Problem is that a 5.56 automatic rifle isn't going to be helpful when the enemy is also coming with 5.56, 5.45, 7.62x39 automatic rifles (the choice of plutocracies), but in greater quantities and aided by helicopters, tanks, etc...
A bolt action or semi-auto 7.62x51 or .30-06 is a lot more useful -- especially if your goal isn't to assume the role (i.e., overthrow) whoever is coming from you but to get yourself, your family, and ideally your property away. (I've got a 5.56 semi-auto as well, but it's mostly for the purpose of being able to use cheaper and more readily available ammunition for recreational shooting and not bruising my shoulder after a range trip, while using a calibre that's still more fun/practical than .22lr)
As for taking money without your permission -- no matter how you look at it, it's going to happen (whether via income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, taxes on investment income, etc...). Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and company aren't exactly socialists: when they advocate these programs, their goals are to increase individual liberty and decrease state intervention in our lifetimes (rather than pine for a utopian anarcho-capitalist future). I'd rather that money go directly to the poor than to bureaucratic middlemen and rent-seeking corporations (most of the existing welfare programs) or middle classes who don't believe they (or perhaps their neighbours) are sufficiently competent to make their own retirement investments or choose the right health insurance plan for themselves (ACA, medicare, SS, etc...). I find the various paternalistic mandates (SS, ACA) to be more onerous than payments for the truly poor (some of whom as result of structural unemployment).
Replacing programs like SNAP and medicaid with a cash handout aren't going to increase existing tax rates, which seem to be the equilibrium as far as taxation goes -- higher taxes on the upper brackets (or on investment income) won't be accepted by the elites with political power, while increasing taxes in the lower brackets won't gather sufficient votes. They might actually decrease the tax rates by reducing bureaucracy.
A bolt action or semi-auto 7.62x51 or .30-06 is a lot more useful -- especially if your goal isn't to assume the role (i.e., overthrow) whoever is coming from you but to get yourself, your family, and ideally your property away. (I've got a 5.56 semi-auto as well, but it's mostly for the purpose of being able to use cheaper and more readily available ammunition for recreational shooting and not bruising my shoulder after a range trip, while using a calibre that's still more fun/practical than .22lr)
As for taking money without your permission -- no matter how you look at it, it's going to happen (whether via income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, taxes on investment income, etc...). Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and company aren't exactly socialists: when they advocate these programs, their goals are to increase individual liberty and decrease state intervention in our lifetimes (rather than pine for a utopian anarcho-capitalist future). I'd rather that money go directly to the poor than to bureaucratic middlemen and rent-seeking corporations (most of the existing welfare programs) or middle classes who don't believe they (or perhaps their neighbours) are sufficiently competent to make their own retirement investments or choose the right health insurance plan for themselves (ACA, medicare, SS, etc...). I find the various paternalistic mandates (SS, ACA) to be more onerous than payments for the truly poor (some of whom as result of structural unemployment).
Replacing programs like SNAP and medicaid with a cash handout aren't going to increase existing tax rates, which seem to be the equilibrium as far as taxation goes -- higher taxes on the upper brackets (or on investment income) won't be accepted by the elites with political power, while increasing taxes in the lower brackets won't gather sufficient votes. They might actually decrease the tax rates by reducing bureaucracy.