Right, but don't you think this undermines much of what pro-RKBAers often say? Size is a very big problem for guerrilla movements. They need to have the support of the population. The conventional army/totalitarian government can seek to undermine this in a number of ways, which is the point of state terror like that which we've seen under many Communist regimes. The only kinds of people who tend to endure in the face of that challenge are those who are very tough and who are willing to put their lives on the line for the guerrillas and not cooperate, no matter what kind of terror the regime uses to coerce them into giving up the rebels' location. That is how these kinds of regimes keep themselves in power - they offer material incentives (usually subsidies on consumer goods) to ensure that the people depend on them for their well-being, and they use state terror to punish anyone who steps out of line or who is perceived as anti-regime.

As for outside assistance, you are correct about this. Most insurgencies either are state-supported, or they have ways of generating funding so that they can buy material on the black market. But this undermines the notion that gun control is part of a plot to disarm the population so that the Democrats can impose a Marxist government on us, or that the 2nd Amendment is really such a valuable "reset" button on the Constitution. If there really were a civil war in the U.S., or an invading army, it's pretty likely that somebody would be quick to capitalize upon the demand for arms by the rebels. In which case, the prior ownership of guns by civilians is pretty much irrelevant, one way or the other.

I think it's also worth remembering that the availability of small arms is almost never correlated with democracy or totalitarianism. There are a lot of AKs and RPGs floating around Iran right now. Many of them are in the hands of the Basji, the local civilian militias that are loyal to the Mullahs. But plenty are also in the hands of the various separatist groups that exist in the country, as well as the leftist MEK (the biggest of the anti-regime insurgent groups). Obviously, the proliferation of guns in the hands of Iranian civilians doesn't seem to have much of an effect on the regime's ability to run its Shi'te theocratic style of governance.

SOP = standard operating procedure.

As for military vehicles, they are irrelevant in guerrilla warfare. Most insurgencies never bother with them, though some do (especially in Africa).

Lol, an old Usa Today article about imperialism:

American imperialism? No need to run away from label

PD:
Not military vehicles, but they use modified civilian vehicles like pick-ups or others (just in urban guerrilla, in the jungle a vehicle is a bit useless).

Whew :eek: Lots to think about. But I'll try. Incidentally I'm a member of the NRA and a cop and an Army veteran. So I'm sort of on both sides of the fence I guess.

I think having an armed populace (like the United States) can be a two edged sword. It could be argued that an armed civilian populace makes for a population that is more agressive and willing to stand up to the goverment (peacefully) because it makes them feel stronger. Regardless of how effective those small arms might be in an extended and costly conflict. So if nothing else the 2nd Amendment helps to give the other amendments teeth - so to speak.

Also many cops, soldiers, saliors, airmen, firefighters and even federal agents belong to the so called "American gun-culture". That includes me. What does this mean? Well I guess it's hard to say, but I would imagine that if some type of political doomsday scenario occurred and gun ownership became ilegal in the U.S. it might make things harder for the goverment to carry it out. I will leave it to the novelists in the group to work out that scenario.

Now, right now, the "goverment" be it local, state or federal might be in danger of swamping us with taxes (remember goverment employees also pay taxes), but I don't see a totalitarian regime emerging. You know the majority of the population just wants to live their lives and get by. They're too busy (or lazy) to do other things outside their field of interest.

That's human nature. That's why there are police departments, fire departments, paramedics etc. I know that this will piss off Liberterians, but most folks are too busy with life to run their own snow plows, operate an emergency clinic etc. Modern society is specialized for a reason.

I am a cop in city with apprximately 45,000 residents. There are sixty-three officers in my department. Now this is Idaho so you can be assured that at least 33% to 50% of the city's residents have some type of firearm. You do the math. 33% of 45,000 people means my department is outnumbered and out-gunned. But that isn't an issue. Those folks want us there and (most) are glad we are out there. If for no other reason than that they are busy (like I stated earlier) and don't have to time to be neighborhood constables. The idea of us trying to impose some type of tyranny is silly and I for one would take issue with some idiot trying to throw out the constitution.

