In April 1943, Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Jews tied up over 2000 crack SS troops for about a month, and who lost several* armored vehicles* and at least 100 casualties.
The Jewish defenders had mainly pistols and hand-made bombs.
1943 was a very critical time for the Nazis. If instead of one Warsaw, there had been dozens, WWII would have been over much earlier.
Well hell, since it’s just a bunch of stupid words from the 1700s we might as well just scrap the whole Constitution. Forbidding the government from establishing a religion, protecting individuals from unreasonable search and seizure, and recognizing that people cannot be compelled to testify against themselves? That’s just stupid 1700s thinking and we don’t need any of that nonsense in today’s world.
Perhaps you can find a better line of reasoning. The U.S. Constitution has served us well for the last 221 years even though we have amended it from time to time. Saying that it’s not valid because it was written in the 1700s is simply a poor argument. This is the Pit through so you’re off the hook. You’re not required to make a reasoned argument.
I’ll risk wading back in to ask a question: The examples given in this thread of effective non-government armed uprisings are all of what might be termed “well regulated Militia”. It’s also been suggested that a government can deal with arbitrarily many armed individuals.
As far as I’m aware, most U.S. gun owners don’t belong to some greater organization (except I guess the NRA, which I wouldn’t expect to start issuing edicts unless gun ownership specifically were on the line), which would seem to put them at a severe disadvantage when it comes to the OP.
Am I wrong about these ideas, or is there expected to be a grass-roots-type action given certain tipping-point circumstances or what have you?
Not everyone thinks that having our society awash in a sea of guns is a good idea, OR that it’s a right.
And yes, gun rights are helping erode other civil rights. People are encouraged to focus on gun rights, so everything that matters can be taken away without resistance while they clutch their stupid guns.
I’d argue that the WGU was, essentially, a collective insurrection of individuals.
I’d also argue that once a significant tipping point has been reached, individual cells would form, probably along the same lines as social networks. Perhaps with an overarching national structure if a leader emerged somewhere. And past a certain point, it doesn’t matter all that much. If all the IED bombings in Iraq were the random actions of small groups of people working in coordination, they’d have exactly the same effect as if they were planned by a grand conspiracy.
Push any group of people far enough, and some will push back. Push hard enough, and brutally enough, and there may be enough people who trust each other that they can discuss and work towards a common cause. Have enough individual groups working towards the same common cause, and you have a rebellion on your hands. Have enough groups working towards a common cause who wear no uniform and do their best to blend into the civilian populace, and you’ve got a guerrilla insurrection where the occupiers may need to ‘destroy the village in order to save it’.
And simply because broad-brush yahoos who evidently have their reality informed by comic books need this driven home: My father is a life-long Democrat, a hippy back in the day, an opponent of the religious right, a non-religious Jew, a donor to numerous charities and political causes including Obama’s election campaign… and someone who owns a handgun.
I recognize the facts of the matter - that guns in the hands of a determined civilian populace can make occupation expensive and possibly prohibitively so for the occupier. I do not have fantasies of ‘saving America’. I do not spend my time in survival training so that I could give my life bravely fighting off some military coup that will almost definitely never happen. I don’t even own a gun myself, although I’d like to purchase a handgun because I like target shooting and admire the elegance of the weapon’s engineering. And I’d like to own a rifle and/or a shotgun because I do not approve of the factory farming system we have set up, and I would rather eat free-range meat when I could be be responsible for making a clean kill, myself.
I believe that the recent SCOTUS decision was correct, and I believe that if you want to change the way things are, you should use the proper path and try to amend the constitution. I would oppose such an amendment, but commend you for at lest following proper procedure rather than back-door-de-facto-bans. I also have issues that I vote on which are much more important to me than “gun control”.
If someone’s ignorant, hate-riddled, paint-by-numbers comic book fantasy world doesn’t include space for people like me, or like my father, then fuck them sideways with a hedgehog.
