Laws should be Constitutional. With respect to the 2nd amendment, they are not.
The Founders were not in favor of a standing army. They were completely against it and the term militia represented the people being able to stand against a government army.
They also had a much easier time smuggling it in, with a sympathetic populace to the south. I don’t think Canada or Mexico would be giving American gun nuts a lot of sympathy.
The civil rights concerns are legitimate- however, I think the civil rights concerns of the no-fly list would be solved by a gun ban as well. People who are incorrectly on the list will go to the NRA, and the NRA will start pushing for reform of the no-fly list, then it will happen.
I think it could solve two problems at once.
I think you are misconstruing the argument. A claim was made that a group of civilians can’t defeat a professional army. That is false. Whether that’s an argument for or against gun control has more to do with how you view the government. I was just pointing out that ruling out the effectiveness of asymmetric warfare is a bad choice.
The reality is though, that a group of civilians could not defeat the US military.
The ability for an insurgency to be effective against the US military depends upon the US military choosing not to use the power at its disposal. It has to choose not to pursue the engagement to its fullest capacity.
Normally, since the US is still “the good guys” for all of its faults, that means that the US is unwilling to just take the gloves off and start playing hardball. It’s unwilling to just start murdering people wholesale in order to exterminate bad guys.
But if the US government became some kind of tyranical dictatorship that you needed to revolt against? Then it wouldn’t CARE about being nice any more. It wouldn’t be bound by restrictions on how it conducted its combat operations, and could embrace horrific policies which would absolutely decimate any insurgency.
An insurgency works against a government which is unwilling to embrace those horrific means… which generally means that an insurgency works if you’re the bad guys. So the notion of wanting to enable insurgencies against the US government is essentially only enabling terrorists and bad guys.
With regard to the 2nd Amendment; it kills me the way the politicians taking the NRA’s money are all “Unconstitutional! 2nd Amendment > all!” A) The Constitution was designed to be amended; let’s amend a little bit here. B) That particular amendment does include “well-regulated”; fucking REGULATE IT already!
Oh I don’t know the Viet Cong did a good job before the Tet Offensive, despite all sorts of horrific means employed. Various militias did a good job in Iraq until the surge of forces. As for future events, can’t really speak to them but if history has taught anything it’s never say never.
As for brutality defeating insurgency, I’d suggest you read about the Russians in Afghanistan, the French in Algeria, the Spanish in Cuba, or numerous other examples of brutality failing to defeat an insurgency.
And those are cases with a fraction of the military deployed, on different continents, with the logistics involved there. Within the US, that shit is local. The logistics are simpler, and the amount of force you can project is significantly higher. As you note, your counter examples were only effective until there was an increase in military force allocated.
Okay, then look at the Russian Revolution and French Revolution. In the U.S. you have one of the most diverse and largest countries on the planet with one of the most diverse and largest populations. Our military assets are spread across the globe, hardly concentrated in the U.S. Further no one knows how the military would react to such a civil disturbance. I’m not sure the logistics are as simple as you make them out to be.
Further both Russia, France, and Spain repeatedly increased their forces t. I’d also throw in France in Haiti and Portugal in Angola.
But the point being is you are looking at a hypothetical when there are plenty of historical examples.
And neither of your examples existed concurrent with tanks and planes being big factors. The Russians had them, but more novelty than anything. Plus, in both cases, the military was instrumental.
Which you are correct, we don’t know how they would act.
Which is Timex’s point. If the military doesn’t get behind the revolt, it’s doomed in the long run. See Syria. But if it joins, it can win. See Egypt. So the whole point is that the second amendment would do little if the military was hostile. Neutral, fractured support for both sides, or even fully supportive military power is the only way such a revolt gets off the ground.
We can keep going around in circles but I think I’ll lay it rest here. There are numerous examples of a “weaker” opponent defeating a “stronger” opponent, no matter what era or location you want to choose (how about Russia in 91? Those tanks sure stopped those protesters. Or Bosnia against Serbia?), including the modern one of which I’ve provided (see Algeria). Technology hasn’t prevent any of this from changing and I have no idea what basis you have to say it would. I’ll note that you don’t seem to address my argument against your point on logistics and military concentration. But anyways this gun control thread should probably return to the issue at hand.
