Another Gun Control Thread

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Read what your compatriots are claiming. In response to "can you shoot down bombers" I get "We could build something.." I'm not the one making ludicrous claims. I'm not the one claiming that a state full of trailer trash could defeat any armed force in the world. In fact I haven't made a single ludicrous claim at all. Nor did I suggest that you would just give up, or even that you should. I just find the statement that Private Gun ownership is a deterrent against foreign invasion utterly facile and completely lacking in any basis in reality.

I have been. You need something to build from, resistances don't appear out of nowhere. Private gun ownership is a big part of that.

I never visited 19th Century Africa. Does that mean I know nothing about it?

If anything I have a greater chance of comprehending your culture because I have day to day exposure to manifold aspects of it. I know and have daily discourse with people in that culture. I have relatives over there, blood links, racial links, historical links. America, its culture and people are a world-wide phenomena. Its everywhere.. all aspects of it. Why would I know nothing about it?

I wasn't present at the Somme, and pretty much nobody else alive was either? Does that mean I cant understand it, or what it was like, or what happened to it?

Going further into it, you might call that statement a simplification, a generalization. It's not just the guns themselves (though they do help...) but what they're part of, the whole culture of independence, of resistance. You can't separate the two, anymore than you could go on living without your lungs

But it in no way deters invasion. FFS, Afghanistan has had gun ownership since its inception. It has guns, ammo and training far in excess of anything you can buy in Walmart. Provided by YOU.. you know they have it, you have the receipts. Did that stop Russia or you invading it? NO it did not. It had zero deterrent effect.

edit extra response: and they have a more war-like culture than you, and it STILL didn't stop invasion.

Can you understand it? As a person who was born outside of the "gun culture" who wasn't raised in it, who has never experienced it, no, you can't, no more than I could spontaneously speak Italian. You may have seen a glimpse (generally the worst parts), but you can't understand it, unless you're a part of it, and that's as true of 19th century Africa, or the Somme, as it is of the gun culture.

We're not talking about Afghanistan, except in periphery. The USSR was the largest country in the world, With the largest (in numbers) military, a superpower. Afghanistan was a little podunk backwater with a population of 13 million. Any invading country would be (at best) on an even footing with us, it's like comparing apples to housing developments, it makes absolutely no sense.

Edit: Also, Afghanistan didn't really have a gun culture, as we have in the US. It was largely tribal, and any experience they had with weapons was practical I.e. Shooting and being shot at. Guns were a part of their culture, but not a culture unto itself.

It's unlikely anyone's going to be invading the US in the near future, but if it occurs it will be within the context of all-out world war, not some minor spat in a third-world dustbowl like Iraq or Afghanistan. In that situation anything goes, and if your civilian population was an irritant to the invading Chinese forces they'd simply use chemical or biological weapons to neutralise that problem. Personally, I think you Americans should fight to defend your right to own weapons, but I think it would be a mistake to get carried away with the idea that those weapons make you indestructable.

MacBeth; allow me to draw your attention to something called the Winter War:

Here are some of the numbers:

Military Strengths:

Finland

250,000 men
30 tanks
130 aircraft

USSR

1,000,000 men
6,541 tanks
3,800 aircraft

Casualties:

Finland

26,662 dead
39,886 wounded
1,000 captured

USSR

126,875 dead or missing
264,908 wounded
5,600 captured
2,268+ tanks

Finland was a gun owning culture of hunters fighting on their own ground against a numerically and technologically superior army of unquestioned ruthlessness, the casualty counts tell the story of what happened. Don't forget that the USSR was right next door to Finland, they didn't even have to get their army across an ocean, with the vulnerable supply lines that entails. Are you really going to argue that 250,000 Fins outweighs the potential of 85 million American gun owners? Perhaps you should reconsider the ludicrousness of our claims.

Well I can tell you I was raised in it. America born in a gun loving family. I've witnessed not just accidents in my family but around my down-town area, drive-bys all by guns.

Just my view of a trigger happy nation.

No. But we wouldn't need to. As Dox said, you can't win just with airplanes. If you can't win the ground war, you can't win the war.


