What would it take?

[JDM]

I read an article a few days ago (I don’t remember where, so don’t ask) about the GOP protestors in Florida during the attempted recount. The reporter interviewed one man, a retired police officer, who showed the reporter the semi-automatic rifle in his trunk and the pistol in his shoulder holster. He was carrying them “just in case,” to ensure that Gore did not steal the election.

One dogma of the NRA and like-minded people is that an armed populace is able to protect itself against a tyrannic government. This man was a quiet part of that populace, ready to step in if needed.

I believe that George Bush stole this election. In a strict construction sense, he is the “legitimate” president, in that he got the highest legal authority to say he was, leaving Americans with no further constitutional recourse. But in any other sense there is no legitimacy whatsoever.
I do not, however, intend to go out and buy a gun. I am not sure what the solution is, but for me it is not violence.

My question to all the gun advocates is: at what point would you start shooting? What would the government have to do to get you to take old Betsey down from over the mantlepiece? If you were in my position would that be enough, or would it require much more direct intrusion into your homes and lives for you to do a Mel Gibson?

A show of arms is empty unless one is willing to use them.
The man in Florida, sadly for America, was not put to the test. Where is your line drawn? JDM

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

I don’t own a gun, but I’d sure be out in the street throwing rocks if there was a Third World-style coup d’etat, and the U.S. Army came rolling down my street and tried to tell me they were in charge.

“The man in Florida, sadly for America, was not put to the test.” Tell me you were joking, that you didn’t really want to see Americans defending their ballot boxes with their bodies, a la Philippines.

[IzzyR]

In my case it would take quite alot. And even if it reached the point where I felt like revolting, everything would depend on the likelihood of success of the revolution. I’m not going to be the only nut out there.

DDG, you may be saying that you’d throw rocks at tanks because deep down you are not accepting the possibility that the tanks would actually shoot at you. For Americans, this possibility is very removed.

[JDM]

*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose *
**“The man in Florida, sadly for America, was not put to the test.” Tell me you were joking, that you didn’t really want to see Americans defending their ballot boxes with their bodies, a la Philippines.

**

I was just noting the fact that it is sad that George Bush and his cronies have enough power that the fair recount didn’t happen, didn’t even get close enough for the man with the gun to feel threatened. JDM

[rjung]

The sad truth is that Gore supporters are simply not the kind of neanderthal-minded brutes who think guns are the first and best answer to a problem. Meanwhile, Charlton Heston is making plans to move the NRA’s offices into “President” Dubya’s White House.

[oldscratch]

I’m with IzzyR it’d take an armed revolt for me to take up arms.

[Opus1]

On a slightly tangential note, does anybody think that any sort of armed rebellion/defense would work like it did in revolutionary days? I mean, it’s easy to understand how a bunch of farmers with muskets (with support from the French and some Indian tribes) on their home turf could knock out a bunch of soldiers with muskets who had to travel a few thousand miles and fight on unfamiliar soil.

But how could this possibly work today? Our government has tanks, nuclear weapons, stealth bombers, etc. We killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and lost…what? a few hundred people? And they were a professional army! What exactly do the militia nuts think they’ll be able to do if the government decides to do whatever it is they’re afraid it’s going to do?

[edwino]

*Originally posted by Opus1 *
But how could this possibly work today? Our government has tanks, nuclear weapons, stealth bombers, etc. We killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and lost…what? a few hundred people? And they were a professional army! What exactly do the militia nuts think they’ll be able to do if the government decides to do whatever it is they’re afraid it’s going to do? **

I’m not a militia nut, but I’d bet you can give the army at least a hint of trouble if you hole yourself up in the forests with an AK-47, ammunition, black pajamas, and a bag of rice. It’s been done, successfully. See 1963-1973, Southeast Asia.

A little guerilla warfare goes a long way.

And militia nuts have been able to hole themselves up – Ruby Ridge, Waco, Texas secessionists, those guys in Montana (the Minutemen or something), etc. etc.

