My friend and I were talking a few days ago about what it would be like if there were a second American Revolution. Basically, if armed militias tried to overthrow the government, how much of a chance would they stand? What my friend said, was that the government would NOT use the Army or Marines or any special division thereof against an armed American uprising. He claimed that they would only deploy the National Guard, and that if they tried to deploy the Army, the generals would refuse to attack other Americans.
I didn’t believe him, but since I don’t know about this, I was in no position to argue because I had no facts to come back with. Is this true, what he said?
The idea of the Second Amendment being able to allow civilians to overthrow the goverment is widely seen as a joke by many people. My friend apparently thinks that people with readily-available guns would actually be able to hold their own - since all they’d need to do was to defeat the National Guard. Is this true or not?
I’m relatively sure that the regular Armed Forces would come to the defense of the government in most cases of insurrection.
That being said, the National Guard is not a trivial force. They make up 1/3 (or perhaps more now) or fhe Army’s fighting ability. They have automatic weapons, artillery, armor and air units.
I, for one, would not want to face them with the weapons I have available.
The calculus of such an “uprising” is difficult at best, and widely differs based upon the assumptions (variables) various people bring into the equation.
Some may feel that the regular military would stand by, and refuse to attack civilians, even civilians in arms in an uprising against civil authority. Other may feel that enough “political” military leaders may back the civil authority to suppress any such uprising, while other military leaders may stand aside, or even throw in with the insurrectionists.
What the military may or may not do might also depend upon the stated goal(s) of the insurrectionists, and how their practice mirrors their stated goal(s)
It really boils down to what you believe our military leaders are capable of doing (or not doing), what the civil populace may be capable of doing (or not doing), and what the civil authorities may be capable of doing (or not doing).
Hell, if the civil authorities get wayyy out of hand, it may be the military starting the revolution, and the civil populace joining in locally in support, shooting federal agents and federal bureacrats who don’t renounce the current regime and swear allegiance to the revolution, with some military units remaining loyal to the current regime and fighting the “disloyal traitor dogs!” leading the revolution.
I might ask the question of you: “What do you think might precipitate a second American Revolution?” Your answers might provide some information to at least let me formulate what I think might happen, even as someone comes in right after me and posits something completely different.
I would just like to point out that there was a second American revolution. This would be the third, and unlike the first two need not be secessionist.
The only way I see a plausible third Revolution happening is with the National Guard defecting to the control of the state or states who want to start a revolution. Would the Army fight the Guard? Could they?
If the government is truly in danger of violent overthrow, all bets are off. I think they’d hit the rebels with everything they’ve got. Elements of the regular armed forces might defect, but I think that the troops are indoctrinated enough that they’d stay loyal.
Of course, if things are truly bad enough to justify a revolution that civillian authorities can’t swat down, that indoctrination may prove insufficient…
Like Ex-Tank said, impossible to say without knowing the situation surrounding it.
I think that if the Guard generals will fight, then the federal generals will also. And if your friend thinks that the government would play by some rule that if the rebellion can beat the NG, that they win, that’s silly.
Why exactly does he think that army officers wouldn’t accept to shot at american people while National Guard officers would?
IMO, in a civil war situation, all bets are off. I doubt you could mak an educated guess even if you were proposing a specific scenario. And hee, you’re just talking about an unspecified popular uprise in unknown circumstances by an undefined part of the population.
One again, it is difficult to answer without more detail.
Before your rebels faced National Guard troops, they would have to face police, FBI and other agencies. Then the National Guard and possibly elements of the active military.
Of course what if military units are involved? Then it’s a whole different ball game.
I think, assuming we’re not talking about a very small uprising (such as one of the small white supremacist militias that were popular in the 90s deciding to take over Montana or something)–which would be handled by law enforcement and then Natl. Guard forces–then I think that (a) the traditional military would absolutely fire upon the revolutionaries–why wouldn’t they? those damn traitors …-- but (b) you’d also quite possibly see a schism in the military, with some commanders and their forces joining the revolution.
