#81
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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. Quote:
As for military vehicles, they are irrelevant in guerrilla warfare. Most insurgencies never bother with them, though some do (especially in Africa). |
#82
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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). |
#83
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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? |
#84
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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. Quote:
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. Last edited by MT2008; 10-19-2009 at 08:44 PM. |
#85
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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. Last edited by Jcordell; 10-19-2009 at 10:20 PM. |
#86
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Sorry, couldn't resist. Quote:
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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. Quote:
Last edited by MT2008; 10-20-2009 at 11:03 PM. |
#87
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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. Last edited by Jcordell; 10-20-2009 at 06:52 PM. |
#88
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(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). Last edited by MT2008; 10-20-2009 at 09:09 PM. |
#89
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Interesting.I wonder what the figure was was addressing? I wish I could remeber where I read that info.
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#90
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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. |
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