If the US were somehow occupied by a foreign army, that army would have already defeated the US army, navy, air force and marines. I don’t care how many citizens you have with rifles or even “assault weapons”, you are not going to defeat them then.
To more directly address the OP, no citizen’s militia, guerilla or partisan force (whether armed with legally- or illegally-owned weapons) has ever freed its country absent a standing army, either of that country on an external one. I’m limiting my thinking here to the firearms era.
Texas was invaded in the firearms age, and the Texans defeated the Mexican army primarily with their privately owned personal guns.
British invasion in the War of 1812 also during the firearms age - The History channel in tonight’s show said that when the British invaded the United States in 1812, we had almost no army, and that what few officers in the army that we did have, were not experienced officers since nearly all of the experienced officers from 1775 were no longer in the military. Not only did we rely on American citizens with their privately owned personal firearms, we/Madison also relied on people who privately owned warships/privateers(which also was legal for U.S. citizens at that time)
I don’t know. There are tons and tons of examples of farmers turned soldiers fighting wars to remove a foreign invader but finding one that had no outside support when it came to military arms might be hard.
Carolyn
Interesting point. Maybe to some extent, 2 centuries ago, an armed populace had some kind of chance aginst a foreign invader or an oppressive government. Two centuries ago you could expect an enemy to have rifles and cannon. Okay, maybe there were’nt any privately-owned cannon, but at least the populace could generally expect that the weapons technology would be roughly equivalent.
However, over the last 2 centuries, weapons technology has gone through such a phenomenal leap, a counrtry’s military may now consist of tanks, flame-throwers, jet fighters, bombers, battleships, submarines, fuel-air bombs, H-Bombs, etc. An armed citizenry would have no chance against that.
Well, see, thats another arguement then. Thats how I originally read it too, so the answer is yes…personal possession of firearms HAS defended a country before…many times. They weren’t always SUCCESSFUL defenses, but certainly without all the qualifiers you can easily make several cases that support this.
However, if you then go on to qualify by discounting, personal possession of arms they then organized, eventual integration into regular formation, oh, and some people with actual military experience eventually led them…well, then the answer is no. In other words, its a loaded question in several different ways.
Its loaded because I can’t think of ANY country that fits the narrow definitions being put forth. Countries that A) Allow for general ownership of firearms by there citizens (a VERY small group of nations in the history of firearms), B) Actually were invaded or otherwise forced their populations to have to defend themselves, C) Defended themselves without organizing and without having people of past military experience lead them. Its like asking how many one armed Scottsmen there are…oh, also, that have red hair, a scar on their right cheek and antenna growing out of their heads…and were born on January the 34th.
If we look at popular resistances in the past, certainly citizens, armed in whatever manner (either though captured arms, through outside agencies or nations, or even armed internally by their governments) HAVE in fact done very well in defending themselves. Look at the Russian resistance and partisan groups of WWII. Look at the Viet Cong in Viet Nam. The US in the Revolutionary war and in the war of 1812 (btw, the history channel presentation of this was great IMHO…I loved it). Look at the Iraqi resistance today. There are myriad examples of citizen resistance groups out there who fought to defend their homes…some successful, some not so.
Either way, this isn’t a good arguement either for or against the 2nd amendment (which I think is the point of this excersize). We’ve moved beyond the need for citizen soldiers armed with their own militias long ago, and perhaps we need to, as a country, review this ammendment and decide if our citizens should still have the right to keep and bear arms. If the OP wants to DEBATE the 2nd ammendment, then s/he should open a thread in GD and debate the issue in good faith.
I think this OP is a rather backhanded way of attacking the 2nd amendment without getting into a debate, to ask a ‘factual’ question coached in such a way that the answer seems to show the 2nd ammendment to be falsafied…without actually debating in good faith about it…setting up a ridiculous set of parameters that just don’t go together in the real world.
In the REAL world of course, things are messy. In rebellions, invasions or wars of national liberation the lines between the regular military and militia…and even irregular forces of citizens…tend to blur. Especially in invasions you have a mix of regular forces fighting along side irregular citizen forces…as in the early US examples.
