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The same can be said about just about any sort of weapon.Badme wrote:Obvious public safety issue therePredator wrote:Why not nuclear weapons?
And yet there are responsible uses for regular weapons. You can be trained with them; you can hunt, you can use them for self-defense, etc. Can the same be said for nuclear weapons?Predator wrote:The same can be said about just about any sort of weapon.Badme wrote:Obvious public safety issue therePredator wrote:Why not nuclear weapons?
If some will argue that current limitations on weapons are arbitrary or that the reasoning for their being banned is invalid, it seems strange to arbitrarily limit nuclear weapons, or to apply the anti-gun arguments they're fighting against to nuclear weapons.
The military train in how to use them....and to hunt you just need to aim a bit to the left of what you want to hit...as for self defense, Nukes are the choice of a nation in need of self defense, and what is your house if not your own small nation?Badme wrote:And yet there are responsible uses for regular weapons. You can be trained with them; you can hunt, you can use them for self-defense, etc. Can the same be said for nuclear weapons?
Yes. You can hunt, you can use them for self defence. If it matters that you would need a large amount of land in order for the blast radius not to hurt someone else, or that you're unlikely to be attacked by an army, then it matters that you'd need thick walls to stop the rounds from your asault rifle or heavy machine gun that could potentially hurt someone else, and that you're unlikely to be assaulted by a platoon of infantry.Badme wrote:And yet there are responsible uses for regular weapons. You can be trained with them; you can hunt, you can use them for self-defense, etc. Can the same be said for nuclear weapons?Predator wrote:The same can be said about just about any sort of weapon.Badme wrote: Obvious public safety issue there
If some will argue that current limitations on weapons are arbitrary or that the reasoning for their being banned is invalid, it seems strange to arbitrarily limit nuclear weapons, or to apply the anti-gun arguments they're fighting against to nuclear weapons.
The armed forces in fact split at the beginning of the Civil War and a large part of the officer corps became Confederates.As long as any government has the strength and determination to maintain itself in power, and commands the loyalty of its armed forces to back its power, any rebellion against it fails and quite bloodily. That is the reality, and it is not negated no matter how much Second Amendment or Millitia Movement rhetoric you care to spew.
And just to underline the point, there are at least eleven states which can tell you how the last attempt at rebellion in this country went.
Rednecks with M16s wont be a threat against the US Army, Navy and Air Force if push came to shove.BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:Jefferson always was the right to own firearms as a final check upon the possibility of a tyrannical state.Cpl Kendall wrote:Seeing as the subject has been brought up. If the citizens of the USA are allowed unrestricted access to firearms, why should they be allowed to possess military weapons? IE: M16's and the like, what possible need would a civilian have for a military or fully automatic weapon?
what you trying to do start a nuclear powered nation or something/Badme wrote:
Predator wrote:
Badme wrote:
Predator wrote:
Why not nuclear weapons?
Obvious public safety issue there
The same can be said about just about any sort of weapon.
If some will argue that current limitations on weapons are arbitrary or that the reasoning for their being banned is invalid, it seems strange to arbitrarily limit nuclear weapons, or to apply the anti-gun arguments they're fighting against to nuclear weapons.
And yet there are responsible uses for regular weapons. You can be trained with them; you can hunt, you can use them for self-defense, etc. Can the same be said for nuclear weapons?
No - I'm counting on even hardcore gun-nuts realising that people shouldnt have nuclear weapons when making this argument. From there, I simply want to make sure that their reasoning is consistent. If their reasons for opposing private ownership of nukes also apply to many forms of firearm, their positions wont be consistent.Dennis Toy wrote:
what you trying to do start a nuclear powered nation or something/
That's what a scoped deer rifle is used to getSecondStorm wrote:Nowadays you need to arm the rednecks with mortars, LAWs and Stingers to give em a (small) fighting chance.
Ridiculous. A nuclear weapon kills indiscriminatly over a wide area by the very nature of its function. You cannot use it for personal self-defense without endangering the lives of everyone else around you, including yourself.Predator wrote:Yes. You can hunt, you can use them for self defence. If it matters that you would need a large amount of land in order for the blast radius not to hurt someone else, or that you're unlikely to be attacked by an army, then it matters that you'd need thick walls to stop the rounds from your asault rifle or heavy machine gun that could potentially hurt someone else, and that you're unlikely to be assaulted by a platoon of infantry.Badme wrote:And yet there are responsible uses for regular weapons. You can be trained with them; you can hunt, you can use them for self-defense, etc. Can the same be said for nuclear weapons?Predator wrote: The same can be said about just about any sort of weapon.