The Insurrection Act allows the President to use Federal troops to put down rebellions inside the United States. If any general refused to follow the President’s orders, that general would most certainly be fired, and the process would repeat itself until the President found a general willing to command the US Armed Forces against domestic enemies of the US Consitution. Your friend is pulling his “facts” out of his posterior.
But it doesn’t really matter, because the Army and Air Guard are sufficient to flatten anything short of a massive uprising. Half of the Army’s infantry battalions are in the Army Guard, nearly half of the mechanized infantry, as well as large chunk of the artillery. It would be literally astonishing if our National Guard could be defeated on the battlefield. Tell your friend to look at Iraq: the bad guys are pulling out all stops against National Guard (and Active Duty) combatants there, and while it’s not clear how things may be resolved there politically (to put it as nicely as possible), the bad guys are consistently being crushed on the battlefield.
It really depends on the rebels themselves. Is their cause perceived as just?
I’ve read that Timmy McVeigh thought that after the bomb went off there would be an uprising against the government. That the population at large would look at it and say, ‘Of course, blow up the FBI!’ He was wrong.
IIRC FDR had General MacArthur ‘remove’ a tent city of homeless vets that had sprung up in Washington DC during the depression.
You skipped the step where a large enough percentage of the general population became convinced that they were willing to kill, to die, and to loose all social position to become revolutionary soldiers, but were still not willing to go vote. Or, where the government set aside an election for obviously self-defensive reasons, and probably did it more than once.
Then your definition of patriot gets re-examined. I will defend the Constitution. That’s what the soldiers are pledged to defend as well. If the military is ordered to interfere with that, a very large percentage would defect, out of loyalty to the oath. The officer corps would be important, but not entirely determinant. The modern army needs committed troops, willing to take orders. If a significant fraction of them feel the army is on the wrong side, they won’t take those orders.
By the way, the National Guard is the superior force in readiness, training, and experience, when compared to the Regular Army. It has a higher percentage of combat veterans as well, in recent years. As a cohesive force, (considering multiple states involved) the National Guard could take on most nations’ armies, and expect to be regarded as a major threat. Elite regular army forces are better trained, and experienced, but they are far fewer in number. Intelligent and perceptive men comprise those elite forces. They are unlikely to allow themselves to be duped into attacking innocent civilians over political issues.
That was the Bonus Army in 1932, and it was Hoover, not Roosevelt (who wasn’t even elected yet) who ordered MacArthur to disperse them. Not that MacArthur was averse to it…he was convinced the entire thing was a Communist plot.
I read a book recently, pure porn, but the general point of it was that, for (waving of hands) reasons, the govenor of Texas, who was a bright and shining hispanic woman whose brother was a catholic priest the secret service’s new model army was trying to kill, seceeded, and the national guard went with her. All of Texas, mostly, went. And New Mexico was considering it strongly.
What happens then, when the state-controlled forces stick with the state?
I wonder if your friend’s confusion isn’t from a misunderstanding of the Posse Comitatus Act, an act of Congress by which it is illegal for Federal troops to be used within the United States. Of course, there are multiple exceptions under Posse Comitatus and the later Insurrection Act by which Federal troops can be used internally, and an actual rebellion would qualify under nearly all of them. (It’s worth noting, as well, that when Posse Comitatus is relevant, it applies equaly to regular Armed Forces and National Guard units Federal command.)
Basically, ISTM, all Posse Comitatus and the Insurrection Act forbid is the routine use of Federal Armed Forces for police purposes.
Weren’t the majority of Union soldiers during the Civil War* enlistees in the regular army (as opposed to militia conscripts), and wasn’t the federal Army in overall charge of all Union troops?
I must say, that is a very complex plot of erotica.
In that case, the President issues an order to Federalize the National Guard of the rebelling state, and if they refuse to submit to that order, the First Army marches in and the Alamo is re-created. With bigger explosions.
