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I agree that fending off a modern army with rifles is a pipe dream Tell that to the mujahideen...

mindslight 11y ago
My version of "fending off" includes an end goal where you're no longer under attack and don't have to hide out in caves. Guerrilla campaigns work because they're driving less-committed foreign invaders out through attrition. Our domestic military has nowhere else to withdraw to, and would necessarily have broken free of public opinion (otherwise democracy would put a stop to anything long before sustained conflict). Don't get me wrong, if any such thing occurs I would much rather have distributed gun ownership than not. Furthermore, the right to bear arms quite obviously covers conventional explosives, armored vehicles, and missiles. To the extent that this might not be good policy, then the second amendment should have been rewritten rather than simply trampled. On the political front, it frustrates me to see the amount of energy shoehorned into "they're gonna take our guns", which imho causes people to be myopic to the other rights that are being oppressed. I'm not talking about commenters in this thread (who obviously have more than one issue in their head at once), but your less-connected punter who turns on talk radio and has their specific desire for freedom transmuted into support for a different flavor of tyranny.
- baddox 11y ago
  > My version of "fending off" includes an end goal where you're no longer under attack and don't have to hide out in caves. Vietnam.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
This has been perhaps the most interesting thing, from a military tactics view, of the latest wars. That a moderately armed insurgency can hold against a very sophisticated military. The limits of smart weapons. In many ways it bolsters the argument that the 2nd amendment, as a bulwark against the emergence of a federal police state, is not actually outdated.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  > moderately armed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War#1980s:_Insurrection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War#1980... : > In the border region with Pakistan, the mujahideen would often launch 800 rockets per day. Between April 1985 and January 1987, they carried out over 23,500 shelling attacks on government targets.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    I would say that compared to the Soviets the Mujahideen were only moderately armed. Even more so the Taliban vs the US in the border regions of Pakistan.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  From a capabilities standpoint, the latest wars have the very sophisticated armies showing an awful lot of self restraint. Another way of putting it is that the longevity of the insurgents probably says more about the mission that was handed to the military than it does about the ability of the military to deal with the tactics.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    > very sophisticated armies showing an awful lot of > self restraint. Restraint how? Sure making the place an uninhabitable wasteland is within the realm of possibility with a sophisticated army but to what end?
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      Restraint in a literal sense. An uninhabitable wasteland is at the other end of a spectrum that starts with not worrying about killing civilians.

My version of "fending off" includes an end goal where you're no longer under attack and don't have to hide out in caves. Guerrilla campaigns work because they're driving less-committed foreign invaders out through attrition. Our domestic military has nowhere else to withdraw to, and would necessarily have broken free of public opinion (otherwise democracy would put a stop to anything long before sustained conflict). Don't get me wrong, if any such thing occurs I would much rather have distributed gun ownership than not. Furthermore, the right to bear arms quite obviously covers conventional explosives, armored vehicles, and missiles. To the extent that this might not be good policy, then the second amendment should have been rewritten rather than simply trampled. On the political front, it frustrates me to see the amount of energy shoehorned into "they're gonna take our guns", which imho causes people to be myopic to the other rights that are being oppressed. I'm not talking about commenters in this thread (who obviously have more than one issue in their head at once), but your less-connected punter who turns on talk radio and has their specific desire for freedom transmuted into support for a different flavor of tyranny.

baddox 11y ago
> My version of "fending off" includes an end goal where you're no longer under attack and don't have to hide out in caves. Vietnam.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

This has been perhaps the most interesting thing, from a military tactics view, of the latest wars. That a moderately armed insurgency can hold against a very sophisticated military. The limits of smart weapons. In many ways it bolsters the argument that the 2nd amendment, as a bulwark against the emergence of a federal police state, is not actually outdated.

stefantalpalaru 11y ago
> moderately armed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War#1980s:_Insurrection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War#1980... : > In the border region with Pakistan, the mujahideen would often launch 800 rockets per day. Between April 1985 and January 1987, they carried out over 23,500 shelling attacks on government targets.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  I would say that compared to the Soviets the Mujahideen were only moderately armed. Even more so the Taliban vs the US in the border regions of Pakistan.
maxerickson 11y ago
From a capabilities standpoint, the latest wars have the very sophisticated armies showing an awful lot of self restraint. Another way of putting it is that the longevity of the insurgents probably says more about the mission that was handed to the military than it does about the ability of the military to deal with the tactics.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  > very sophisticated armies showing an awful lot of > self restraint. Restraint how? Sure making the place an uninhabitable wasteland is within the realm of possibility with a sophisticated army but to what end?
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Restraint in a literal sense. An uninhabitable wasteland is at the other end of a spectrum that starts with not worrying about killing civilians.