The Second Amendment as a Defense Policy in the United States.

Recently I was reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Schirer. He relates that Germany never invaded Switzerland because the Swiss have many privately owned guns, and they feared being drawn into guerilla war with a “nation of sharpshooters”.

(Other reasons I have seen for the refusal to invade were fears over the safety of strategic tunnels, and the apparent fact that Swiss banks and other institutions were a valuable convenience, but this is not my main point).

In all the debates over the meaning of the Second Amendment, I have rarely heard the initial clause of the amendment debated. Instead, 99% of the time the debate is one over whether the amendment grants individual of collective rights in the second segment.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be
infringed.

Has the Second Amendment ever prevented or thwarted an invasion of America? In the War of 1812 for instance, did the fact that the American population was armed prevent a British reconquest? America and Britain (via Canada) had several subsequent threats of war in the 19th century. Was there ever an instance where a country’s plans to invade the United States (including hypothetical plans during the World Wars and Cold War) took into account American private arsenals?

No. Never. The US regulars prevented the British from reconquering. Plus, they really didn’t want to deal with the relatively unimportant North American situation with Napolean roaming around Europe.

There has never been another instance of a country even seriously threatening to invade the US.

And that story about the Nazis and Swiss is probably a bunch of bunk, by the way.

Haven’t you ever seen Red Dawn?

:wink:

Well, on the other hand an armed citizenry seems to be quite helpful in Israel. A number of terrorist attacks have been thwarted or minimized when the terrrorist was shot by an armed citizen. And private armed security seems to be fairly useful in protecting businesses.

The age of terrorism has probably given the 2nd amendment more justification than at any other time since the 1700’s.

Maybe so, Sam, but let’s face it, the guns aren’t exactly winning the war in Israel, either. And if the Arab nations decided to invade again, I sure as heck would rather rely on the Israeli and their equipment than a bunch of ragtag Israeli citizen guerillas. (Yes, I know about mandatory enlistment and such).

Private armed security can be useful in protecting businesses, sure, but they aren’t going to be much good against a foreign invasion.

Well of course. I’m not claiming that the guns are winning the war, just that maybe they’re protecting some civilians in the meantime. And in a terror war, that’s a pretty big factor.

Well, I have no problem with people owning guns myself. It’s just that the OP was talking about whether the Second Amendment is useful because of its use in scaring foreigners into not invading.

My response is that no, I don’t think it has ever played a part in another country’s plans to invade the US, nor would it be likely to in the modern age.

I think your points are a whole nother thread. :slight_smile:

Maybe no other nation since the War of 1812 never came all that close to invading the United States (unless you count Pancho Villa’s brigade in Columbus, NM), but I am sure at some point some country considered an invasion at a very preliminary level.

  1. Great Britain during the 1850’s Oregon dispute (when a British invasion via Canada was a very real threat).
  2. During the Spanish American War, when Spanish forces were only 90 miles away in Cuba. (highly unlikely of course)
  3. Germany’s much debated “Zimmerman Note” of World War I was alleged to have argued for a German backed Mexican invasion. (The authenticity of this note is of course, controversial).
  4. Nazi Germany or Japan probably had very long range plans for an eventual invasion. Alaska and Hawaii in particular could have been invaded by Japan.
  5. The Soviet Union, via Alaska or Cuba.

I know three out of these five were extremely unlikely, but historically, does the idea of America as an highly armed society contribute to the notion that invading the United States isn’t a good idea?

I think it’s worth pointing out that the US was not unusual in having few or no restrictions on guns in the 19th Century. There may have been no constitutional right to the possession of firearms in the UK, but in the 19th Century they were widely available and not at all regulated. The same, I suspect, would have been true of many, if not most, other countries.

The US as a frontier society (at least in part) might in fact have had a higher ratio of guns to people than more settled European societies but not, I suspect, than Canada or Mexico. So my hypothesis is that private gun ownership was no more influential in preventing invasion of the US than it was in preventing invasion of Canada or Mexico by the US. Other considerations would always have been much, much more weighty in these decisions.

In the modern world the US is very unusual in having a constitutional right to bear arms, and probably has relatively lax gun laws compared to most other countries and (I suspect but I don’t know) probably has a higher ratio of guns to people than most other developed countries. But I doubt very much if this is a material factor in deterring invasion of, or attacks upon, the United States. Conceivably it might influence the kind of terrorist attacks which are made, but not their ferocity. After all, the most serious terrorist attacks ever perpetrated were perpetrated in the US, and no firearms were involved either in perpetrating the attacks or in resisting them.

Still no, cuate. The relative strength of the US military is pretty much the only thing that prevents another nation from invading it.

During the Spanish-American War, if the Spanish had the military capability of taking the war to the US mainland they would have, armed populace or no. But, let’s face it, they had no chance.

While the Germans tried to convince the Mexicans to invade during WWI, the Mexicans didn’t and again, an armed populace had nothing to do with the decision. The Mexicans would have been annihilated by the US military and they knew it.

Neither Japan nor Nazi Germany had any serious long range plans to invade the US as far as anyone knows. But this had more to do with geographic considerations than anything else.

If the Soviet Red Army was able to invade and defeat the US military during the Cold War, I don’t think a bunch of yahoos with guns would have scared them much.

Anyway, just so you know…five out of five of your examples were highly unlikely.

  1. You are quite right about the Swiss, read “Target Switzerland”. Hitlers generals advised against invading Switzerland in spite of Hitlers hatred of Switzerland and of his desires to invade it.

