Posted on 05/03/2007 9:28:22 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
When events like the Virginia Tech massacre occur, The Times and other newspapers quickly become forums for people who favor stronger gun-control laws and those who oppose such measures, or who think that we have already gone too far in the direction.
The division is so wide that the only common ground you can find is probably in the O.K. Corral. Different folks have incredibly strong opinions both ways.
I don't expect this issue to be resolved in my lifetime. Nothing I can contribute to the general discussion will change anyone's mind one way or the other. I hereby - well, at least for the moment - remove myself from the overall debate.
Except for one side matter.
That's one that occasionally creeps into the letters of some who fervently interpret the Second Amendment as an absolute, unbridled guarantee that you can own all the firearms you want and any kind that's manufactured.
This argument says that keeping firearms is necessary to ensure that the public can resist government oppression should such arise. In other words, unless you can shoot back at the feds, you can't be free.
That's a nice, John Wayne-type view of the world. But it's wrong. It's not just debatably wrong. It's factually wrong.
And the reason it is wrong is this: The government has and will always have more firepower than you, you and your neighbors, you and your like-minded friends or you and anybody you can conscript to your way of thinking.
You simply can't arm yourself adequately against a government that is rotten and needs to be overturned. Your best defense is the ballot box, not a pillbox.
That is why it is so scary to see events occur like the one in Collinsville last week. In case you missed it, six folks were charged with caching an alarming amount of weapons. These included scores of grenades, thousands of rounds of ammunition, 70 improvised explosive devices, two silencers and a submachine gun. Oh, and 100 marijuana plants. Go figure.
These people have been arrested, not convicted, so let's allow the courts to decide whether they are guilty.
But it strikes me that you have these kinds of weapons for one of two reasons:
You plan to use them to harm people.
You plan to use them to defend yourself.
Undoubtedly, you can harm a great many people with this kind of firepower. And if your aim is to use it against the government, well, that in itself is against the law.
What you can't do with these weapons is defend yourself successfully, in the long run, against the government. It has tanks. It has bombs (see Philadelphia on May 14, 1985, when the city bombed an entire block occupied by a group that didn't like the government). It has airplanes. It has nuclear weapons, for goodness sake.
You can't beat 'em.
You'd be foolish to try.
So let's take that argument off the table. I don't presume to say that by doing so we will be able to reach a consensus or a compromise or whatever about how we should or shouldn't control firearms in modern society.
I'm just saying that shooting it out with the government is like the exhibition team versus the Harlem Globetrotters as far as who is going to win.
Only a lot more bloody.
Did you actually read my post?
You said — “Did you actually read my post?”
—
Yep, and as I said, it’s not simply citizens against the military, thereby those odds that you’re talking about (which you say have changed since the founding fathers) are *not* relevant like you’re indicating that they are...
It would be literally impossible to find that a conflict, of the nature being hypothetically postulated, would find the citizens on one side and the military on the other side. The military would be split, and thus, whatever advantage you’re talking about disappears.
As far as the other stuff (i.e. IEDs) I didn’t see that it applied, because you’re talking about, basically, citizens against the military, in that instance. Although they could be used, in addition to the military, in your explanation, you were making all IEDs on one side and the military on the other side.
As far as your comment on this kind of conflict not leaving much of America standing — well, it wasn’t something that needed any comment.
So, I have no idea what part I needed to read better than I already did (when I made the comment)...
If the government were to start grabbing guns, I suspect you would see military refusals.
I can guarantee it. Including some in the military who control interesting special weapons.
I, (NAME)(SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of MAJOR do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."
(DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)
VS
70 million armed Americans (Many EX military)
And that excludes the many defectors that will come about.
kthnxbye
News item:
Federal Prosecutor and Advocate of Gun Control Is Shot to Death
June, 2006: FBI cuts agents looking into murder of Tom Wales
SEATTLE, AP Oct. 12, 2001 — A federal prosecutor who headed a prominent gun control group in his spare time was shot in his home late Thursday and died early today. The prosecutor, Thomas C. Wales, 49, had been shot in the neck and the side late Thursday, a hospital spokeswoman said. Details about the shooting were sketchy. No arrests had been made, a police spokesman, Mark Jamieson, said. A neighbor, Emily Holt, said she heard the shots on Thursday night and saw a man walking away. "He wasn't running, just walking real fast," Ms. Holt said. She said he got into a car parked about a block away under a tree and a streetlight. Mr. Wales was a member of the fraud unit in the United States attorney's office here, specializing in prosecution of banking and business crime. A spokesman for the office, Lawrence Lincoln, said he had been a prosecutor since 1983.
