Well we have established that guns are only necessary to fight a tyranny of the minority and Hitler and the various Kims had/have popular support. So I’m guessing they’d have been pretty safe.
Quite well; the Holocaust would have likely gone faster with armed paramilitary types like American Second Amendment fanatics kicking in doors and massacring Jewish families. Any such popular tyranny is going to have the “armed citizenry” killing the people who don’t go along. Not fighting back.
Especially given that armed citizens tend to be thuggish and authoritarian, as we see right here in America; in the real world the Second Amendment fans would be mostly fighting for any dictator, not against him. Kicking down doors and shooting suspected liberals, homosexuals and unbelievers while screaming “FREEDOM!” and “JESUS!” Most armed citizens will fight for tyranny, not against it.
I’ll also point out that Saddam was both unpopular and had an armed populace; it didn’t inconvenience him to have an armed populace. Ironically it’s we Guns Are Good Americans who made an effort to disarm the Iraqi public, not Saddam.
You liberals are trying to take me down a slippery slope. The Second Commandment doesn’t give me the “right to bear arms that Lumpy or Damuri deems appropriate.” It gives me the right “to keep and bear arms” Period. I have the right to arm myself even if I don’t find another 999,999 citizens to agree the Fascists are Fascists. Once you say, “No you don’t need the M242 Bushmaster,” what’s to stop you from saying I don’t need a grenade launcher? Or a shotgun? Soon you’ll be telling me all I can have is a muzzle-loaded musket, or whatever freedom lovers had at the time God gave us the Second Commandment.
And it isn’t just me. My neighbors here in Libertyville are going to help me finance and operate the M242 Bushmaster; we’re just waiting for the price to come down – and for the liberal courts to finally interpret the Second Commandment properly.
If you try to argue that us Libertyville Irregulars are not a “well-regulated militia”, I answer that the gun-hating liberals have already tried that argument and the courts have ruled against them.
Damuri: with respect (really!) I’m losing interest in this conversation. So I might slink off at some point.
I’m not a military historian or strategist and have not read introductory texts on the same. But it’s my understanding that most of the Revolutionary War was fought conventionally. The exceptions were mostly in the early part of the conflict, and the significance of them was that they demonstrated to Washington et al that there were men willing to die for the cause. Bunker Hill was a Pyrrhic victory for the Brits.
Anyway, what about Syria or Lebanon? Both conflicts took place in a society that had gun control, AFAIK. I’m wandering outside my core areas of knowledge, but jeez what proportion of basic training involves weapons handling? I’m guessing, “Well under 50%”. Furthermore, you can have people experienced with weaponry without them storing it in their homes. The idea that guns scattered around the populace act as a bulwark against tyranny is pretty silly. Martial training might do that – but it’s far more likely to increase the intensity of subsequent Civil Wars. Consider Pinochet. The Government doesn’t just waltz in and start oppressing people. Rather, they represent a section of the population. And there’s no reason to believe that the oppressors won’t be armed as well, quite the contrary.
Cite? A million citizens with decent rifles can bully 200,000 citizens whether the latter has small arms or not. They can’t go up against a battalion. They can create an ungovernable situation though.
As usual, Der doesn’t provide any specific examples. But I can. Consider the Tulsa Race Riots. Armed whites in 1921 attacked a black middle class neighborhood. Both sides had guns. But the whites had numbers and torches, so they won. They then lied to their kids about what happened. There are other examples from the post-bellum era – this isn’t anecdote: it’s a behavioral pattern. Over in Iraq and Afghanistan the key weapon used by opponents of the US has been IED’s not firearms.
So again, widespread weapon ownership is far more likely to be used as a tool for tyranny than a bulwark against it. See Tulsa.
I grok to your irony, but let me say that I don’t have a problem with well regulated private citizens setting off flamethrowers, rocket launchers and the like in the desert. They don’t even need to be National Guard members.
I’m not so sure that you are properly characterizing the sentiment in North Korea for the cuddly leader.
I’m not so sure that Hitler was as popular towards the end as you might think.
But your point is well taken. We should be talking about popular uprisings not individuals. The reason I bring it up is because people here are arguing that a bunch of citizens with guns can’t really make a difference. And I’m saying that even one guy can make a difference. A million people can certainly make a difference.
And what makes you think that only the bad guys will have guns. Are you saying that all Germans are bad guys?
I suspect that the majority of gun owners (heck the majority of people) disagree with your politics but that doesn’t make them brownshirts.
Cite?
Huh? What?
Whoosh?
