Quote :

"That's not what I'm looking for in guerrilla resistance. The military claims a hundred-to-one kill ratio."

Incidentally, the last time I ran the numbers (admittedly many years ago), if you took half of the citizens of the US, aged between 18 and 50, and armed them, even with a 50-1 kill ratio in favor of the military, the citizens would win over the long term and still have armed citizens left, never mind the other half of the citizens who didn't fight.

10/18/2008 6:10:37 PM

^ Assuming half of those folks would be willing to die for revolution strikes me as reaching.

A tenth would be dubious but at least vaguely plausibly. One percent or below seems most likely.

I don't mind keeping the possibly of violent overthrowing the government alive, but I wouldn't want to actually do it.

10/18/2008 11:50:58 PM

I seriously doubt we are ever going to have to violently overthrow the government, at least in the next hundred years or so.

But if we did, we wouldn't have to fight the whole military to do so.

10/19/2008 2:14:14 AM

I think it's a lot more likely that we'll see a military overthrow of the government or at least a large portion of the military siding with the citizens revolting. If it ever comes to it, I imagine you'll see a lot more members of the military siding with revolutionaries or secessionist this time than in say, 1861 or 1776.

Oh, and yes, private citizens should be allowed to purchase tanks and F-16 planes. The reason the 2nd amendment was passed was so, to quote Lenny from the Simpsons, "The King of England can't come and push you around." An armed citizenry is a deterrent to government Tyranny. On the flipside, the use of weapons should carry a harsh, harsh penalty.

[Edited on October 19, 2008 at 2:23 AM. Reason : asdfasdf]

10/19/2008 2:17:48 AM

Yeah but there's still a point where you have to admit that the deterrent effect of a harsh punishment still doesn't offset the danger of allowing ownership of the weapon.

10/19/2008 2:27:03 AM

Ehhhh, I don't know. I think you also have to trust that the folks selling it have some sense as well. If you were a tank salesman I think you'd be justified in being very careful to whom you sold one of those things. Besides, don't you think you'd keep your eye on your neighbor if you knew he had a bunch of machine guns in his garage.

I get what you're saying, I mean I'm sure that Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson didn't envision a weapon that could incinerate dozens with the pull of a trigger but I think they'd be willing to put their trust in the common man to have the sense not to use the fucker unless absolutely necessary.

10/19/2008 2:34:51 AM

I think there's a point where the risks generated by private ownership become so great that it begins to constitute a greater threat to liberty than a ban. Is this the case with 50 cals, 20 mm cannons, or even machine guns? Maybe, but I don't think it holds water- although I think other weaker arguments could be made in its lieu. Something that can wipe out 1000 or even 100,000 people in seconds? That sort of destructive power does remind me of something Adams said:

Quote :

"Beware of the common man. I know him. I'm one of them. And if the common man gets too much power, he can be as dangerous and overbearing as any despot."

[Edited on October 19, 2008 at 2:52 AM. Reason : once again, I'm not against private ownership of most firearms including 50 cals. I bet they're fun]

10/19/2008 2:51:01 AM

Quote :

"And if the common man gets too much power, he can be as dangerous and overbearing as any despot."

That's the problem with our current government. Democracies are stupid. You end up with demagogues and panderers, that's what makes the common man most dangerous, it's not when he is armed.

I see your point, and while I'm not comfortable with the idea of privately held nukes, I'm not really sure I see how that's somehow inherently less safe than publicly held nukes.

10/19/2008 2:56:09 AM

Because even if 99.9% of owners are responsible then putting the 4025 or so nukes currently in the US military's hands in private hands still costs you a couple electoral votes worth of people here and there. As shitty as I think our government is, it's proven itself capable of not accidently or intentionally nuking its own citizens. Where it not for that proven track record I'd probably agree that it would make an equivalently bad custodian of such deadly force. I guess there's some inherent self preservation mechanism in governments that can sometimes trump the 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10000 nut.

[Edited on October 19, 2008 at 3:08 AM. Reason : ]

10/19/2008 3:01:29 AM

I'm not talking about distributing nukes to whoever wants them, but if somebody wants to buy an artillery gun I can see very little good reason to deny them that opportunity.

There'd need to be a wholesale change to a lot of our laws and systems, but I'm all for private citizens having grenades and machine guns.

10/19/2008 3:10:23 AM

Eh, explosives can be nasty even when dealt with responsibly. Imagine if someone with no relatives or immediate contacts died with 50 sticks of dynamite in their basement.

10/19/2008 3:17:57 AM

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=544976

Nice symmetry going on in TWW tonight.

10/19/2008 3:19:17 AM

Heh yeah I found this article- http://calfire.blogspot.com/2008/03/news-quincy-fire-fifty-sticks-of.html Former resident died with 50 sticks of dynamite in his trailer. Estimate was that it could have had a serious toll up to a 1/2 mile radius.

But yeah, there's plenty of things that I could see making room in the laws for private ownership. Maybe something like the concealed carry permits for things like machine guns. I'm not sure if the required regulation and oversight to make anything heavier than that swallowable would be something that could be handled competently though.

[Edited on October 19, 2008 at 3:24 AM. Reason : ]

10/19/2008 3:22:40 AM

Quote :

"^ Assuming half of those folks would be willing to die for revolution strikes me as reaching. A tenth would be dubious but at least vaguely plausibly. One percent or below seems most likely. I don't mind keeping the possibly of violent overthrowing the government alive, but I wouldn't want to actually do it."

I would argue that if we ever got to the point of mass violent overthrow of the US government, that you will have more than 50% of americans pissed off and ready to kill a few congress critters. Granted, the more you take away the people's ability to fight back, and the more you beat them down and convince them they couldn't win, the longer it would take to reach that point, but if we're talking US citizens violently overthrowing the government, I think you'll see close to 50% getting involved.