  2. That is because you have never read the debates of the second ammendment. Read the private papers, debates, journals, letters, etc of the founding fathers, Addams, Cox, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, etc. There was never any disagreement over the intent of the second amendment, and what they all meant and why.

  3. “Invading” and “occupying” are 2 different things. Any country can invade any other country, but no one can “hold” a country where the people are armed. Ask any general, or any other military officer, about how they would feel about occupying a country where there are 100 million armed citizens that will shoot you at any time, day or night.

Occupying any foreign land, where the people are armed, and who dont want you there, is the most dangerous task of a soldier.

With respect, I don’t think this is true. France has a very high rate of gun ownership, but this did not deter the Germans from invading and subsequently occupying part, and then the whole, of France. Yes, there was armed resistance but, even with substantial support from the Allies, it was never more than a severe inconvenience to the occupying German forces, and I don’t think it was a tactical consideration at any stage. Certainly it never came close to putting an end to the occupation; that took a massive conventional invasion on two fronts.

One prior GD thread on the subject: Tell me gun control advocates: how can a dictator be stopped without arms? (A: Pretty much just as well as without private firearms.)

Wow, susanann goes around posting stuff in threads and then abandoning the threads when she is asked to support her assertions. So she just abandoned a thread where she was challenged on her assertions about Switzerland and now she is here asserting the same stuff. Obviously asking susanann to defend her assertions is a waste of time so I will not do it here.

In any case I will repeat what was said in the other thread: To think Switzerland could have any more military force than France or Poland or England or any of the other countries Hitler fought is plain nonsense. Switzerland was not invaded by Hitler because he had no use for it. He had more use for Switzerland as a free country. As simple as that.

Strictly speaking, Japan did invade Alaska. But it’s not like they were going to march on to Seattle and San Francisco and set up a puppet government.

With respect, I dont think France was well armed. I know that the United States produced cheap guns, and air dropped them into France so the people could be armed. There were also many ads in the newspapers and magaizines for Americans to turn in old guns, that could also be airlifted into France. None of those would have been necessary if the french people had arms.

But you are quite right, a people must not only own guns, but be willing to use them. I am told that Paris was taken in ww2 without a shot being fired.

Most countries in Europe did not fight for more than a few weeks before giving up. There was no major resistance in ww2, and no guerilla war in Europe in ww2, except for the Soviet union who’s citizens and armies never gave in to Hitler.

If every person that was sent to a death or labor concentration camp had first killed only one German soldier, Hitler would have run out of troops.

When the citizens have guns and are willing to use them, like the americans against the British general Gage in Concord Massachusetts, the vietnamese against the americans, the afgans against the soviets, the russians against the germans, or the swiss against any one, then any invading army is going to have its hands full trying to hold a country. One female soviet sniper, Ludmilla Pavlichenko, killed 309 german soldiers. I was told it was very frightening for our soldiers to know that anyone could shoot them at any time, and that they were afraid of snipers who shot a soldier, and then ran away.

Of course, I dont expect any american man to be as good as the Ukranian woman Ludmilla Pavlichenko. Ludmilla, as a civilian, was on a rifle team, she was a good shot, and she wanted to defend her country. The soviets even let her join the army, after she showed them how good she could shoot.

But even if the average american man could only kill just a couple of invading troops each, then it would take an army of 100 million to try to hold america after an invasion.

So, those Alaskans, they like totally kicked Japanese ass, right?

Actually sailor I will only half agree with you. What I’ve read is that there were plans for the invasion of Switzerland (Operation Tannenbaum - yes, Operation Christmas Tree) but the Germans were distracted by their problems on the Eastern Front (thank you USSR!) and so never put it into practice. I think that it is logical to assume that Hitler would not want an independent country in the middle of the Third Reich, and that eventually he would want to add the Germanic people of Switzerland to his empire.

On the other hand, I disagree that the Swiss army would have presented any significant challenge to Nazi Germany. Going through the mined mountain passes might have been difficult, but trivial in comparison to the fight against the Soviets. Additionally the Swiss government did several things to appease the Axis (e.g. allowing munitions trains to go from Germany to Italy through Swiss territory.) On the other hand, let’s not forget that the Swiss Air Force did at one point shoot down some German planes overflying Swiss territory (ironically enough, the Swiss planes were Messerschmidts purchased from Germany before the war.)

Sam, specifically on the role of an armed citizenry protecting the US in a terror war: I’ll go with you on armed air marshals preventing things like the 9-11 attacks; but armed citizenry in general? How? (Unless you want to let just anyone bring a gun onto a plane, a patently bad idea.) The thing is, if you really want to attack America that badly, you’ll figure out a way that will specifically target a weakness. Thus the 9-11 hijackers chose a means in which America’s high proportion of guns wouldn’t really make much of a diference. Same thing with the first WTC attack in '93 and the Oklahoma City bombing. You gotta show your face for somebody to shoot you. Granted, by this logic an armed citizenry would cut off options for terrorists, but first, there are always other options, and second, they tend to be more destructive. Compare walking down 5th Avenue with a shotgun & opening fire (something that can be stopped by an armed citizenry) to firing a missle at Miami.

-Ulterior

How so? Can you give us any statistics that show that there were more hijackings, or more deaths, back when guns were legally carried on board by any passenger?

There was a time when anyone could bring a gun on board an airplane.

I dont remember very many hijackings of airplanes throughout all of airline history before there were laws preventing passengers to carry guns in carry on luggage.