When I put my life on the line low those many years ago, I knew it was also for guys like Der Trihs. The only consolation I have is that he and his kind will never have anything they will die for nor will they support their neighbor if there is any cost at all to them personally.
I do know that they will never personally take anything or anyone from me. As a collective cancer, they may be able to elect the seeds of their own destruction but I will never have to fight them other than at the polls. Nothing is worth that much effort to them and they are very easy to physically neutralize.
The whole premise of the thread and it’s silly generalizations is just a teapot for them to get their jollies in stirring…
They are really helping folks focus on those other things that they are so worried about…
And whose fault is that? Maybe if the Democrats stopped supporting illogical laws like the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, your opponents would no longer be able to use it against them. If people can see the Republicans as the lesser of two evils, shouldn’t that tell you something about how much of a fuck-up the Democrats are?
What, adopt a nuanced, rational position when dealing with the Evil Religious Fascist Conservative Gun Nuts?
Do you want Der’s head to explode or something? Do you want to make him cry? If he doesn’t have anybody to hate and feel superior to, how will he find self worth?
Regarding the OP, I am with the crowd that thinks an armed populace mainly serves to make empire-building politicians think twice. Or even once for that matter.
Regarding gun control overall, I am in favor of private gun ownership from a purely practical point of view. There are something like 200 million privately owned guns in the USA. Your average gun can last 100 years or more if properly cared for. Even if we wanted to, we can’t wish them away.
Given this basic fact, I am strongly in favor of legal gun ownership. Because the criminals are well armed, and the cops in my town barely respond unless there’s blood on the ground. My plan is to make sure it’s not my blood that hits the bricks.
That’s my entire stance on gun control and we can skip all the right / wrong bullshit.
Indeed, and guess what? D-Day involved outside forces, to what I think i’d call at least a reasonable extent. I have entirely no problem with saying that a resistance force, backed up with and aiding a considerable military force, would provide a significant advantage; because that’s the point i’ve been arguing, except on the anti-resistance side. Take out the Allies, and I rather suspect the Nazis would still be in power for quite a while longer. Moreover, this is still an example of an invading outside force.
And it isn’t hard at all to see what might have happened if more pro-Nazi groups were armed and resisted the resistance at each point.
And being costly is not enough if you can still be crushed. It’s not enough to simply temporarily halt plans if they’re going to get underway again afterwards; it can’t just be costly, but too costly to bother with trying to stop resisting activities. Turning what would be a succes for the tyranny into a bloody, tricky success for the tyranny doesn’t help unless they start going “Well, shit, this isn’t a good idea”.
Yes, you’re right, i’ve been ignoring them by addressing your claims and attempting to rebut them. That’s the very definition of ignoring.
It makes a huge difference whether the occupiers are from within or without, because if they are from within then the sentiments that have lead the military to support a coup will very likely also exist in the population to a similar extent. An occupying force from without does not imply any kind of sympathetic sentiments with the populace - if anything, it implies a distinct amount of sentiments against.
No, I haven’t. The sentiments among the military will likely be the same as the ones in the populace at large. If there’s plenty of support, there need be few purges. If there’s very little support, there would need to be massive purges. And so I asked for examples were there had been a coup of small size that lasted against a military that was in majority against it. That to me seems a reasonable point.
I’ve allowed the idea that the sentiments among the military will be similar to those among the populace. You’re the one assuming a small group of conspirators will be able to purge a military that is largely against them. If you’re talking crafting examples carefully to support one’s view, I think that particular idea is far more of a leapt conclusion.
But it would mean not just improved ability to defend, but improved ability to attack, is my point. There would be fewer silent nighttime abductions and more nighttime killings; more shoutouts and dead Nazis, indeed, but more dead Jews into the bargain. And I agree with your second point, but I don’t believe that that critical threshold comes anywhere close until we’re talking widescale military weaponry. Besides, I would not accuse the Nazis and those aligned with them of a surfeit of practicality.