I think where private firearms really come into play is for self-defense and the occassional civil emergency. I would much rather be armed in a post-Katrina situation than be depending on the principles of pacificsm. I don't think we can ever know how many people's lives might have been saved in New Orleans after Katrina because they were armed. As a cop there are days when it's all I can do to keep up with my little patrol area in my moderately sized city and my fellow officers are frequently in the same spot. Even in an emergency it make take us five to ten minutes to reach you. Trust me five minutes in a life and death situation is a lifetime. If things really go to hell then I can guarantee that we will be focused on trying to hold things together on the big scale. We simply won't have the time or resources to be helping individuals or individual families. That's where RKBA is important - IMHO.

Okay that was a long winded response and I could write more, but hopefully I covered some of the bigger issues. Did I make sense?

Absolutely. BUT...I have never disagreed with the idea of people being entitled to own guns for self-defense against criminals, or in a disaster situation like Katrina. I own guns myself precisely for those kinds of scenarios.

The only thing that I disagree with is the idea that American gun owners will be able to carry out a guerrilla campaign in a "Red Dawn" or "1984"-type scenario, which is the fantasy of many pro-RKBAers in this country. I argue that being able to function as a viable insurgency has many, many dimensions irrelevant to gun possession.

I think you should leave it to the political scientists instead. :D I respect you for your service to the population, but here's the problem: Cops and firefighters aren't going to make good guerrillas for many of the same reasons I've said. Soldiers have greater potential (I usually agree with pro-RKBAers who point out the possibility of mutiny by our armed forces in a "1984" scenario), but even then, their ability to fight guerrilla wars is still dependent upon whether they have a very particular skill set that is usually reserved only for SF units.

As for the idea of the 2nd Amendment being a "reset" button on the Constitution, I usually tell people (mostly, the ones who accuse me of being a Democrat/socialist/Marxist/whatever) that I support a reformed and decentralized version of the National Guard which is funded and supplied almost entirely at the local level (instead of federal and state) and which trains in bush war and insurgent-style tactics. It would amount to a reversal of past Militia Acts passed by Congress, and it would ensure that regulation stopped at the state level. The basic idea is that this would permanently delegate a certain amount of military authority from the federal government and the regular armed forces.

There's only one problem with this - every time I suggest it and pro-RKBAers agree with me, I tell them afterwards that it's a system which isn't that different from many of the "totalitarian" countries they claim to hate. In fact, it's a system that dictators from Khomeini to Chavez have used in order to ensure that the regular armed forces (the ones who are suspected of being loyal to the previous regime that they overthrew) are never able to stage coups.

I believe it was under President Teddy Roosevelt that the National Guard structure was reorganized and became more dependent on Federal dollars. It wasn't an instant process and took decades. Actually it's still going on. Why did Teddy Roosevelt instigate such a change of the system? Well it's my understanding that he was unimpressed with what he saw in the Spanish-American War in 1898. Some of the state militia units called to active service were top notch, but many left much to be desired. They varied wildly in their training and quality of supply. There was no standard of training, organization etc.

It was a mess and Roosevelt understood that the United States needed the organized militia units to supplement the regualars. A century ago the regular army was tiny. Actually many have said that the federal goverment screwed up in Vietnam because only a handfull of guard and reserve units were called up to active duty. The Regular Army was stretched and there was no sense of involvement for the general populace. It's been said that the heavy use of the National Guard and Reserve forces have kept the discontent with the War on Terror to a low level because so many people have friends and family members who are currently on active duty. Small and mid-size America feels like there is more at stake. There is alot to be said for that. One block from my house is a National Guard armory. In 2004 that battalion was in Iraq. The first casulty in that unit (a supply and support unit) was a nineteen year old teenage girl. She was killed by a roadside bomb. She graduated from the local high school and her family lives in town. There is a memorial to her outside of that armory now. It's very real. So I would say that "they" are correct in this respect.

