagine if you choose to do so.