To continue the discussion –

I think there are much more civilized (and probably effective) ways of subverting a government, if necessary, rather than taking up arms. If I felt a government was behaving unethically, or was acting without a mandate, I could forsee many non-violent ways of supporting and promoting an opposition. I plan to do so in the next 4 years.

[UncleBeer]

But how could this possibly work today?

Tiananmen Square? Although the demonstrators were eventually vanquished, they were able to hold off the military for a time with no weapons.

Opus1, we’ve been down this road many, many times. Do a search in this forum for “militia” and you’ll run across this topic repeated many times. However, it is my opinion, this is still a valid argument for the exsistence of the 2[sup]nd[/sup] amendment. I believe this to be true since I have a hard time accepting the postulation that the entire military would blindly obey the a corrupt and tryannical despot when ordered to fire upon their fellow citizens.

Back to the OP. When would I start shooting? When the gov’t, or it’s agents, begin a wholesale trampling of my rights, or shooting at me. It’s ridiculous to endorse and armed insurrection simply because your man didn’t win the presidency. The Congressional Black Caucus is gonna find this out shortly. Their calls for civil disobedience are going to fall flat and further harm their supposed constitutents. Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson, Jr. are off the reservation here.

I believe that George Bush stole this election. In a strict construction sense, he is the “legitimate” president, in that he got the highest legal authority to say he was, leaving Americans with no further constitutional recourse. But in any other sense there is no legitimacy whatsoever.

This is just wrong. Mr. Bush was elected in accordance with all duly constituted laws in existence at the time of the vote. To say otherwise is disingenuous. Again, there are many threads here on this topic. In none of them has anyone has ever proved, or even offered a reasonable argument, that Dubya “stole” the election.

[Lumpy]

Rebellion impossible in modern US? - 27 replies

[Kimstu]

Opus: *I mean, it’s easy to understand how a bunch of farmers with muskets (with support from the French and some Indian tribes) on their home turf could knock out a bunch of soldiers with muskets who had to travel a few thousand miles and fight on unfamiliar soil.

But how could this possibly work today?*

Actually, there’s an increasing amount of evidence to indicate that (despite our romantic notions about homegrown militias of “farmers with muskets” in the old colonial days) it didn’t work very well even back then. For one thing, not all that many of the farmers even had muskets: Michael Bellesiles comments in his recent book Arming America: the Origins of a National Gun Culture:

An examination of more than a thousand probate records from the frontiers of northern New England and western Pennsylvania for the years 1765 to 1790 revealed that only 14 percent of the inventories included firearms; over half (53 percent) of these guns were listed as broken or otherwise defective. A musket (there were only three rifles mentioned) in good condition often drew special notice in the probate inventories and earned a high evaluation.

He also points out that George Washington repeatedly deplored the low levels of military competence and preparedness, as well as the low quality and frequent total uselessness of the firearms, brought into the Continental Army by militia recruits; that when a small number of British soldiers later captured Washington DC, there were thousands of militiamen within a day’s march who were supposed to protect the city, most of whom never showed up to fight; that the typical disorganization and lack of discipline of American militia troops was such that they were generally placed in the front lines so that regular (American) infantrymen could shoot them if they tried to break ranks and run; that public militia reviews and drills in the early nineteenth century were frequently public laughingstocks; and that gun ownership and skill in firearm use did not really catch on as desiderata in America until the time of the Mexican War and the Civil War, in the middle of the nineteenth century.

So I’m very dubious that there is any really good evidence to show that independent or semi-independent militia groups have ever been a major military force in this country’s history. When it came to fighting, the people who mostly made the difference seem to have been regular members of official armed forces. And as you point out, the odds in favor of the official armed forces are even heavier today.

[Opus1]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Vietnam probably isn’t the best example of guerilla warfare–the Viet Cong was funded and armed by the USSR. They were also receiving assistance of some sort from Cambodia. (Wasn’t that why Nixon decided to bomb that country?)