Truth be told all the branches need the reserve and guard units when there is a long-term conflict. Always have. The past eight years have shown that the Regualars can't go it alone. For many reasons the United States isn't ready to have a full-time military force of 3,0000,0000. So while I like your concept of the Guard being held as a home defense organization I don't see it happening anytime soon.

You are right about guerilla forces. I'm 41 now and I have a bad back. I work out and I'm in pretty good condition, but my days of busting through the woods with a eighty pound rucksack, a rifle and 300 rounds of 5.56 mm NATO are over. Twenty - two years ago I was up for the task. But even back then fifteen hours of patrolling with a full load in bad weather was exhausting both physically and mentally. And that was in peacetime with the knowledge that in six or seven days I would be back in civilization with hot showers and a soft bed. I wasn't looking at years and years of the same thing with the added stress of combat. It's a demanding thing and very few are up for it. And though some of the logistics might be different the same goes for the "Urban" guerilla.

The whole issue is complicated and a whole lot more messy than the movies would have you believe. Actually anytime you throw in Humans and violence everything goes downhill very quickly and I speak from personal experience.

Hmmm, a Republican bringing a Constitutionally-mandated civilian body under central control, imagine that... :D

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Yes, and this was during a time when America was first starting to flirt with the idea of removing itself from isolation and going international in its ambitions (that's another example of TR contradicting himself, BTW...he claimed to be a "nationalist", yet he did more than any previous President in projecting American power abroad). The militias thus had to be reformed to serve that purpose. This is a sore point with many Libertarians and Constitutionalists I know.

Partially true, but actually, what ruined Vietnam was the decision by Johnson to limit the American war effort strictly to the South and not go after the North with ground troops, which would have surely brought about a Chinese response, and nobody wanted to take that risk. That, more than the number of troops deployed (regulars or reserves), was the reason why Vietnam was hopeless from the get-go.

I don't, either. However, it isn't so much my opinion as a statement of what the Constitution basically intended. I leave it up to everyone else to decide whether or not they want this (and I can't imagine that many people besides hard-core Constitutionalists really want it anymore). Most Americans - conservatives included - have international ambitions for our country, and that requires a large, federally-controlled military with a monopoly on offensive and defensive capabilities. TR recognized this, and so has almost every administration since.

But local, organized militias are basically the only sort of system that I could maybe see functioning as a resistance to totalitarian regimes (left-wing or right-wing) and invading armies.

Exactly. I feel the same way about myself. Even though I'm in my mid-20s and am in decent shape (I run, bike, and play basketball almost every day, plus I used to be a sculler), and even though I own guns and know how to use them (including a Chinese AK), I recognize that living as an insurgent would be almost impossible for me. I spend 10 hours a day behind a computer (and procrastinating by coming on here :D) and going to classes. There's no way I could ever survive as a guerrilla. I've had it too easy for my entire life.

I wish I could provide a bibliography for the following information , but I can't. Anyhow years ago I came across a piece of information about the IRA. Now that is not an organization I support, but it would have to be considered a guerilla organization in it's methods regardless of what one thinks of their political objectives. One man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom fighter. Anyway the source stated that the British estimated the actual number of active (full-time) IRA operatives to number no more than thirty or forty. Thirty or forty! Think about that. The Irish "Troubles" (the most recent one) started in 1969/70 lasted for approximately thirty years (give or take a few years) and killed a bunch of people and the IRA had less than a 100 active operatives.

Oh sure there were a bunch of auxilaries who showed up for the occassional event and many more supporters who provided support (food, shelter, money, weapons etc.) but somewhere between 30 - 40 people actually doing the majority of bombings, shootings, ambushes, raids, kidnappings, and other assorted acts. I think this little figure supports your theory in full. I don't know how many troops England had in Northern Ireland at the peak and of course that isn't counting all the cops and intelligence operatives, but I bet it was a lot more then 30 or 40. That's guerilla warfare.