The Viet Cong were getting pretty much smacked down, which is why the Tet Offensive took place… it was basically a last ditch effort. And they got absolutely destroyed in it. Their forces were literally decimated afterwards.
But Vietnam demonstrates an example of exactly what I am talking about. The US didn’t go into that fight with the goal of just murderizing everything.
In Afghanistan, the Russians were going up against the US… The insurgency didn’t win with small arms. The CIA gave them freaking surface to air missiles and shit.
To take Iraq as an example… Those insurgent forces didn’t really exist under Hussein, because doing crap like killing civilians didn’t impact him. He didn’t really care. Terrorist acts don’t tend to work on monsters.
For the Spanish and Cuba, that war took place in the 1800’s. Things were different then in terms of what a professional military was capable of. The difference in technical capability between the military and the insurgency was not nearly as dramatic as what would exist between an insurgency in the US and the US military.
See above.
FWIW, no Assault weapons ban has ever been found Unconstitutional - the Federal ban enacted at the same time as the Brady bill, as well as the recent Connecticut ban (post Heller) have all been challenged on Constitutional grounds and found to be acceptable.
25 to 50 injured in Germany after gunman opened fired.
Your description of events is again kind of messed up, and doesn’t really support your position.
In 91, the attempted Russian coup by the communist hardliners didn’t involve some kind of civilian insurgency fighting against the Russian military. The coup failed because the military refused to murder the Russian people. The military wasn’t defeated by civilian insurgents with small arms. They would have been obliterated. Your rifle isn’t gonna do shit against a freaking T-80.
The Bosnians didn’t defeat the Serbians… They got freaking murdered by them. That’s why WE were there. The Serbs fell to our superior military capability.
I don’t really know much about the French/Algerian conflict, but I’d have to wager a guess that France was not in fact embracing some sort of total war against Algeria.
So Bosnia is part of Serbia still? So The Military backed Russian coup won (they actually did murder civilians)? And since when has Total War ever been done against one’s own people? Hell even the purges of the French Revolution weren’t total war. I think you are looking at the abstract and missing the real world, a weaker power doesn’t need to win on the battlefied to win, but they do need to hold out by any means necessary. But anyways I broke my pledge not to return to this subject. Was a shooting in Germany that might be more germane to this conversation
So Bosnia is part of Serbia still?
No, largely because of the superior force of the US military.
So The Military backed Russian coup won (they actually did murder civilians)?
No, because the military didn’t back the coup. That’s why Yeltsin was standing on that tank back in 1991. The coup lasted 2 days, then fell apart. Not in the face of armed civilian insurgents, but in the face of simple civil protest, because the military refused to murder innocent civilians.
And since when has Total War ever been done against one’s own people?
Saddam Hussein’s oppression of his own people would probably be a decent example. Various other dictatorial regimes… Hell, Assad used chemical weapons on his own people quite recently.
a weaker power doesn’t need to win on the battlefied to win, but they do need to hold out by any means necessary.
No one is saying that a militarilly inferior force can’t ultimately enact change… but they aren’t enacting change through military means.
In modern times, it’s not generally small arms which are going to allow civilians to fight against a military force, certainly not one like the US military.
It’s not like the revolutionary war, where the difference between military and civilian weaponry was essentially nil. The difference between civilian and military hardware is so great as to make the comparison nonsensical. The US military has the ability to kill you while you can’t even see them. From miles away. By pushing a button. You having an AR-15 isn’t going to do shit.
The Kurds held out long enough through military means to get a no fly zone. The Bosnians held out long enough through military means to get intervention. The Algerians held out long enough to out last the French. The Russian protesters held out long enough to outlast the military and the KGB. You don’t have to win on the battlefield for the battlefield to be important.
Also, Saddam Hussein’s total war didn’t work did it? Kurds got what they wanted.
Also, Saddam Hussein’s total war didn’t work did it? Kurds got what they wanted.
It pretty much worked until the US came in and beat his ass with superior military force.
Again, the idea that these groups were “holding out” through use of small arms just isn’t reality. In Russia, for instance… the civilians weren’t fighting with the military. They were engaged in peaceful resistance.
Like I argued above I think this avoids the point.
The Bosnian and Algerians were peaceful?