> Counter argument is it’s incredibly cheap and easy to kill somebody in today’s age. Guns are accesible, Americans will literally sell anyone their guns.
At scale, yes. But if you're some deep in the bush village in Africa you probably don't have the money to pay for American guns, and even if you had the money you'd still have to get the guns into the country and that will raise eyebrows. That's why many of the rebel groups in Africa are somewhat Islamist-affiliated, be it AQIM, IS or whatever - they got oil sheiks and their nation states backing their efforts. What remains is funded by Russia via its convenient Wagner proxy, or by looting some sort of natural resource. But there are no relevant actors funded by any Western nation, no movements for democracy ever since the Arab Spring. We're leaving Africa to Russia and Islamists - not a good thing if you ask me!
And South America has it even worse with all the narco cartels. Some of them got more money at their disposal than the legitimate government.
> Search engines can find you ways to synthesize explosives and other nasty stuff.
These need precursor chemicals (which are, I'll admit that, available if you know someone in China or India), but again, getting hold of these in relevant scales to matter will raise eyebrows.
> Please respect other countries’ sovereignty.
I only respect democratically backed governments. Authoritarians of any kind - military juntas, warlords, religion-based dictatorships, ordinary kleptocrats, why should I have any respect for those who enjoy no backing of their populace? Why should anyone have respect for those who loot the natural resources and exploit the labor of those without power?
Western countries have routinely undermined democratically elected governments - Iran, Chile, so I don’t think they’re the paragons of values you think they are. Why should non-rich/non-western countries respect anything that the west does except for fear of military intervention?
At scale, yes. But if you're some deep in the bush village in Africa you probably don't have the money to pay for American guns, and even if you had the money you'd still have to get the guns into the country and that will raise eyebrows. That's why many of the rebel groups in Africa are somewhat Islamist-affiliated, be it AQIM, IS or whatever - they got oil sheiks and their nation states backing their efforts. What remains is funded by Russia via its convenient Wagner proxy, or by looting some sort of natural resource. But there are no relevant actors funded by any Western nation, no movements for democracy ever since the Arab Spring. We're leaving Africa to Russia and Islamists - not a good thing if you ask me!
And South America has it even worse with all the narco cartels. Some of them got more money at their disposal than the legitimate government.
> Search engines can find you ways to synthesize explosives and other nasty stuff.
These need precursor chemicals (which are, I'll admit that, available if you know someone in China or India), but again, getting hold of these in relevant scales to matter will raise eyebrows.
> Please respect other countries’ sovereignty.
I only respect democratically backed governments. Authoritarians of any kind - military juntas, warlords, religion-based dictatorships, ordinary kleptocrats, why should I have any respect for those who enjoy no backing of their populace? Why should anyone have respect for those who loot the natural resources and exploit the labor of those without power?