Then I am the victim of propoganda during middle school when my american history teacher made a big deal about the unconventional warfare that the colonists were using to beat up the brits. Maybe he was projecting his feelings about the Vietnam war or something but I got the distinct impression nthat our guys were shooting from cover behind trees while the Brits were lining up in rows to stand and deliver.
Lebanon has gun control? It doesn’t seem to work very well.
I agree that you can have just as effective a bulwark against tyranny with armories as long as the government doesn’t know where they are. If there are 2000 armories around the country that hold all the citizen weapons, then you only need 2000 units to secure those weapons. I don’t really put a lot of weight on the bulwark against tyranny argument because the risk is so remote right now but we are envisioning a world where the risk is NOT remote. In that case do you want all the guns in a couple of armories or spread out amongst the citizenry?
Or are you saying that guns in civilian hands in any event cannot act as a bulwark against tyranny?
Tulsa race riots are not tyranny. That is the disintegration of the rule of law. If you were black during the Tulsa race riots, would you prefer to be armed or unarmed?
I agree that unconventional warfare means more than some guy in a clock tower taking pot shots as tank drivers but the Iraq war would have gone very differently if they other side didn’t have guns.
Think about the benefits of standing behind trees and aiming carefully with muskets. There weren’t many rifles back then. There were some: reloading at the time was slow.
It’s true that during the battle of Bunker Hill, the Brits initially had their men make a rush against the colonists. That didn’t work out too well. But then immediately they formed a column and eventually displaced the Americans with some casualties, after it became clear that shock and awe wouldn’t work.
Again, though, my knowledge is sort of sketchy. Here’s one presentation in this week’s New York Review of Books by T.H. Breen: It was not until mid-afternoon, however, that the British assembled several thousand troops on the slope of the hill. Perhaps because he underestimated the American resolve to fight, Howe elected to arrange his soldiers in an open-field formation, and with great difficulty they made their way over uneven terrain toward Prescott’s redoubt. The Americans’ greatest concern was lack of sufficient gunpowder. Knowing that his men had only a limited number of shots, Prescott ordered them to hold their fire until the British had almost overrun their positions. At the last second the Americans cut down scores of redcoats. Whether anyone shouted “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” is not known.
Howe organized a second assault with no better result. Finally, on the third try, he adopted a different formation—the British marched up Breed’s Hill in tight columns. With their powder almost exhausted, the Americans retreated as best they could. The American casualties were substantial. Warren, a crucial figure in organizing resistance, was killed. But their losses seemed insignificant when compared with those of the enemy. About half the British soldiers who participated in the battle—forever identified as the Battle of Bunker Hill—were either killed or wounded.
Neither side celebrated the results of the day. Many Americans insisted that if they had had a sufficient supply of gunpowder they would have driven the British from the field. Gage’s troops recognized that their victory actually represented a severe setback in their effort to pacify the rebels. As General Clinton later observed, “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.” Gage could not explain how the Americans had managed to mount such effective resistance. Reflecting on his earlier experience during the Seven Years’ War, he concluded, “These People Shew a Spirit and Conduct against us, they never shewed against the French, and everybody had Judged of them from their former Appearance and behavior…which led many into great mistakes.” Our Insurgency: From Concord to Bunker Hill | T.H. Breen | The New York Review of Books I gave a large quote so that I wouldn’t snip out any historical nuance. Note that the Americans lost the battle when subjected to conventional tactics. Note also that the Brits never ventured out of Boston again - in March 1776 they evacuated and focused on New York City. Closing paragraph: George Washington reached Boston soon after the Battle of Bunker Hill. When he heard the news, he reportedly asked whether the Americans had “stood the British fire.” When he learned that they had done so, Washington remarked, “Then the liberties of our country are safe.” He also recognized that the moment of insurgency had passed. He was determined to raise a genuine army, manned partly by Continental troops schooled in proper military drill. But he owed a debt to the thousands of New England farmers who had defended their rights. Their resistance to imperial authority made it possible for other Americans to imagine independence and the creation of a republic. This was the origin of a new nation, which after nearly two and a half centuries finds itself obsessed with counterinsurgency.
So the militiamen were mostly important for symbolic reasons?
I believe the evidence presented indicates that the minutemen of the early period had something more than a symbolic role.
Thank you for starting the GD thread, “Were irregulars as important to the revolutionary war as the gun nuts would have us believe?”. I will read it with interest: I’m not sure I will have much to say.
There’s some nuance here, but I lack the background to come to proper grips with it.
Well, perhaps middle school but for me it was the comedy bit about 49 seconds into this Youtube clip from an early Cosby album 