If some will argue that current limitations on weapons are arbitrary or that the reasoning for their being banned is invalid, it seems strange to arbitrarily limit nuclear weapons, or to apply the anti-gun arguments they're fighting against to nuclear weapons.
I assume you're being sarcastic; I have a terrible time recognizing that over message boards.Keevan_Colton wrote: The military train in how to use them....and to hunt you just need to aim a bit to the left of what you want to hit...as for self defense, Nukes are the choice of a nation in need of self defense, and what is your house if not your own small nation?
Ouch!Petrosjko wrote:Pulled it straight out of my ass. But remember, we are talking Red States here.Badme wrote:Yes, but how will you manage to pull off 15 million recruits into this resistance force? The number is still astronomically high.
The point I'm getting is that not only will you do a crappy job of holding the city, with such poorly-trained manpower, but you're not going to accomplish anything long-term by doing it. How long will the populance be on your side when the government starts shutting down electricity and water services, with the promise to return them when the rebels are turned over?It's guerilla warfare. You don't have to hold the city. You make them shoot it up in a very loud and displeasing to the local populace fashion. Going Fallujah on LA will not go over very well.Point, but again: You're not going to have enough people to hold a city, those you do have aren't going to be well-trained, aren't going to be well-coordinated and they aren't going to be well-equipped. Besides, if you can never hope to defeat an actual army, what realistic way do you have to topple a national government?
Agreed, but you still won't have enough to mount anything if all you've got are a few random Hillbillies on your side.There were a significant number of goofballs dressing up in BDUs and joining militias after the passage of the Brady bill and the AWB. One of the virtues of the American populace is that they don't trust the government entirely.This depends on the extent of the oppression and how obvious they are about it. What if they're executing (what they claim to be) serial murderers in the streets as (what they claim to be) a deterrence tactic?
Smart oppresive governments act slowly and carefully. Rights don't instantly vaporize; they take away the little things first and then proceed to the bigger ones. Your scenario might work if everyone in the local, state, and national governments became National Socialist supporters, but that's pretty far-fetched.
Double OuchYeah, a passably intelligent government could get away with a lot. But who was the last intelligent president we had? Gotta go back a few decades. Our current system doesn't promote intelligence to the top. It promotes con artists. And the sad thing is that most senators and congressmen are even stupider.Agreed, but all of this depends on the nature of the oppressive government. If for whatever reason a brutally efficent but also passably intelligent oppressive regime comes to power, I see no hope for the 'common-man rebellion' to accomplish anything.
Pretty much agreed, and sorry about misrepresentation.I wasn't advancing a 'war of civvys vs. the government' in this argument, my point really was that if there was no other recourse and the government was so far gone that it was intolerable, it's better to take a stand than just go along.
The point isn't to beat them in the field. You're totally right that it can't be done. You have to push them into a failure of will and make the populace turn on them, as well as members of the military establishment. Part of turning the populace against them is in your next statement.Badme wrote:Point, but again: You're not going to have enough people to hold a city, those you do have aren't going to be well-trained, aren't going to be well-coordinated and they aren't going to be well-equipped. Besides, if you can never hope to defeat an actual army, what realistic way do you have to topple a national government?
No problem. I keep coming back to it. It's kind of an intellectual exercise, albeit a very unrealistic one. Hipthetical secnorio, RAWR!The point I'm getting is that not only will you do a crappy job of holding the city, with such poorly-trained manpower, but you're not going to accomplish anything long-term by doing it. How long will the populance be on your side when the government starts shutting down electricity and water services, with the promise to return them when the rebels are turned over?
You shut down the electricity and water in a major metropolitan and suddenly you've got problems beyond the insurrection. You're creating an environment for riots and truly fucking over the governmental rapport with the public. The point of insurrection against a government is to goad them into increasingly repressive action that inflames public sentiment against them.
Also, you're swamping your troops with more work than they can handle, because suddenly they're having to enforce curfews and stop looters. Not good, and very bad for the morale.
Cold-blooded view? They're cannon fodder. They will get chewed up, at grotesquely disproportionate rates to the army they're facing. But if the chewing them up requires the government to take ever-increasing repressive steps, the larger portion of the populace they're offending. As I said, the interdiction of interstate commerce and travel alone would be disasterous in this country, and it would be damned hard to avoid. Ninety percent of the freight in this country moves by truck, much of it moving on a Just-in-time freight model that means any lengthy shutdown or delays totally fuck over corporations. Food is likewise moved in bulk by the trucking industry... well, honestly I don't even want to think about what a commerce interdict would end up causing for both us and the world at large.Agreed, but you still won't have enough to mount anything if all you've got are a few random Hillbillies on your side.
