Actually, until 1934, any American citizen could legally own any weapon in the world.
In 1934 a very few weapons were outlawed(machine guns and sawed off shotguns) but still, most military weapons, artillary, mortars, anti tank guns, etc were still legal for any U.S. citizen to buy and own until 1968. Dynamite was legal until 1970 and anybody could go to a local hardware store and by a box of dynamite until then.
The fact is, and as the founding fathers designed it, it was the private citizens who were better equiped than the regular United States military until very recently in our history. For example, my own family had repeating rifles long before, decades before, most United States troops were issued them.
As far as pot-bellied, middle-aged, football-watching joes not being brave enough, for most of our history, we did not rely on a standing army to fight our battles. It was the average citizen, even some middle aged citizens, who joined up and kept us free. Most of the Americans who landed at Normandy, who were at Concord, who fought the indians, who were in the civil war, etc were average Joes just a few years before, and most of them were brave, or at least brave enough for us to win.
Dang, carolynnjulie you accidently left out this ammendment of my own making;
You see, I knew what I was saying wasn’t simply a matter of courage. What? Dedication? Passion? Enthusiasm? I’m sure that if an outside country were to try and invade the US, a lot of us would jump to enlist. But that’s not the spirit of the question being asked. Others have said that the OP isn’t really relevant. I tried to put it in a more modern context. I used my imagination thusly;
What if the Patriot Act does continue to expand in power and scope. Each time the govt adds one more little rule some people grumble but do nothing. So what’s-his-name and his gronies say “cool, they’ll bitch but they won’t do anything but bitch. Let 'em bitch”, And they keep adding stuff till a lot of folks get really pissed. Really, really pissed. By far, most citizens now hate the PA. But Bush says “People who bitch are traitors. Don’t make me call out the Guard”.
So a bunch of Libertarians grab their assault weapons and say “Let’s roll”.
There’s the scenario. Now who’s gonna help those guys?
I don’t this reply, this rephrasing of the OP, calls for an opinion, really. There is a factual answer, and it’s pretty obvious.
BTW; you also moved my tongue-in-cheek “warship” comment from the title part to the body part of my reply, changing it’s meaning a little. Pretty sneaky.
If you accept the ‘war on terror’ as a real war, which since the attacks on NYC and DC, I would venture to say most would, one only has to look to Isreal to see that a well armed populus can overcome attacks.
• The military value of a partisan’s work is not measured by the amount of property destroyed, or the number of men killed or captured, but by the number [of the enemy which] he keeps watching [him].
John Singleton Mosby, 1833-1916, Confederate Cavalry Leader
I find it a bit hard to believe that people are depicting the War of 1812, which is of such minor significance to the British that it’s not really even taught in their schools, as some sort of big military victory.
Yes, Jackson (a general in the regular army, yes?) won the Battle of New Orleans (actually Chalmette) in 1815 after a peace treaty was signed. This obviously had no effect on the outcome of things. Again: British troops (apparently mainly Canadians) burned most of what was worth burning in our capital to the ground. The capital, furthermore, of a primarily agrarian country which hadn’t yet built up much in its swampy new capital worth burning. That sort of makes one’s point, then they moved on to bigger fish worth worrying about, like France.
I have little doubt that if the UK were serious about committing resources to truly invade and occupy this country they would have done so without Jan Cheese or future little Johnny Reb and his blunderbuss over the fireplace having much to say about it. We might even have a little Union Jack or - perish the thought - MAPLE LEAF in the upper left hand corner of the flag to this day.
So? Is it your contention that the British didn’t try or knew about the peace? Jackson defeated elements of the greatest army in the world with pretty much untrained militia while being outnumbered something like 2 to 1.
In addition, the History channel didn’t go into the battles (like Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane for example) on the great lakes that we WON later in the war (albiet with regular US army troops…still a pretty great achievement when you consider the fact that the British were the greatest military in the world having just spanked Napolean…and that the US basically started the war with no real military to speak of). There were also naval engagements in the great lakes that we won when there was parity of forces.
Reguardless of how seriously the British took this war (they DID send 10,000 troops to New Orleans and I think 8000 for the burning of DC…not exactly paltry forces for the time) it was still a great achievement for the US…and it won us a lot of respect in the world as a power not to be triffled with in the future. It was a second revolution that proved the first (to paraphrase). Its easy to joke about it now…but at the time it was the equivalent of a nation like, say, Iraq, going up against the US. Maybe even worse than that in fact…say Grenada.
Actually, I believe the force that burned DC and besieged Ft McHenry was made up of British regulars freed up from duty in Europe by the successes in the Peninsular Wars. I don’t believe there were any significant numbers of Canadians in the mix. It is true however that the bulk of the fighting done on the British side during the war was done by Canadians - local militias and a few regulars who were themselves largely locals turned back any number of invasion forces sent by the Americans, and launched a few abortive counteroffensives themselves.
There’s a heck of a lot of disinformation about the War of 1812 floating around in this thread though (not so much in Crandolph’s post). I can’t possibly see how one could say that the Americans weren’t the aggressors. Sure they had some grievances, and some of them were even legitimate, but they unquestionably initiated the military hostilities.