I think there are several interesting debates here. The first one is to set this up AS a debate, and ask the question again without all the qualifiers. The second intersting debate is to ‘what if’ the scenerio of the US getting taken over and debate that…WOULD an armed US population be decisive if there was an invasion, or would it be moot that so many citizens own firearms? The third of course is to debate the 2nd ammendment itself (though of course there have been myriad debates in GD on this…which I figure is why this was done in GQ).
xtisme
I don’t think it was priceguy’s intent to “trick” us, although you seem to think so.
*I think this OP is a rather backhanded way of attacking the 2nd amendment without getting into a debate, to ask a ‘factual’ question coached in such a way that the answer seems to show the 2nd ammendment to be falsafied
*
I think we have all seen a great many GQ’s in which the topics are highly controversial (death penalty, abortion, etc) but the question was narrowed down sufficiently as to avoid all opinion and debate on the subject.
Just speaking off the cuff, I could ask in GQ 'How many abortions are done specifically because the child will have birth defects such as Down’s Syndrome, muscular dystrophy, etc) ?
I see no reason for deception in asking a question like that in GQ nor do I see why it would require a discussion of the legal, ethical, moral aspects of abortion.
No, I wasn’t intending to trick anybody.
No, I don’t want to discuss the 2nd amendment here.
However, in discussions about the 2nd amendment, the argument occasionally crops up that legal guns are a way to overthrow oppressive governments or resisting takeovers of a country. I therefore wanted to know if this had ever happened.
More clarifications:
The guns need to be legal, since the argument is used in favour of legal guns. If the people behind the takeover make guns illegal, they still count as legal for the purpose of this argument. They must have been obtained while legal, though.
The guns need to be privately owned.
The populace is free to use people with prior military experience, military-style organization etc.
Furthermore, if it turns out that such a thing has in fact never happened, this will have an extremely tiny impact on discussions regarding the 2nd amendment, since this argument is a pretty uncommon one in such discussions, and also because there’s no reason it can’t happen just because it hasn’t happened.
I don’t know much about this war, but even if these warships were privately owned, the government was the one organizing and using them. This was not an example of armed citizenry fighting against an oppressing regime, but just normal government against government warfare of that era. Besides, I thought Americans were the attacking side of that conflict, and the British were merely defending Canada plus their other interests? Certainly a full-scale war in America was out of question for the British side, what with Napoleon still in French throne.
I think the OP was perfectly fair and a legitimate general question. The War of 1812 was mentioned and if you get a chance, the History Channel ran a pretty decent documentary on that last night and if they repeat, be sure to catch it. Certainly armed citizens helped in the defense of New Orleans, but they were under the direction of Andrew Jackson so I wouldn’t put them in the same boat as the fictitious Red Dawn resisters. It seems to me such a notion would have been more possible in the 19th century, when the military didn’t have weapons (except for artillery) that was that much superior than what the common man had to hunt with. The tech gap between private arms and military arms is now to the point where armed militia would have no chance whatever against any national military, providing the military was willing to fire on civilians.
I suspect that we may be dealing with a fundamental misconception about the start of the American Revolution and the nature of the colonial militia. The militia as it existed in late 18th century America was not a spontaneously created force of self armed citizens. It was a long standing military organization which had been a significant auxiliary to regular British armed forces during the several French and Indian Wars. It was part of the British military establishment. It was armed by the crown with the same basic weapons issued to the regulars. Its officers and NCO were appointed by the colonial governors who were clearly agents of the imperial government in London. The Minute Men were companies within the larger militia organization who were charged with responding to threats and raids by reporting to their assembly point on a half hour’s notice.
The battles of 19 April 1775 may fairly be seen as a mutiny within the British army as much as a rising by an armed citizenry – not unlike the revolt of the generals in Algeria that brought our old buddy DeGaulle to power. Don’t make the mistake of confusing poetry with history.
The argument that armed citizens cannot stand against a modern army fails to realize that often said army cannot bring it’s full might to bear for political or practical reasons. The US could nuke the Iraqi resistance into submission, but at present is not likely to do so.