Mr. Wales was president of the board of Washington Ceasefire, a gun control group in Seattle that sponsored a failed initiative in 1997 that would have would have required handgun owners to undergo safety training and use trigger locks on their weapons. The National Rifle Association mounted a $2 million campaign against Initiative 676, which had the support of Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, and other prominent residents of the state. "We don't know who killed Tom, or why, but we know that our community has lost a kind, compassionate man," said Ceasefire's executive director, Bruce Gryniewski. Federal agencies were helping the Seattle police in the investigation. Mr. Wales's former wife, Elizabeth, a former Seattle School Board member, was in Europe with the couple's adult son and daughter, The Seattle Times reported, quoting federal sources. The couple divorced a few years ago but were on friendly terms, neighbors said.
May 2007: Seattle U.S. attorney's office has been recused from the Wales investigation.
Don't kid yourself, many, MANY of the decent street cops are on the same side as most military veterans. Including the former SFPD Gang Investigator and survivor of three shootouts who was in my tank section in '69 and '70.
They've got families too.
“I hereby - well, at least for the moment - remove myself from the overall debate.”
Anytime somebody says they’re not going to do something to piss you off, you ought to just go ahead and deck them because you know they’re gonna do exactly what they said they wouldn’t.
To paraphrase:
Why these Colonial rabble haven't a chance against the King's Regulars! They're the finest Army on the globe!
--British Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton, at the British Fort Sackville at Vincennes, circa 21 February 1779, four days before the surrender of the post to the Americal Colonel George Rogers Clark, 25 February 1779.
Close to my home is a Guard Armory. Ten well armed and determined men could overpower the security on any week day. They would then have access to armed helos, heavy weapons and ammo, anti-air capability and a large amount of fuel with the means to move it. The nearest Government force that could stop them is 60 miles away and has very limited GROUND forces. With this capability they could move to the Capitol of the next state and procure anything they want. 40 miles further is one of the largest weapons depository in the US. Heavy bombers and fighters would become available and by that point the people who could operate them. In the end they may lose but they could put up a hell of a fight. With virtually ALL of the Army’s heavy divisions currently overseas a coordinated attack against federal facilities would be very hard to stop.
I expect that the terrorists will attempt this in the not to distant future.
Not that I condone this but the possibility is very real. Give me a rock and I can get a gun, give me a gun and I can get a tank - self explanatory. It does help if I can start with a gun, saves time and loses.
Great points!!
"Four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo - use in that order." --Ed Howdershelt
What an idiot.
In the Federalist, Hamilton states that when the Federal Government becomes oppressive enough (real or apparently) to spark a revolt amongst the citizenry, the military will also split - some of the professional army will stand with the government and some will stand with the rebellion.
And....gee....it happened exactly like that 60-odd years later.
1) Remain inconspicuous;
2) Because if you do not remain inconspicuous, the government might try to kill you, and you can not (on your own) beat the government;
3) Do not ever become a refugee; and
4) Do not ever give up the will to resist tyranny, or to protect yourself and your family.
Funny thing - every liberal I've ever met wants me to violate rule #1 (what else would you call "gun registration"?). Everything else is downhill from there...
Once upon a time, there was a tribe of people who lived in Britain. History does not record what they called themselves, but the Romans called them the Picti--the Painted People. This title was due to their propensity to paint themselves with blue pigment before going into battle.
The Picti, or Picts as we called them today, developed one of the few tactics that was ever really useful against a Roman infantry formation. They would attack in pairs, two Picts to each Roman. The first Pict would throw himself at the legionary (or, more likely, auxiliary) with reckless abandon and usually got skewered. The second Pict would kill the Roman before he could get his gladius free for another stroke.
In that manner, the Picts would trade one Pict for one Roman, and as there were more Picts than Romans in Caledonia, the Picts were successful despite their considerable losses. So successful, in fact, that after a few forays into northern Britain, the Romans built a wall from the English channel to the Atlantic Ocean, peppered it with garrisons, and did their level best to keep the Picts on the north side of it.
The point is, you don't have to win...you just have to make the losses expensive. If the agressor force could count on losing just one JBT every time they engaged We the People in arms, service in the JBT corps would quickly become unpopular.
How would you notice? And would it be that much of a loss?
OK OK GUYS...jeeze freakin three days later I am still getting crazy posts to me about this article. I didnt post itand I didnt read it. My post was a freakin accident. Now shut up already.
Or for a real life story, 
Revolutionary History in Clarendon County, SC
Civil War Phase
Battle of Wyboo Swamp (Tuesday, March 6, 1781)
A true patriot and a student of history tells me that the terrorism scenes depicted in The Patriot were very realistic, where unarmed civilians were killed by royalist troops. The Red Coats, for example, used the indians as proxies to massacre rebel colonists.
Correction, 1:05
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