Is it? Would bioweapon instruction restrictions be equivalent to disallowing reporting on whether the government is massacring large numbers of citizens in your city? Both are ‘censorship’ but don’t seem remotely equivalent to me.
>> Would bioweapon instruction restrictions be equivalent to disallowing reporting on whether the government is massacring large numbers of citizens in your city?
> If you believe censorship is wrong, then it is equally wrong no matter what the topic is.
Are you agreeing with that view, or merely saying it’s a theoretical view but you think such believers are wrong?
Do you believe it’s only censorship where context shouldn’t be applied? Like if someone had a principled view "violence is wrong", would non-lethal violence in a clear case of self-defense be “equally wrong” as the guy who personally killed tens of thousands of captured POWs (Blokhin)? As “violence is violence”?
I should think learning about history should lead to a desire for citizens to be able to quietly make weapons at home given the many documented cases of governments across the world mass murdering their own citizens (or foreign governments invading and genociding). What's the point of telling people the wrongs of their oppressors while simultaneously disempowering them from doing anything about it or preparing to defend themselves in the future?
So yes they're not just comparable, but two sides of the same coin.
The idea that Chinese citizens could’ve prevented the Tiananmen massacre with a bunch of home printed AK-47s is silly. The government had tanks. The same applies in the US.
Police or military. Whoever is doing the oppressing. It could also be their families at home or school. It makes them aware that joining an oppressive force is likely to lead to retaliation and makes them reconsider. When almost half the population is armed, as in the US, they'd have to always be paranoid about being shot by any random person. Or if they're mass murdering their citizens and you think you might be one of their victims, you can at least take some of them with you first.
The point is if you're e.g. the victim of a genocide or other mass killing, you don't just lie down and hope it stops. You recognise that you're in a war. Denial isn't going to help.