10/19/2008 1:08:44 PM

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"Using the car analogy as it is used over and over is condescending to the point of being counterproductive . . . It is therefore dishonest to attempt to argue that the lethality of a weapon and potential harm are not valid concerns."

Admittedly, the larger-caliber guns are designed to be more lethal, but that's not the reason that civilians purchase them -- again, excluding a minuscule criminal element that's basically limited to assassins and the insane. They want to own a more dangerous gun for the same reason people want to own a more dangerous car: it's fun and makes them feel better about having a small penis.

The intent behind the features that increase potential harm is only important up to a certain point. Are these guns intended to be lethal, armor-piercing killing machines instead of deer hunting rifles? Sure. Are sports cars designed to sleek, fast means of transportation rather than lethal road missiles? You bet. But one of these two things killed substantially more Americans than the other, and I think you can guess.

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"I think it's a lot more likely that we'll see a military overthrow of the government or at least a large portion of the military siding with the citizens revolting."

This is a hugely important point when it comes to the "overthrowing the government" conversation. The fight is never between ragtag civilians and the whole of the military, and to think there would only be two factions of either group is also probably mistaken. There would almost certainly be multiple groups within the civilian population (though they may largely stay in a coalition), as well as military units loyal to the government, to the people, or to their own ends.

10/20/2008 2:22:23 AM

What the hell are you guys talking about. How many homegrown guerrilla fighters did Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, or any strong dictatorship in the world have? Like none.

You don't have rebellions lasting forever when the government absolutely does not flinch in killing torturing you and killing your whole extended family before finally putting the bullet in your own brain. The idea that personal weapons would actually work against a true dictatorial takeover is absurd.

And if you think about arguing with 'but that doesn't happen in a democracy', please to look at Venezuela.

10/20/2008 12:48:40 PM

^ I don't see anything like that happening in Venezuela.

10/20/2008 12:59:55 PM

Yes, because a previously democratic country doesn't have a state slowly centralizing power around one individual. My mistake.

10/20/2008 1:01:38 PM

Democracy hasn't ended in the country. Chavez won tons of elections.

10/20/2008 1:25:21 PM

Quote :

"How many homegrown guerrilla fighters did Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, or any strong dictatorship in the world have? Like none."

The people of Stalinist Russia and Maoist China and, to my knowledge, all other major dictatorships werenot well-armed, and with little exception had strict gun control laws. That's the whole point. The people couldn't resist without weapons, and they couldn't acquire the weapons in their own country. Of course, in both of those specific cases we used covert action programs to try to get weapons to people in areas we thought most ripe for rebellion, but these operations were poorly conceived and abhorrently executed, with little operational security and the large majority of our assets in the country being captured or killed. (Legacy of Ashes is full of similarly depressing stories)

So, thank you for demonstrating what some of us have been saying all along: you can't present a meaningful check on your government's power if you aren't armed.

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"The idea that personal weapons would actually work against a true dictatorial takeover is absurd. "

The Yugoslavians managed to get themselves out from under Hitler, Mussolini, and the Ustashe. Using personal weapons and homemade bombs a decimated Warsaw ghetto managed to hold off the Nazis for days. Five thousand rebels on Crete managed to conduct one of the bloodiest and most successful resistance operations of WWII with personal firearms against a Nazi occupation force of some hundred thousand, again using "personal weapons." I'm sorry, but the history seems to suggest that if a population actually has guns they can do a pretty good job of fucking with a dictatorship.

10/20/2008 3:16:23 PM

^ our best hope would be members of the military seizing control of weaponry for the cause of the resistance. It'd be easy four our military with helicopters and smart bombs to wipe out pockets of resistance.

I think a group of civilians could hold their own against infantry with rifles, and maybe even tanks, but not helicopters and bombing runs.

10/20/2008 3:23:23 PM

Quote :

"How many homegrown guerrilla fighters did Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, or any strong dictatorship in the world have? Like none"

Okay, in both of your examples you had long bitter civil wars that ended with Communist dictatorships. Both Russia and China had strong partisan movements regardless of that fact... just because you don't know about them doesn't mean they didn't exist.

10/20/2008 4:09:45 PM

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"It'd be easy four our military with helicopters and smart bombs to wipe out pockets of resistance."

You'll recall the immense success that they had in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Certainly, those resistance forces have slightly heavier-duty weapons systems, particularly in terms of rockets and explosives. But explosives are already available to certain segments of the civilian world. And say what you will about the free market, it does a pretty good job of getting rockets and other higher-end personal weapons into conflict zones. There would be enterprising arms dealers from all over the world coming here to sell us RPG's and other things capable of downing a helicopter.

But of course, I agree with you and have already said as much. Trying to conceive of this hypothetical conflict as being the civilian population on one side versus government forces (police and military) on the other is entirely too simplistic. Even assuming that there were only two basic sides to the war, each would have some mix of existing military units and civilian militia/supporters. And, as I said, it would likely involve multiple factions. Different groups within the military could be too busy shooting at each other to be too worried about civilians just yet, and likewise there would almost certainly be infighting amongst the civilians.

10/20/2008 7:28:30 PM

It would be an interesting world to live in, that's for sure.

10/20/2008 7:33:23 PM

^^ Good point- any popular insurgence in the US would almost have to be a true civil war since our military is not so different from our regular citizenry as to either be blindly loyal to a would be dictator nor a class separate and whole unto themselves. Any uprising or resistance popular enough among the populace to have a shot at being anything more than another Waco would almost certainly have a following within the military as well.

10/20/2008 8:56:40 PM