Remember, the goal is psychological/political victory, not military victory.
Pretty much agreed, and sorry about misrepresentation.
Wrong, nuclear weapons do not kill indiscriminately if you wish to kill everyone in the target zone.Badme wrote:Ridiculous. A nuclear weapon kills indiscriminatly over a wide area by the very nature of its function. You cannot use it for personal self-defense without endangering the lives of everyone else around you, including yourself.Predator wrote:Yes. You can hunt, you can use them for self defence. If it matters that you would need a large amount of land in order for the blast radius not to hurt someone else, or that you're unlikely to be attacked by an army, then it matters that you'd need thick walls to stop the rounds from your asault rifle or heavy machine gun that could potentially hurt someone else, and that you're unlikely to be assaulted by a platoon of infantry.
A bullet, by nature of its function, will kill or at least severely injure any person it passes through. You argue that you can aim your bullets and therefore remove the possibility that there will be collateral damage. I have two problems with this.Guns, on the other hand, do not harm random, untargeted passers-by by nature of their function. I can pull the trigger on a close-range armed assailant, and assuming I'm well trained, I won't kill everyone else in a several-mile radius.
Mao Zedong referred to the three-tiered campaign of his revolution as a 'political struggle'.Jaded Masses wrote:Heres a comment on the discussion of rebellion. No recent recent rebellion I can think of was really isolated. If a people started to rebel, they would undoubtedly be supported by out side powers wishing to weaken the country. They would begin to provide weapons and expertise and probably troops later.... not to mention the effect of sanctions or boycotts from other countries who support the rebellion.
In most scenarios where the military is won over, the millions of gun owners are also won over. The odds of a non-democratic government arising in the US appear to be bloody damn small, and if one did manage to beat lottery odds then it will most likely be arising from the right and have most of the gun owners in its back pocket.Badme wrote:Do you honestly think that all 100 million gun owners would rise up in a coordinated, mass-revolt against the military? That's ridiculous. True, you'll get some people who'd actively resist the government, but how many people would forsake their family, job, career, and life to fight in a resistance movement? Considering that any marginally competent oppressive government would simply label any resistance action as 'Terrorism', (thus winning over the vast majority of the populance), you're not going to have near the numbers necessary to stand a chance. And what do you do against the military's artillery, armor, Navy, and Airforce?
Which I disgree with given that there are over a hundred million gun owners in this country vs. less than a million troops...
But we'll go ahead and say 'Yup, it's hopeless.'
So what then? Stand by and let it be done, or go down fighting? Let tyranny prevail, or at least make a statement even if it gets you killed?
At least you can die with your boots on.
Which is part of the reason why I don't agree that Grenade Launchers and the like should be made legal. Assault rifles are a red-herring: they are both obviously a superior choice to pistols and can be applied in many situations in which the threat to bystanders is minimal at best.Predator wrote:Wrong, nuclear weapons do not kill indiscriminately if you wish to kill everyone in the target zone.Badme wrote:Ridiculous. A nuclear weapon kills indiscriminatly over a wide area by the very nature of its function. You cannot use it for personal self-defense without endangering the lives of everyone else around you, including yourself.Predator wrote:Yes. You can hunt, you can use them for self defence. If it matters that you would need a large amount of land in order for the blast radius not to hurt someone else, or that you're unlikely to be attacked by an army, then it matters that you'd need thick walls to stop the rounds from your asault rifle or heavy machine gun that could potentially hurt someone else, and that you're unlikely to be assaulted by a platoon of infantry.
You seem to be claiming that a weapon is only a valid in self defence if the environment ensures it will not harm other people. However, virtually no environment perfectly ensures that the use of a weapon will not cause unintended harm to some other. As I mentioned, your walls had better be thick if you intend to use an assault rifle in self defence. An M249 Saw would be disastrous if used in a crowded apartment building.
I have problems with this hypothetical. Granted it's interesting, but it's so highly unlikely as to nearly be worthless. For example:If you do believe that weapons should be restricted based on the environment in which they could be put to use, then I can imagine a wealthy person purchasing some great area of desert, where the use of a nuclear weapon would not impact his neighbours. If some large group of rapists were approaching his home, he could use a nuclear weapon in self defence without collateral damage. In this sitaution, your argument for the restriction of nuclear weapons would not apply, and therefore you wouldnt oppose private ownership in such a case, right?