Tiananmen square seems to be an even worse example. Had the protestors been armed, the Chinese government could have put them down with less protest from the outside world. The fact that they were staging a peaceful, nonviolent protest seemed to be the biggest thing going in their favor.

Thanks to Lumpy for the link.

I guess my biggest problem with the idea of any sort of rebellion is what would be sufficiently problematic to motivate more than 1% of the population to get off their butts and do something. I really can’t envision coming home one day, flipping on the local news and seeing:

President Clinton has comandeered the United States armed forces, and is declaring himself President for Life. (No Onion links please; I’ve seen the article) He has disbanded congress and is forbidding any speech opposing his administration.

I’m sure lots of people think the government is thisclose to doing something very similar to that, but for me the fear that the government is going to take away my liberties is right up there with the fear of an asteroid hitting my house tomorrow. As a republic, rather than a dictatorship, people have enough control of the government to change things through relatively peacable means, rather than armed rebellion.

[Freedom]

…and I can honestly say that I dicussed that same article when it came out during the election debacle.

Now…please keep in mind that I myself went out in Times Square and protested.
On the thread where we discussed that story, every single poster that I had posted with for an extended time, and knew to be very conservative, felt exactly as I did.
We all felt the reporter was full of crap and had created the situation in order to “spice up” his story and demonize Bush supporters, and probably gun owners in particular.

Not one of us felt that the guy discussed in the article came anywhere close to representing the mood at the protests. I had this discussion on FreeRepublic.com, and there were protests organizied on over 150 cities there, so we had a very broad exposure to the various protests in America during Nov/Oct/Dec. The site is a huge mix of non-liberal politics. Everything from the Christian Right, to moderate Republicans to Libertarians(like me) post there.

Not even one of us felt this little story about a guy with guns discreetly showing them off to a reporter(:)) made any sense. And not even one of us ever contemplated that we were even close to such a point.
Which brings me around to the OP. Having never had to think about this at all prior to participating in the gun threads here at the SD, I have given it a lot of thought since I figured it would eventually come up. For me, I would need a whole bunch of conditions to be met.

I wouldn’t need to see a probability of winning, but I would need to see a legitimate leader. Say Gore and Clinton had made an attempt to arrest Bush and failed. Then Clinton announced Bush was a traitor and he was not giving up power until Bush had been brought to justice and a new election could be held. Then Bush came out and let it be know there was a violent coup under way.

Then I would start excercising my 2nd Amendment rights. It’s not something I ever really worry, or even think about in real life, but that is what it would take.

. For one thing, not all that many of the farmers even had muskets: Michael Bellesiles comments in his recent book

We had a thread devoted to this guy. It seemed that we pretty much debunked his whole study. He is an academic with an agenda to push. His methods were flawed, and he took quoptes out of context where the full text would have revealed that the apparent meaning was actually the opposite of the real meaning. Run a search on SD, it was before the election, but it was sometime in the fall.

Or…I guess if a Nazi thing started happening and people started getting rounded up and put in camps, I would start thinking about it real hard.

For the other mundane stuff like gun confiscation, I would just bury my guns and wait it out.

[Slithy_Tove]

What would it take, you ask? Well, I answer, look at what it did take for Americans to engage in armed insurrection against their government: In the 1860’s was the perceived threat by the Federal government to take away their property rights. But you will remember these: the property right in question was the right to deny Blacks their most basic human rights, (and to you Southerners who claim it was all about tarriffs - I ask from what trees and bridges did your grandfathers hang tarriffs?; and that the triggering action was the election of the most moderate candidate in the Republican party - Abraham Lincoln, who would’ve kept slavery in place where it was already in practice; and that the vast majority of the men who rose in rebellion had no slaves at all to worry about (and ultimately 20% went over the hill - a helluva AWOL rate but I guess not shamefull enough to bar their descendants membership in the Daughters of the Confederacy or the KKK)

So with all that in mind, my answer to your question as to what it would take for armed insurrection to occur?

Same as it always has: bullshit gone ablaze.