4 ms·

A civilian population armed with guns to the teeth will still not be able to stand up even a little to a real well organized military with gear. Maybe it would

• novok 7y ago
  Afghanistan and iraq would like to talk to you
  • simonh 7y ago
    Both are very good examples of the point. Both are dominated not by free armed civilians protecting their rights, but by organised well armed militias that completely suppress the rights and freedoms of the general population in their areas of control. Yes ordinary people in much of Afghanistan and parts of Iraq can get hold of firearms if the want to. It doesn't help them at all. They are utterly dominated by either the local militias in Iraq (Sunni and Shiia depending on their area), or by the Taliban in much of Afghanistan. If arming everybody worked to promote freedom, then Iraq and Afghanistan would be free associations of local communities joining together to protect their liberties. That is clearly not the case, and it isn't the case in any country with weak government and pervasive access to arms. Guns everywhere make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. Guns do not even the playing field. In practice they dramatically tilt the playing field even more in favour of those with a willingness and propensity to use violence.
• cgriswald 7y ago
  > Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgents. In both cases, you'd read what the oppressor wants you to read.
• homonculus1 7y ago
  To your first point, there are numerous historical examples to the contrary. To the second, HK has millions of protesters out, something like a quarter to a third of the population. You can't simply liquidate an entire generation of young people if you want to maintain a grip on anything more valuable than a smoking crater.
• gruez 7y ago
  > Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgents I'm curious. What was the last anti-insurgent war we won? I'll list the ones where we lost: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.
• sgjohnson 7y ago
  Vietnam. US won every single battle, but failed to achieve anything. Civilian militias have an enormous advantage over organized militaries. Guerilla tactics. Yes, special forces employ them, but never the less, you’ll never see a special forces groups throwing IEDs on insurgent convoys. Unlike civilians, organised militaries have rulebooks to follow. This is true especially in authoritarian states with centralised decision making. See: the six day war. When communications were out, Arabs became mindless drones and the morale was in the toilet. Perhaps not the best example because that was organised military vs organised militaries. However, for Israel, everything was at stake. It was either victory or total annihilation.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• turk73 7y ago
  You're missing the point. You don't face them head on, you do hit and run attacks on logistics and infrastructure and target the other side's families. Make it as painful as possible for them to continue their miserable campaign. Weapons are just tools that create options. The American Revolution and the War of 1812 that everyone forgets (British came back a second time) was tomahawks in the middle of the night taking out loyalists, quick skirmishes and ambushes against numerically superior forces, sabotage of key resources like burning farm fields, killing animals, sinking boats. That's what real war is. Hunger, chaos, no electricity, poor sanitation. Basically everything Venezuela has going on right now.