Which is already addressed above: Guns do not harm a wide-area. Conceded that there's a possibility for some harm to innocents when using guns in self-defense, but there's also a possiblity that any random car X will crash into someone on the street. This is clearly not a valid argument against banning automobiles, and neither is the first against guns. On the other hand, if a car killed anyone within of 1 mile of it while it was activated, that's an obvious public safety issue.A bullet, by nature of its function, will kill or at least severely injure any person it passes through. You argue that you can aim your bullets and therefore remove the possibility that there will be collateral damage. I have two problems with this.Guns, on the other hand, do not harm random, untargeted passers-by by nature of their function. I can pull the trigger on a close-range armed assailant, and assuming I'm well trained, I won't kill everyone else in a several-mile radius.
One, I do not trust that you or anyone else will have flawless aim with or without training, and I dont assume all gun owners will be well trained. There is an inherent risk, wherever there are people in any sort of proximity, that they will be harmed by a stray, or ricocheted bullet -or even one that passes through your targets head and carries on through the wall.
Fine. Under a nearly-impossible scenario, the nuke owner could indeed be a responsible user. He'd still have to demonstrate how any benefit to his self-defense could overrule the extreme danger to public safety that nukes present. Furthermore, he'll have to show the inherent superiority to other, more viable forms of self-defense which he, as an enormously wealthy person, will have access. Like hiring a few stinkin' guards.Secondly, the wealthy land owner could claim that he could aim his nuke carefully and avoid unintended harm, assuming he's well trained. You'd claim you wouldnt fire your gun without a clean shot - so too would he claim he wouldnt fire his nuke under the same circumstances.
tharkûn wrote:Which is still under the bizzare assumption that the military will be fighting off these 'millions of gun-owners', and not a small force of people labeled as terrorists.wrote:That being said in a civil insurrection the point is not to raise a standing army and duke it out with artillery, planes, and armor. The point is to take potshots from a distance, preferably under piss poor visivibility, and dissappear into the crowd or off into the hills after you hit a soldier or two. This would be geurilla warfare and the point would be to slowly bleed out the military until they refused to go into the hills in anything but overwhelming force or they stopped backing the government. Tanks, planes, and aircraft carriers cannot hold ground, you need boots on the ground and millions of gun owners can kill a awful lot of boots on the ground at even 20:1 casualty ratios.
Again, this only has relevance if you assume that there will be such a large-scale uprising, when a much more likely scenario is the U.S. government naming those who oppose it as 'terrorists' and/or 'insurgents'. Remember, these people have to so utterly convinced in their cause that they'll leave their homes, families, lives, and jobs. And for those vigilant few who join, how will they organize into a disciplined force, capable of taking orders and fulfilling them?As far as getting real hardware, that is going to happen the first time somebody raids a SWAT arsenal. Even better weaponry can be had from dead soldiers (killed after taking out 50 rednecks) and you can slowly trade up. Explosives can be had in bulk from the construction industry and the black market already arms insurgents the world over. Really though I like the Zhukov quote somebody posted here earlier - America cannot be conqueored there are too many Coke bottles and gas stations. Granted the rednecks will switch to beer bottles, but I pity the military tasked with holding the back country against a hostile population. I give it a month before large cities are burning, exploding, or rioting in mass.
Traditionally civilian insurgents learn as they go, at the expense of horrific casualties.Badme wrote:Again, this only has relevance if you assume that there will be such a large-scale uprising, when a much more likely scenario is the U.S. government naming those who oppose it as 'terrorists' and/or 'insurgents'. Remember, these people have to so utterly convinced in their cause that they'll leave their homes, families, lives, and jobs. And for those vigilant few who join, how will they organize into a disciplined force, capable of taking orders and fulfilling them?
You've got a point there. Conceded on that tactic.Stofsk wrote:
Also, someone said "Well what-if the gov't cuts utilities and demands the populace to hunt down the rebels?" This will do nothing but make things a fuckload worse. Because before, the average Joe on the street was thinking "This fight is between the rebels and the gov't. Leave me out of it." The second the gov't starts screwing around with the average Joe he insures the rebels get a new recruit.
In which the government has the unbeatable upper hand. How will the populance react if the President/Prime Minister announced that there was a terrorist threat in the country, composed of those willing to attack our freedoms and way of life? He's got major communication channels; the rebels do not.As said, it's a political struggle. You have to fight to get people on your side; it's not a war over resources or territory; it's a war over 'hearts and minds'.
