6 ms·

The federal government is light-years ahead of whatever private citizens can get their hands on; 71% of americans are overweight or obese; 30% of americans have

The federal government is light-years ahead of whatever private citizens can get their hands on; 71% of americans are overweight or obese; 30% of americans have some kind of chronic pain. If a shooting war broke out between the federal government and private citizens, the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them like they were made of thin air. I think that the best way to exercise the second amendment is to organize militias at the state level, but even then, there still isnt enough cash for proper defenses against the federal government.

zozbot234 7y ago
> ...the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them... Even assuming that they could do this (which is plausibly quite wrong, as defense tactics can be very effective), what's the incentive? The people who serve in the National Guard are citizens themselves (who have sworn to uphold the Constitution) and every bit of effective defense makes it that much easier for them to defect while keeping plausible deniability. By contrast, if you've confiscated all the guns away (or bought them back) that dynamic just can't happen, at least not nearly as easily. The presence of an armed citizenry does make for a huge difference in this scenario. No doubt about it.
- pm90 7y ago
  Their incentive would be a manufactured one, painting the citizenry as part of some conspiracy/extreme party etc. Just look at how many Republican news outlets continuously portray the other side as extreme and crazy and dangerous. Just having possession of armed weapons makes absolutely no difference to a modern, well equipped American military force. We’re talking about Armored Personal Carriers and Tanks rolling through cities, all communications being monitored or cut off. The arms may make it hard for the occupying force as there will be more shootouts but retributions will keep most of the populace under control. The dynamic of Armed militias being a deterrent to a military occupation made sense in the 18th century but don’t make much sense today.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    > We’re talking about Armored Personal Carriers and Tanks rolling through cities, all communications being monitored or cut off. Assad literally used tanks against the civil uprising, and wasn’t able to stop it. (And doing so caused part of the army to defect.) Gaddafi was killed by the National Liberation Army, which initially armed itself by capturing tanks and weapons from military stockpiles.
    - jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
      I think Ghaddafi's soldiers defected because he ordered them to shoot up a non-violent protest in Benghazi, killing at least 500 unarmed civillians. That's when the protests turned into an armed insurgency, and Ghaddafi's supporters began leaving to join said insurgency.
    - pm90 7y ago
      Was either the Libyan or Syrian populace armed to the teeth? Did the availability of weapons (or the lack thereof) have any impact on what happened? Comparing Syrian and Libyan military forces to American ones is also a stretch. We’re talking about orders of magnitudes of difference in armaments and intelligence.
  - pnako 7y ago
    Look at what happened in Afghanistan. A bunch of Toyota pickup trucks and AK-47s collected on the cold bodies of soviet soldiers is all it took for mujahideens to win the war, despite 20 years of war and trillions of dollars spent. The main difference in the US would be that militias are even better equipped and better trained. Your tanks and APCs are completely irrelevant; they're useful to capture land, but by definition the US government has no land to capture in the US.
- jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
  >what's the incentive? I expect the federal government to invent one. If it worked for Iraqi Freedom, the Spanish American War, Vietnam, maybe it'll work in Wyoming. Otherwise, we already condition our kids to solve conflict through violence, first by beating them when they do things we don't appreciate, and then by sitting them down in front of the TV where they can watch and learn as their only adult role model saves the day by inflicting grievous bodily harm onto other people (superheroes, star wars, fortnite). Also, war is a lot less personal these days. There are a dozen or so Air National Guard units with access to weaponized drones in the united states. The public didn't even flinch at the onboard camera movies coming back from iraq and afghanistan showing people being blown up in their pickup trucks and SUVs.
rayiner 7y ago
Fighting against your own government isn’t like fighting against a foreign power. You have the advantage of asymmetric warfare, and also the advantage that the military will not follow orders to just “steamroll right in through” citizens. Egypt has F-16s, but that didn’t stop the government from getting overthrown when the military decided to stay neutral. Libya had advanced Soviet weaponry, but Gaddafi was overthrown and killed by rebel forces. Unless you’re willing to level your own country (which for practical reasons even tyrannical dictators are not), fighting armed citizens is nothing like fighting a foreign war. (Also, the track record for advanced nations losing wars in places like Afghanistan with vastly inferior weapons is significant). The Syrian civil war also started with a civil uprising, with armed civilian guerrillas fighting government security forces. Again, there were defections when soldiers refused to fire on citizens, and that led to establishment of the Free Syrian Army, comprised of defectors from Assad’s regime. Here is how it played out when Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. The Pakistani military was armed with modern US made aircraft and weapons, launched Operation Searchlight, which killed at least 300,000 Bangladeshis. Civilians took control of arms depots and started shooting back. That precipitated Bangali units of Pakistan’s military to mutiny and start fighting for independence. Military assistance from India helped win the war, but that started many months later. Without being able to take control of those arms depots to begin with, Bangladesh never would have been able to start the war that led to independence. (The American Revolution, by the way, played out more or less the same way. Guerrilla attacks at first, seizing weapons and supplies, creating a more formal militia, and then getting assistance of a foreign power.) It’s not some crazy NRA fantasy. We have numerous examples of despotic regimes with modern weapons and aircraft being overthrown in civilian uprisings. I come from a country that exists because of such events. The Second Amendment is there to preserve that option. Had Bangladeshis been armed like NRA wingnuts in 1970, hundreds of thousands of innocent people might have been alive today, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi women may not have gotten raped by the Pakistani military, etc.
- jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
  The firearms are not enough. The Mukti Bahini were heavily assisted by members of India's Research and Analysis Wing. India provided weapons, ammunition, logistical support, and many of the refugees who volunteered were recruited and trained on Indian soil. Months before the revolution had even started Indian spies fabricated evidence linking Pakistan to the 1971 Indian Airlines hijacking, which India used to justify a ban of all Pakistani flights across its airspace, preventing Pakistani carriers from resupplying East Pakistan by air. Indira Ghandi herself was basically a foreign ambassador for Bangladesh, traveling the world not only to drum up political support for the cause, but to also to justify India's impending war with Pakistan to the international community. India and the USSR went to bat for Bangladesh at the UNSC, and India was the first U.N. state to give Bangladesh diplomatic recognition. Bangladesh also had many allies among warsaw pact countries such as the GDR (East Germany), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union, during the war. All of whom supported the cause in some way, be that medical services for wounded soldiers, diplomatic/economic support, scholarships for Bangladeshi students or other things. That's what separates Bangladeshi force from 99% of NRA wingnuts: training, organization, support from foreign allies. Because of these differences, I do not expect a similar international response to occur in the event of a civil war in the U.S. And I think such is ultimately what will make or break an insurgency.
stallmanite 7y ago
Just like we steamrolled through Iraq right? Easy-peasy

