[TheForge] coffee and guns

[GRAF]

Our armed forces are really good at meeting other organized armed forces 
that present a target rich environment.
It is not as effective as an occupying force.
It can barely keep the lid on in Iraq.
Imagine trying to constrain an insurrection in the highly urbanized 
landscape of the US.
It would not happen.
Add to that rural resistance  on the scale of the US .

All in all I think Andy is correct. The mere hassle factor placed right 
up front is something any occupier, domestic or foreign, would find a 
significant stumbling block.

It is much more cost effective to play up close to the margins of the law.

What makes a huge stockpile of ordnance in private hands work in this 
country is that we DO believe in our rule of law, and that officials DO 
leave peaceably when their terms are up. That plus an adequate economy 
keeps those private arms locked away.

Anything that weakens this system of private ownership, including 
registration in my opinion, works against us.

Mike Graf


Andrew Vida wrote:
>
>
> ries wrote:
>>
>> On Dec 17, 2007, at 1:21 PM, Andrew Vida wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> And finally, Jim is spot on.  The ONLY thing keeping government from 
>> running wholly roughshod over us is the fact that we are pretty well 
>> armed.  Were it otherwise, the few rights we retain would probably 
>> have flown away decades ago.
>>
>>     -Andy
>>
>>
>>
>> Andy, you are a great guy, but you are completely FOS on this one.
>> No war in history has been won by small arms alone, and the ONLY 
>> thing keeping government from running roughshod over us is the 
>> constitution and our rule of law- GUNS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
>
>     I love you, too, but I must respectfully disagree.  Rule of law is 
> nothing more than an agreement.  If a group believes they can and 
> should take control, and assuming they in fact have the material 
> instrumentality to do so, there would be nothing in their way to stop 
> them, all else equal.
>
>     To say that the presence of privately held firearms has nothing to 
> do with the maintenance of so-called "liberty" is not reasonable.  It 
> isn't the only factor - I hastily said it was, and that was careless 
> of me. It is, however, a contributing one and I believe that it IS the 
> final check upon those who would consider something very extreme.  If 
> an action credibly risks armed revolt, the reasons for entertaining 
> such action had better be pretty compelling.  Citizens with no 
> recourse to the means of material equalization give usurpers 
> considerably less to think about.
>
>> Without a foreign nation supporting us against our, or any other 
>> government, we would be toast in two weeks.
>
>     This is not so easily determined.  This is a very wealthy nation 
> and the people here can be very resourceful and determined when the 
> complacency is swept away.  Rousing the people of this nation to anger 
> would be a very dicey gamble for any administration, were they to 
> consider something cure.  It would not be nearly the slam-dunk you 
> seem to imply.  But to your point, I will agree that some of the 
> outcome would be determined by the response of the corporate 
> community.  I am no longer confident that large corporate bodies could 
> be trusted to stand by their people.  If they were to side with 
> government, and I am pretty sure that many would, that would make 
> things far more difficult for the rank and file.
>>
>> The successful guerilla wars of the last 5 decades or so were all 
>> only successful because a large industrialised nation, be it China, 
>> the USA, or the Soviet Union, supported the guerillas with a steady 
>> flow of new weapons ( in real combat, guns wear out very fast- 
>> machine gun barrels may last one day sometimes, and even a very well 
>> maintained assault rifle has a short lifespan) ammo, and, most 
>> essentially, crew served weapons.
>
>     A well maintained assault rifle should live for several tens of 
> thousands of rounds.
>
>> Without medium to heavy machine guns, mortars, rpg's, surface to air 
>> missles, and hundreds of tons of explosives, all of which are in very 
>> short supply in private hands in the USA, you have about a snowball's 
>> chance in hell of surviving a few days against the average big city 
>> police department, much less a real army.
>
>     Utter nonsense.  You seem to forget who feeds the army we'd be 
> fighting.  That would be us.  Without access to steady supplies of 
> food, the armed forces would be SOL in short order.  Weapons generally 
> do not run themselves.  Food reserves are more readily controlled by 
> millions of people than by a few thousands of troops dedicated to the 
> same task.  My point is that these scenarios are not simple and the 
> action is never linear.
>
>> Koresh had 50 caliber rifles, full auto weapons, and a reasonable 
>> supply of ammo for a private individual in the USA. He and his 
>> managed to kill a few feds by surprising them, but in a war 
>> situation, his seige would have lasted 2 hours, not 51 days.
>> A couple of runs by F-15's with 500lb bombs, and it would have been 
>> over by lunch.
>
>     Comparing this with a nation-wide armed revolt is not valid.  It 
> is easy to see that ATF could have burned the place down immediately, 
> rather than wait 58 days.  This proves nothing.
>>
>> So if the government actually decided to flex the incredible force it 
>> has as the largest military power on earth, no amount of deer rifles 
>> and glocks and shotguns would make much difference.
>
>     Again, I must disagree.  Short of the nukes, our armed forces do 
> not hold nearly enough material instrumentality to maintain an 
> occupation. I've lived all over this nation and one thing I have come 
> to appreciate is its size.  Even ten thousand tanks distributed over 
> the area would comprise targets that can be defeated with some 
> creativity and determination.  Don't forget that each tank must have 
> at least a squad of troops for support.  That would be 60k head 
> occupied just keeping the tanks from being defeated.
>
>> Guns are good for a lot of things- but their mere presence does not 
>> mean freedom, democracy, or a hands off government.
>
>     Not in and of themselves, but they are a significant contributing 
> factor, even if only as one of last resort.
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