Also, if there are instances where weapons were obtained illegally to resist either foreign or domestic takeovers, that’s actually an argument for legal ownership, as those same cases would’ve been as or more successful if the weapons had been owned legally and presumably easier to obtain/more widespread).
Except Texas vs Mexico doesn’t fit, because that wasn’t a foreign invasion. Texas was a part of Mexico, and the Texicans were rebelling against Mexican rule.
It fits. The original post specifies “overthrown oppressive government”, it just didn’t fit in the thread title. I don’t know how oppressive the Mexicans were, but the Texans mustn’t have liked them much.
I’ll give the OP the benifit of the doubt and retract my backhanded 2nd ammendment comments.
However, why would anyone find this question interesting with such constraints on it? It doesn’t really address anything when you start piling up caviots and limits.
Are you claiming that the militia in pre-US days was not made up of citizen soldiers using their own weapons? You seem to be saying this, but I have to ask for a cite on this as it runs contrary to my understanding.
That the British fully armed and equiped (and I assume trained) the militia…well, I have to ask why the militias when they ‘revolted’ were so poorly armed, equiped and trained then…at least initially. Certainly the small REGULAR US formations were equiped with standardized guns and equipment, and had some training…but the militias?? I need to see some cites to back this up that this was the norm for US colonial militia. Mind you, I’m not talking about the ammunition (powder and shot, which I could very well see the British supplying…and later the US Government) but the weapons themselves.
Certainly if this is true that the British supplied (directly, and not through capture) the majority of the weapons used by the militia and other resistance in the Revolutionary War then it somewhat degrades the arguement that citizen soldiers used their own weapons in defense of their homes…IF its true of course.
Well, you’d need to establish that the militia was armed from the Government and not using their own private arms…the MAJORITY of the militia arms that is. If thats the case then you certainly have a point. If, however the militia WERE mostly using their own arms then what difference if Andrew Jackson lead them, or not?? He was only a militia officer himself (i.e. he wasn’t a US regular commisioned officer, but an appointed officer in the Tenn. Militia)…a citizen soldier who just happened to be fairly wealthy land owner with some military experience (though actually not much actual combat experience before the 1812 war). After all, wasn’t the 2nd ammendment (or at least part of it) specifically to allow citizens to have personal weapons FOR use in the militias?? Why put that in at all if it wasn’t a factor??
As far as the second part of your statement goes, I would have to disagree with you…modern weapons beginning with the fire arms age have made it EASIER to go up against regular forces, not harder…within certain constraints.
Certainly a US armed populace (or any other armed populace) would have zero ability to go up against a real military…militia never COULD go up against a real military head to head. Its all in the training, as well as the weapons. However, resistance forces rarely actually TRY and go up against full blown militaries head to head…at least the smart ones don’t.
When the Viet Cong changed their tactics and tried to come out in the open and directly attack the US military and SV forces during the Tet offensive they were nearly obliterated. Same with the Taliban with its militia forces…they initially tried to go head to head and were nearly wiped out. NOW they are reverting back to irregular formations using hit and run tactics and are at least marginally more successful. If the Iraqi resistance tried to come out of hiding and using its tactics of hit and run and instead go head to head with the US/UK forces in Iraq it would be over with fast.
Our hypothetical US civilians fighting a resistance with some occupying power would be in the same boat. They could (and probably would) make things miserable for the occupiers (think of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan…but probably even worse)…and having a ready store of initial (privately owned) weapons (realistically augmented with regular US weapons which I’m sure would be available…same as all those weapons lying around in Iraq were available for the resistance after the regular Iraqi formations disintegrated) in their hands would make the resistance start sooner and have more effect. They would also have access to real military leaders in the form of detached SF groups, or officers from the remnants of regular US formation. Even in Red Dawn (which keeps being brought up for gods know what reason) there were Special Forces and other officers that joined the band.
However if they tried to go head to head with the occupying forces, pitting their high powered hunting rifles and shot guns up against tanks, planes and machine guns…and most importantly TRAINING of the regular forces…they would be wiped out.