Of course I would imagine there was a pretty high turn-over among those 30/40 IRA "soldiers". High mortality rate, bad benefits and no pension.

I actually have written about this particular conflict, plus I was in Belfast in 2007. I can tell you quite a bit on this:

(1.) The PIRA "hardcore" was definitely not just 30-40 people. Today's splinter factions have more members than that. In 1972, the IRA's Belfast "Brigade" alone had almost 1,000 members, and about half of them were gunmen and bombers (the rest were support/logistics). The "Executive", the IRA leadership, has always had about 12-15 people, including the seven members who sit on the "Army Council", which makes the decisions. Then, below them, you have the six "Brigade Commanders". You can pretty much see the pattern...the leadership alone has close to 30 people.

(2.) The British had about 30,000 troops in Northern Ireland at any given time. However, the Provisional IRA was not their only opponent - there were other Republican paramilitary groups (including the INLA, the Marxist breakaway IRA faction) and a much larger number of Loyalists (including the UDA and UVF). The IRA was the most dangerous opponent that the British Army faced, but it wasn't the only one. Between the PIRA, INLA, UVF, UDA, and all of the other paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, the British were probably outnumbered by at least 2 to 1, maybe even more.

(3.) The PIRA does not qualify as a "guerrilla" organization or an insurgency; its usual classification is "paramilitary", which is not quite the same thing. In the early days of the Troubles, the PIRA did use guerrilla tactics to fight the British Army - including hit-and-run attacks, IEDs, and mortar attacks on British military bases. However, after the late-1970s, the IRA decided that these tactics weren't bringing about the desired result, so they shifted to the "Long War" strategy, which mostly abandoned guerrilla tactics in Northern Ireland in favor of terrorist attacks in London., which were expected to bring about public demand for an end to the British Army's involvement in Northern Ireland. This is why the IRA became better known in the 80s and 90s for incidents like the Harrod's department store bombing and the attempt to kill Margaret Thatcher in 1984.

There were still IRA units that continued to use guerrilla tactics - the group's South Armagh "Brigade", which operated in rural areas, continued to operate as a quasi-insurgency until the ceasefire. But the IRA by-and-large abandoned any pretense of being an insurgency after it adopted its "Long War" strategy and decided that it was more interested in going after political targets in London rather than going after soldiers in Belfast.

(4.) It's fairly tough to assess how "fluid" IRA membership was, but one thing to keep in mind is that there's a pretty thin line between Sinn Fein members (the political activists who claimed they weren't involved in terrorism) and IRA members (who were involved in terrorism). What this meant was that every Sinn Fein member was also a potential IRA member - Gerry Adams himself was at one point on the IRA Army Council at the same time that he was President of Sinn Fein.

(5.) The IRA also operated from both sides of the Irish border - typically, the gunmen and bombers were based in Northern Ireland (where the fighting was being done initially), and the support staff and leadership were based in the Republic (which is where the arms dumps and safe houses were located). Many of the people in the Republic who supported the organization did so very informally (i.e. farmers who let their barns be used to stash guns and ammunition coming in from Libya).

Interesting.I wonder what the figure was was addressing? I wish I could remeber where I read that info.

If I had to guess, probably it was referring to the PIRA's South Armagh Brigade only. South Armagh was pretty much the hardest area for the British Army and the RUC to control. Both the PIRA and UVF cells in that province were relatively few in number compared to Belfast or Derry, yet the British had more troops there in the 1980s and 1990s than anywhere else, and more trouble pacifying it than anywhere else.

It wouldn't surprise me if the South Armagh Brigade had only about 30-40 members by the 1990s because that province is so lightly populated. On the other hand, a higher proportion of the people there supported the paramilitaries than in Belfast or Derry. This, combined with the fact that it's a rural area, made it pretty hard to find the IRA and UVF members within the population.

BTW, South Armagh Brigade was also responsible for carrying out the sniper campaign of the 1990s, where they used Barrett .50-caliber rifles against British personnel.

Okay. I remember reading that info when I was stationed in Germany (93 - 96) so you're probably on the mark. It would be the right time frame.