Regarding the pressing of American sailors: the diplomatic fiction the British maintained was that they were pressing only Royal Navy deserters. This was certainly false - they were certainly pressing others as well, the Royal Navy being chronically short of manpower during the Napoleonic Wars and not much caring how ships’ captains filled out their crews. However, it is also unquestionably true that there were in fact Royal Navy deserters sailing on most any ship on the high seas in those days, so the pretext wasn’t completely unreasonable.
It’s completely ridiculous to portray the War of 1812 as American civilians successfully resisting the Redcoats. Almost all fighting on the US side was done by regular troops, although it should be understood that at the time the US had no standing army. Generals raised armies consisting of volunteers who signed up for a certain number of months (some invasion attempts fizzled after successful beginnings when troops up and left for home when their time was up…really competantly run war, it was). What happened is that the Americans tried numerous times to invade Canada, and had only extremely limited success. (Lundy’s Lane was an American victory??? How’s that work? Suffer roughly equal casualties, and then retreat. Some victory.) A few border towns were sacked, York (Toronto) was burned (which was likely the motivation for the burning of DC), the British were forced to abandon Amherstburg (but of course the US was forced to abandon Makinac). The Americans did decisively turn back the few counteroffensives launched by the British, and most significantly, enjoyed quite an amazing level of success in frigate duels with the RN - though of course any actual battle fleet of the RN would have sent the American frigates to the bottom in short order, had any American captain been insane enough to engage with ships of the line.
The usual consensus on the results of the war is that it had no real winner. No ground was won by either side. The Americans proved that they could survive a fight with the British, though of course the significance of this is greatly diminished by the contemporaneous exploits of that short guy in the blue coat on the Continent. The RN agreed to stop pressing American sailors at the end of the war, but that was mostly due to the fact that they were standing down a great many ships since they were no longer trying to blockade every deep water harbour in France. The Battle of New Orleans mostly just demonstrates that Pakenham could be a real idiot. The most that can be said about the war is that it did demonstrate to the world that the States were in fact independent.
Well, I agree that the American War of Independence certainly started out with such, and without such it would never have even had a chance. so there one. And again, in Texas carolynnjulie makes a good point. Not so with the Confederate Army, which had plenty of (ex) Federal troops, forts and munitions to start with.
To a large extent, the American Militia in 1775 was Local Militia, not in any way paid for by the Crown. And, the irregulars did great service and turned the tide in the early days. Sure, trained Regalurs were needed to win- but the local Militia and the Irregulars (dudes in buckskins with squirrel guns shooting from behind trees) allowed the fledgling USA to raise such regulars.
Crandolph- despite the fact that the battle of NO was after the treaty was signed (but before the war was over, whch is something they often forget to mention- you also forgot, I will note) it did have an important effect or maybe two. GB had been saying "well, if we could only pin those colonials down to a pitched battle with our Veteran troops, you’ll see that the Yankees will turn tail and run.’ But the Battle of NO showed exactly the opposite, giving America a huge boost in world esteem. And, I will point out, there had been murmerings in New England to secede, and the results of that battle squashed them soundly. But I will agree that the fighting (on land) in the War of 1812 was mostly by regulars. Not so on the sea, where our privateers were perhaps the real reason GB made peace. I also agree to some extent with Gorsnak- perhaps the Americans weren’t the aggressors but there was a strong minority that wanted any excuse to go to war so that we could take Canada. However- the Brits basicly forced us into a corner- either we had to admit that we had no rights at all on the ocean, or we had to do *something. * And Diplomatic “somethings” were being completely & rudely ignored. Yes, we did start the hostilities, but…
Back to the OP. Do I think that such forces with such weapons could win in a modern conflict? No, but they could make the difference, and they seem to perhaps be a deterance.
Well, yes and no. I believe GB’s position was basically twofold (ignoring for a moment the Western issues of the fur trade and arming of Tecumseh). First, the US must behave exactly was GB dictates with regards to matters of trade vis a vis France, French colonies, or various allies of France (i.e., most of the world), or GB will consider the US as a de facto ally of France. And second, ships under the US flag must not shelter RN deserters. Now the US was in fact intent on trading with France, and ships under US flag routinely carried sailors who had deserted from the Royal Navy, so the RN routinely boarded those ships under US flag to examine cargo and sweep up deserters…and in the course of doing so pressed other sailors into service should the RN vessel in question be short of manpower. Now, given the circumstances on the Continent, and the extent to which GB was threatened, these aren’t entirely unreasonable positions, with the exception of the pressing of sailors who’d never been in the RN. There was a war going on, and the US diplomatic position was basically that the US should be able to be on friendly terms with both sides. Well, perhaps, but one shouldn’t expect the primary combatants to agree. And, you will note, this isn’t so far from the same sort of attitude seen between the US and USSR during the Cold War. I can understand why Americans were frustrated by British policies, but I can’t see that it’s particularly reasonable to condemn those British policies very harshly given the circumstances.