All in all I find the possibility of the US ever being occupied to put all this to the test remote in the extreme. Examples proposed by the OP are sparse because of all the constraints…there simply haven’t been very many nations invaded where personal firearm ownership was both general and legal, real life is messy, and the lines tend to blur between regular forces and militia, between ‘legally’ owned firearms and illegally (or otherwise) obtained ones from the various battlefields or captured from occupying or other regular forces, etc.
Like I said, maybe its time we reviewed the 2nd ammendment from a modern perspective and decided if we still want to allow our citizens the right to keep and bear arms. I think personal firearm ownership IS still viable (within certain constraints), but not because I think our citizens need them to defend themselves from invasion.
The argument is different in this case because it is a matter of principle that the military is not obligated to carry out an illegal order. Therefore you may assume that the military will more or less dissolve into splinter groups, each of which will have different capabilities. Interestingly, that will create unique scenarios where personal weapons will have the ability to affect the battles. For instance, if you’re fighting a tank divison a few well-placed snipers will remove the tank crewers, and if the caliber is heavy enough (like a .50 caliber rifle) you can actually take the tank out of action. If it’s an infantry division you can do hit-and-run attacks. If it’s an aircraft wing it gets tougher, but in addition to the fragmentaton of the military you also have the loss of skilled people to maintain an Air Force. You’ll also have defectors bringing their own weapons, because in spite of a military commitment I am first and foremost a citizen and my oath was to the Constitution, not to any individuals.
I think a legally armed populace has a hell of a chance should there ever be an attempted military coup, provided that the military comes apart when it happens. We have a well-armed populace with experienced veterans to lead the way, and as you can see in Iraq an insurgency can do some hella damage against even the most powerful opponents. Remove the organization and it becomes easier.
Seriously. The problem is, and why it hasn’t worked in the past (1812 is a squeaker) is, that there aren’t nearly enough armed and qualified and brave* citizens. Not even close. Those who start the uprising would have to become large, organized, and above all, successful before the rest of us would even think of joining in. The other guys shoot back, for crissakes.
*Brave isn’t the right word. Think of how many trained and well equipped and trained infantrymen turn tail (understandably) when faced with insurmountible odds. Now think of your average pot-bellied, middle-aged, football-watching joe facing organized battle with a superior force.
Screw that. I’m outta here. I’ll deal with it later, when we got bigger guns.
It was originally started by the British capturing American sailing vessels, seizing their cargo, and more or less making slaves of the American seamen, therefore, it was the British who first used force against American citizens and American ships.
Canada was invaded because that is where the British troops happened to be - Canada was British at that time, and you gotta go where the enemy is.
Lots of battles in any war are lost, e.g. the burning down of Washington, unsuccessful invasion of Canada, loss of Detroit, Dearborn, & Mackinaw, etc. but in the final analysis, it was the British who lost that war.
In answer to an earlier poster, the privateers, which were privately owned warships, were not “taken over by our government and their crews replaced by regular military Navy personnel”. The ships stayed private, the original citizen ship captains kept their ships and their civilian crews and their guns. Other ships, like the USS Constitution were regular government Navy ships which assisted the privateers.
The history channel also said that to prevent the British from going up and invading other cities, (Baltimore?) some privateers and captains of other private ships deliberately sunk their boats(at their own cost/personal loss) in the bay to keep the British ships from getting in there, effectively blockading, preventing the British from entering.
As far as the Texans, or the militia in 1775 or in 1812 having guns, they had their own private guns for the most part, there was no government in Texas to go out and buy guns for them. Lots of colonies/states had laws that private citizens(i.e. militia) were responsible for buying and owning their own guns, blankets, and canteens. It would have been great if England, and later the United States government gave each citizen a free gun, but they didnt, certainly at the start of each war, our government had to rely on people showing up for militia duty bringing their own guns with them. As the war progressed, our government started making powder and shot, and placed orders with gunsmiths to make more guns and cannon and ships at government expense.