zozbot234 7y ago

> ...the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them... Even assuming that they could do this (which is plausibly quite wrong, as defense tactics can be very effective), what's the incentive? The people who serve in the National Guard are citizens themselves (who have sworn to uphold the Constitution) and every bit of effective defense makes it that much easier for them to defect while keeping plausible deniability. By contrast, if you've confiscated all the guns away (or bought them back) that dynamic just can't happen, at least not nearly as easily. The presence of an armed citizenry does make for a huge difference in this scenario. No doubt about it.

pm90 7y ago
Their incentive would be a manufactured one, painting the citizenry as part of some conspiracy/extreme party etc. Just look at how many Republican news outlets continuously portray the other side as extreme and crazy and dangerous. Just having possession of armed weapons makes absolutely no difference to a modern, well equipped American military force. We’re talking about Armored Personal Carriers and Tanks rolling through cities, all communications being monitored or cut off. The arms may make it hard for the occupying force as there will be more shootouts but retributions will keep most of the populace under control. The dynamic of Armed militias being a deterrent to a military occupation made sense in the 18th century but don’t make much sense today.
- rayiner 7y ago
  > We’re talking about Armored Personal Carriers and Tanks rolling through cities, all communications being monitored or cut off. Assad literally used tanks against the civil uprising, and wasn’t able to stop it. (And doing so caused part of the army to defect.) Gaddafi was killed by the National Liberation Army, which initially armed itself by capturing tanks and weapons from military stockpiles.
  - jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
    I think Ghaddafi's soldiers defected because he ordered them to shoot up a non-violent protest in Benghazi, killing at least 500 unarmed civillians. That's when the protests turned into an armed insurgency, and Ghaddafi's supporters began leaving to join said insurgency.
  - pm90 7y ago
    Was either the Libyan or Syrian populace armed to the teeth? Did the availability of weapons (or the lack thereof) have any impact on what happened? Comparing Syrian and Libyan military forces to American ones is also a stretch. We’re talking about orders of magnitudes of difference in armaments and intelligence.
- pnako 7y ago
  Look at what happened in Afghanistan. A bunch of Toyota pickup trucks and AK-47s collected on the cold bodies of soviet soldiers is all it took for mujahideens to win the war, despite 20 years of war and trillions of dollars spent. The main difference in the US would be that militias are even better equipped and better trained. Your tanks and APCs are completely irrelevant; they're useful to capture land, but by definition the US government has no land to capture in the US.
jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
>what's the incentive? I expect the federal government to invent one. If it worked for Iraqi Freedom, the Spanish American War, Vietnam, maybe it'll work in Wyoming. Otherwise, we already condition our kids to solve conflict through violence, first by beating them when they do things we don't appreciate, and then by sitting them down in front of the TV where they can watch and learn as their only adult role model saves the day by inflicting grievous bodily harm onto other people (superheroes, star wars, fortnite). Also, war is a lot less personal these days. There are a dozen or so Air National Guard units with access to weaponized drones in the united states. The public didn't even flinch at the onboard camera movies coming back from iraq and afghanistan showing people being blown up in their pickup trucks and SUVs.