No one has ever made anything even remotely resembling such a claim.


No, Kentucky would be unconquerable by most of the world's militaries, given that most nations have rather lackluster militaries. A major power would probably be able to subdue Kentucky. But Texas would be much harder, and the entire United States impossible.


Not each and every American, but enough. And we aren't taught Special Forces tactics from infancy, and don't need to be.

No more of this. Macbeth, you're a loon.


Because it could never succeed, and because Stalinist doctrine placed less emphasis on world conquest.


We lose the interest in continuing to fight against guerrillas. No one can beat us on our home turf, no one can invade and conquer the United States.

No one ever said that. Quote anyone. I dare you. You're a delusional nut job who seems to barely even have attained basic literacy.

Exactly. The second most powerful military ever amassed on this planet (that of the Soviet Union) was unable to subdue stubborn guerrillas in a third-world country. The most powerful military ever assembled (America's) spent over a decade unable to subjugate some disorganized Southeast Asians. Even a small guerrilla force makes a country very nearly unconquerable. In the case of America, the guerrilla force could well significantly larger than the entire invading army. There is simply no way that such a revolt could be put down. It is impossible. Lots of people would get killed, most of the infrastructure would likely be destroyed, but America as a nation is simply impossible to conquer. Geography is on our side. Numbers are on our side. Tactical advantages are all on our side.

Well, if Uncle Sam's brightest young minds think that, you surely are doomed...

If there is any threat to America, it is a collapsed economy and not a military conquest. Even an economic collapse is pretty unlikely.

Does anyone remember how we got into the hypothetical argument of a military invasion of the US from gun control?

I'M a delusional nutjob? I dont think that my nation is utterly undefeatable in any arena. And you did say that Kentucky could defeat any army in the world.

"I grew up around a lot of Kentuckians, and trust me, the rednecks of Kentucky alone could take down most military forces in the world."

Your attempt to quantify that as if you meant to say they could only deal with the lacklustre ones is ludicrous, so I'll say it again.. NO THEY COULD NOT and it is foolish to believe they could. I didnt attempt to qualify what grade of army Kentucky could defeat, so why are you? The answer is NONE.


Your military forces cant even perform basic IFF when you're TRAINED to do it. How well do you think they would fare WITHOUT IT. I forsee that any guerilla war you partake in will see at least half of your ground forces dead from friendly fire.

I find it delightful that for some reason any specific example I cite is promptly ripped apart under the pretext that no one thing wins wars. No s**t sherlock. This is already apparent. Why is it a defence that it wouldnt be on its own? If you cantstop one, how in hell are you going to stop fleets of them? You all seem incapable of grasping simple points like that. No one strategic bomber will win a war, true, and you could not stop one airborne bomber. No one uses them alone, and I never said they would.

And you managed to win a war almost completely by bombing in Serbia.If you can do it, anyone with air superiority can.

"No-one can beat us on our home turf"? Don't Tread on Me rhetoric and arrogant BS.

Dox47: The Winter War was as much lost because of Stalinist Officer Class Purges as anything else. Quality of leadership plays a huge part in modern conflict, and its worth noting that the Russians had a mostly involuntary conscripted army (ie of poor quality) against a trained military force. Thats the Finnish ARMY you're talking about, and I seem to recall this argument is about CIVILIANS and guerilla warfare, not some of the hardest soldiers in Europe. The Soviets lost millions of men in the whole war, predominantly through terrible tactical doctrine. Bad doctrine will do that to an army.

But as we already established, I cant possibly know anything about any subject I'm not living. And as non of you sad f***s has fought in a guerilla war, nor can you. None of you fought in the war of independence either. In fact, you just invalidated almost every debate on this or any other board, because there are plenty of subjects here where non of us have direct experience. How many of you have even served in the military? Tell you what, lets never debate anything that hasn't directly happened to us and that we are not directly part of.

Or we could not make assumptions about a persons knowledge or experience.. and maybe (and I'm thinking of you here Orwell) we could even stick to cultured and informed debate, instead of insults and derogatory comments when we cant think of a decent rebuttal. Hows about that for an idea?