You are talking to who in particular?

I agree. You need to be more specific.

The one thing they have in common is that they're both assholes. ;)

But I, for one, believe that Obama was elected merely on hype. People were too mesmerized by the "he's not Bush" part that they never bothered to ask "who's Obama?" Well, they're finding that part out now...

Obama's motto when he was running was "Yes we can..."

I have not heard or something so vague in my life. Yes we can get what?

I actually liked Bush. That whole "Bush is a retard" phenomenon is just the result of left wing propaganda aimed to smear Bush.

I always like to push people into explaining exactly what is retarded about the man. I always get "he's a poor public speaker' then I point out that good public speaking doesn't have anything to do with intelligence.

How come Al Gore has been called 'the smartest man in the world' and yet George W. Bush's GPA in college was HIGHER than Gores? (note; they were both "c" students, but Bush's GPA was still higher).

There is a BIG difference between disagreement on policy decisions and whether or not someone is STUPID or not.

Give billions of dollars in stimulus funds to corporations who use it to send their execs on spa days? Health care insurance that (A) the very people pushing it don't want, (B) face huge fines and/or prison time if we wish to not have, and (C) covers everyone no matter the status of their citizenship?

Seriously, I'm just waiting for him to officially stick that second "S" into "USA".
I didn't particularly like him, but nor did I hate him either. Just like with most every politician (including Obama), I agreed with some of his policies while disagreeing with others. That's where I leave it.
It's the unfortunate price he paid when two proxy wars fell in his lap and he opted to do what needed to be done rather than what the world wanted him to do.

When you get right down to it anybody who is ambitious enough to want to be president has to be something of an asshole anyway. Whether you like their political stance or not they have to be a jerk to do that job. If you're friendly, easy going and just an overall sweet person you're going to be eaten alive by the sharks.

I think that was Jimmy Carter's problem. Don't agree with his politics at all, but he seems to be a real Humanitarian (at least his public persona is that of a Humanitarian) which is the last type of person you want in the Oval Office. The United States is a major world power. We can't have a milquetoast as president. Liberal, moderate or conservative that person had better be an asshole to some extent if they're going to accomplish anything.

Personally I would never want to be POTUS.

Uhhhh, what?

I'll respond.

A: You are right about that. A lot of democrats don't want UHC because they are being paid by Lobbyists from Insurance companies. The same thing applies to republicans.

B: Where did that come from? I don't remember anything like that in the Health Care Bill. If Obama or anyone puts something like that in a UHC bill, then well, they are retarded.

C: That's what should happen. We should integrate immigrants into American society, not treat them like dogs.

I agree. You don't really have to be an asshole but you better have balls. Eisenhower had balls. FDR had balls. But they were all nice guys.

That's a problem with Obama. He tried to gain support from the Republicans. He should know by now that there is nothing he can do to gain the Republicans. He should stand up to them since all they're doing is scaremonging Americans off Universal Health Care by using stupid lies like Death Panels. He should also stand up to the Democrats that are in the Insurance company's pockets. Instead he just lets the Republicans run hog wild and letting the Lobbyists keep lobbying.

*SIGH* We really can't avoid polarizing political topics, can we? Not that I'm criticizing you guys, as I've initiated plenty of these topics myself, just that I'm kind of wary of them.

And Oliveria, it's a bad sign when you resort to profanity early on. I'm not gonna tell you again: If you need to resort to cursing to get your points across, you sound (1.) immature, and (2.) as though you're heading down the polarizing route. Wise up and stop talking like the Boondock Saints.

I think polarizing discussions are unavoidable on the Internet. And we do need to tone down on the profanity somewhat.

Yeah, if we're going to have these conversations, they should be as civil as possible, meaning with as little profanity as possible.

Hey, there was only one fuck in it! I think.

Anyway, this is the official politics thread. What are we gonna do about it?

What you're gonna do is what I say...that's what. Avoid cursing, please.

..What MT2008 said