Moreover, since the hawks in 1812 were explicitly of the opinion that now was the time to invade and annex the Canadian colonies precisely because the British military machine was preoccupied with Bonaparte, I simply cannot see how the US cannot be seen as the aggressor. As I said, some legitimate grievances, certainly, but twas the US who invaded Canada.
Now this is what I don’t get. Posters talk of making a showing, but maybe (surely) not being successful. How does one make a difference in an uprising if one doesn’t win? Seems to me that if you attack the government you either win, die, or go to jail. And their attempt is likely to “justify” even more of what they’re rebelling against!
Anyway, the govt (and Big Money) likes us just the way we are. Docile.
Peace,
mangeorge
I disagree strongly on the second one. Basicly, the RN was stopping ships of a sovereign nation without any treaty allowing them to do so, and if they didn’t stop- firing into them. Really, IMHO- it wasn’t so much deserters as GB saying “the ocean is OURS, no one has any rights on the high seas unless we allow them”. Certainly, no British ship would stop and let Americans search it for Deserters on the high seas! It was bullying, plain & simple. As to the first point- International law (which was weak and confusing at that time, admittedly) allowed one to have a “blockade” around an enemies nations seacoast. Outside that- on the “high seas” stopping another nations ship was tanatmoount to piracy. In fact, the Brits charged Yanks with exactly that for stopping ships on the High seas!
And, since GB often pressed men illegally (under their own laws), calling them 'deserters" is a bit much. Nor were US ships much of a haven for them, as we had plenty of our own seamen, and didn’t want or need Jack Tars.
Actually, between the high pay on American boats, and the general respect for British seamanship, a lot of British sailors did sign onto Amerrican boats.
And, of course, Britain agreed to stop the boarding of American ships before the war started.
With respect to “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights” and the War of 1812, the whole thing needs to be examined in the context of the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Britain did indeed claim the right to exclude neutral shipping from French ports and from ports in countries allied with France (read occupied or intimidated by France) as a war measure. At several times that was just about all of Europe. France at the same time had imposed the “Continental System” on Europe that excluded British shipping and British goods from the continent. Both countries were in what they regarded as a struggle that had to be won at all costs. France was dominant on the continent and could exclude legitimate British commerce although there was a fair amount of smuggling much of it centered in the Channel Islands. Britain was pretty much dominant at sea and sought to keep neutral vessels from carrying goods into French ports the immunity granted neutrals by accepted practice notwithstanding. Since a fair amount of the neutral shipping was American the US bore the brunt of the British embargo. International law did give immunity to neutral vessels but Britain was in a position to pretty well do what it wanted with impunity. Thomas Jefferson’s answer some five or six years before the war was to impose a self-embargo which won him no friends in New England which was heavily dependent on sea born commerce with Europe and inspired a short lived New England separatist movement.
In short Britain pursued a Big Dawg policy as far as doing anything that hurt France and kept the British fleet manned. The end of the war coincided with Napoleon’s abdication which meant that Britain no longer needed to embargo France and no longer needed to have so big a naval establishment and as aggressive a press service. American grievances never were formally resolved, they just ceased to be an issue. Britain quit seizing American cargoes and pressing merchant sailors from US ships not because of the war with the US but because they just didn’t need to do it any more.
So,
Is there another thread, in IMHO or GD I would guess, that actually addresses what I think the OP is getting at? You know, could the present population (armed as we are) repel a take-over of the USA from within or without?
I think it’s a very interesting question, even when separated from the claims of some gun enthusiasts.
Although Britain made concessions, it was too late, and news of it did not reach America until AFTER we were forced to declare war on Britain.
When congress declared war on Britain, at the time, we had no knowledge/news that Britian would stop the main grievance that caused the war. (Similarly, the Battle of New Orleans was fought after the treaty, but those fighting it did not know of the news )
If news had reached America that Britain would stop seizing our ships and pressing our sailors, congress would not have declared war, and we wouldnt have went to war in 1812.
You make a difference, or a deterrence, by making it extremely costly for a goverment to continue to keep trying to oppress a citizenry. Vietnam raised havoc on Japanese, French, and American troops for over half a century, to such an extent that the Japanese, French, or Americans never realized a profit(or a peace) in trying to maintain a presence in Vietnam.
If a dictator wants to oppress a people, or a nation, to take its resources, can it do it more cheaply, faster, and with less cost if the citizenry there offer no resistance, or if they fight you tooth and nail year after year, decade after decade and kill your troops each day? Dont forget, that although a citizen might only have a hunting rifle, after he shoots one of your occupying troops, he now has grenades, an M16, and maybe a bazooka or anything else he takes off the dead soldier.
But, carolynnjulie, in those cases the upriser wins. They get a lot of stuff from your dead soldier and kick ass. If, of course, they can get enough people to join them.
See what I mean?
Many times those who resist get stomped and gain nothing. Look at the Kurds.
I’ll say this with caution, but look at the Confederate States. They never had a chance, did they?
Read again what I quoted from DrDeth.