rayiner 7y ago

Fighting against your own government isn’t like fighting against a foreign power. You have the advantage of asymmetric warfare, and also the advantage that the military will not follow orders to just “steamroll right in through” citizens. Egypt has F-16s, but that didn’t stop the government from getting overthrown when the military decided to stay neutral. Libya had advanced Soviet weaponry, but Gaddafi was overthrown and killed by rebel forces. Unless you’re willing to level your own country (which for practical reasons even tyrannical dictators are not), fighting armed citizens is nothing like fighting a foreign war. (Also, the track record for advanced nations losing wars in places like Afghanistan with vastly inferior weapons is significant). The Syrian civil war also started with a civil uprising, with armed civilian guerrillas fighting government security forces. Again, there were defections when soldiers refused to fire on citizens, and that led to establishment of the Free Syrian Army, comprised of defectors from Assad’s regime. Here is how it played out when Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. The Pakistani military was armed with modern US made aircraft and weapons, launched Operation Searchlight, which killed at least 300,000 Bangladeshis. Civilians took control of arms depots and started shooting back. That precipitated Bangali units of Pakistan’s military to mutiny and start fighting for independence. Military assistance from India helped win the war, but that started many months later. Without being able to take control of those arms depots to begin with, Bangladesh never would have been able to start the war that led to independence. (The American Revolution, by the way, played out more or less the same way. Guerrilla attacks at first, seizing weapons and supplies, creating a more formal militia, and then getting assistance of a foreign power.) It’s not some crazy NRA fantasy. We have numerous examples of despotic regimes with modern weapons and aircraft being overthrown in civilian uprisings. I come from a country that exists because of such events. The Second Amendment is there to preserve that option. Had Bangladeshis been armed like NRA wingnuts in 1970, hundreds of thousands of innocent people might have been alive today, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi women may not have gotten raped by the Pakistani military, etc.

jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
The firearms are not enough. The Mukti Bahini were heavily assisted by members of India's Research and Analysis Wing. India provided weapons, ammunition, logistical support, and many of the refugees who volunteered were recruited and trained on Indian soil. Months before the revolution had even started Indian spies fabricated evidence linking Pakistan to the 1971 Indian Airlines hijacking, which India used to justify a ban of all Pakistani flights across its airspace, preventing Pakistani carriers from resupplying East Pakistan by air. Indira Ghandi herself was basically a foreign ambassador for Bangladesh, traveling the world not only to drum up political support for the cause, but to also to justify India's impending war with Pakistan to the international community. India and the USSR went to bat for Bangladesh at the UNSC, and India was the first U.N. state to give Bangladesh diplomatic recognition. Bangladesh also had many allies among warsaw pact countries such as the GDR (East Germany), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union, during the war. All of whom supported the cause in some way, be that medical services for wounded soldiers, diplomatic/economic support, scholarships for Bangladeshi students or other things. That's what separates Bangladeshi force from 99% of NRA wingnuts: training, organization, support from foreign allies. Because of these differences, I do not expect a similar international response to occur in the event of a civil war in the U.S. And I think such is ultimately what will make or break an insurgency.

stallmanite 7y ago

Just like we steamrolled through Iraq right? Easy-peasy