My problem is that it would not be ten you would be facing anymore, but twenty, thirty. There’s little salvation to be found in a gun if it means your enemies on the other side now have considerable backup. I agree with your point; there is moral value in being able to defend against an attacker, and kill, even if you yourself will be killed as well. But not if the means by which you may defend means a rather considerable majority is given the means to attack. You may kill a couple, but there are more of them to kill; more able to fulfil their cause, even without those you manage to take out.
So, it’s better to just accept things and docilely board the cattlecar? Fuck that.
No, that’s not what i’m saying. It certainly is better to fight back - but a situation wherein you are able to fight back better is not an improved one if it means your enemy is able to quash you much more effectively. It’s not one that should be desired. What you want is for there to be a situation where you can fight back but your enemy does not gain a considerable advantage. But, either way, morally, it is a entirely good thing to fight back.
Thank you for suggesting that of me, by the way. Would it be too much to ask for a retraction of the idea that I think it would have been good if the Jews had put up no fight at all? It’s a rather serious accusation, after all.
Nope. “Fewer than 20” divisions, let’s say that’s 19, out of 300, is 6.3 %. And that’s in all theaters, not just one. And in the largest one of those theaters, the Eastern Front, they weren’t really armed civilians, they were military and ex-military, supplied and assisted by the Red Army (in 1941 the Russians had problems helping their behind-the-lines troops; in 1944 there was a lot more assistance provided).
Nobody’s proved to me, or to John Keegan, that partisans – much less the substantially less effective French Resistance, which shouldn’t be confused with the Partisan movements in WWII – were crucial in D-Day happening. D-Day was going to happen from the moment Hitler declared war on the US, and most of the world knew it. The presence or absence of resistance movements wouldn’t have canceled the invasion of Europe. It’s exactly this kind of overstatement that has given people such an inflated idea of resistance.
Neither Iraq nor colonial America could have done half as much without enormous outside assistance – in Iraq’s case, foreign fighters from Iran and many other countries, but especially with Iranian weapons support; in America’s case, France.
Sure, a resistance heavily supported by outside powers can make a badly-run war effort falter (see Barbara Tuchman for just how badly the British ran their war; see the news archives if you think Bush ran the Iraq one well).
Is that your plan? That outside powers will invest heavily in helping us rebel against the government, and the gov’t will make a lot of mistakes? Sounds cozy.
It ain’t what you want that makes you fat, it’s what you get. You fight back whether it’s the situation you want or not; especially when your enemy’s purpose is to exterminate your people.
Suggestion retracted, but only because your post quoted above clarified your position.
In case anyone hasn’t already mentioned it. Iraq.
His point may well be that there have been excellent arguments on both sides of the ownership/con law issue. If you had listened to the oral arguments last May or June when SCOTUS heard the DC (Heller) handgun ban, you would have heard well founded, intelligent arguments by both sides. Concentrating the power of violence in the state isn’t something new or even something limited to the “reds?” It’s been around for as long as there have been governments.
I did listen to the arguments. I am very involved in 2 Ammendment activism and have been for nearly 30 years. Our resident commie bastard has made his idiotic point about private gun ownership reducing everybody’s civil rights so many times that I know exactly what he meant. I’ve also seen antis in action enough to know their behavior patterns.
The fucking reds weren’t the first to concentrate power in their own hands, but they have_by far_the bloodiest hands.
It’s 1955, “Negroes” are effectively prevented from voting, have to sit in the back of busses, and have segregated schools. Who should they have shot first? Teachers and bus drivers are a nice soft target, but should they have gone to the statehouse even though it probably had better security?
2008: Proposition 8 passes in CA. Who should gay people shoot first?
I can’t think of any other option to get rid of tyrany in these two cases.
Guns are not the answer to every problem.
This does not mean that they aren’t the answer to any problems.
You knew that, though.