Another Gun Control Thread

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"Widespread gun ownership does make invasion quite infeasible, as it would be difficult or impossible to subjugate a heavily armed citizenry. "

Because you made this statement, and I had the temerity to disagree...

Now you're just making s**t up. America is not the best in the world at everything, and I've never claimed we are.


So, you just lack a basic grasp of the English language? I said "most." You are trying to extrapolate from that "all." No, Kentucky would not stand a chance against, say, Russia. But I'm pretty confident Kentucky could take down France. Texas vs. Britain would easily go to Texas. Besides, the comment was in reference to their response to an invasion of their territory. A state such as Kentucky, filled with people who are armed to the tooth and know how to use their weapons, would be hard to conquer. The USSR's military couldn't beat Afghan guerrillas, the US military couldn't beat Vietnamese guerrillas.


That depends on who's invading. Obviously uniforms would be a big tip-off that they were the "bad guys" and in the case of China (the country with the largest standing army) I'm guessing most Red Staters would just take to gunning down any Asians they saw. And for the last freakin' time, guerrilla warfare is fundamentally different from a clash between two armies. Get that through your thick skull.


Airplanes on their own aren't good enough. Anything else, a guerrilla movement could deal with quite well. So what are you left with?


It is almost impossible to beat any sufficiently stubborn resistance on their home turf, even in third-world s**tholes like "Nam or Afghanistan. Americans certainly have much more resources to draw on than the Viet Cong or Mujahideen, and those groups managed to paralyze the strongest military forces ever seen on this planet. It is not "arrogant" to say that America would be impossible to subdue.


I'm not going to bother digging back through the thread to point out your hypocrisy in this comment, as you have made your fair share of insults and derogatory comments. I will just say that you are a moron and a bloody hypocrite, and leave it at that. Good day.

You did it again. What is it with you and "airplanes". Do you even read what I write? I KNOW FULL WELL that a single arm is usually not enough to win a conflict. We all know that. So why do you keep whittling on about it like I dont? Im CITING A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE of how your Kentuckian freedom fighters would get their asses blown to s**t and back in a fashion you could not prevent. For coastal areas, I could have used Naval Bombardment. It does much the same job, and sometimes does it better. Its not going to win a war, but it certainly is going to make living near there very unpleasant.

Air superiority is a very important factor in "non nuclear" (yknow, like conventional, but you cant agree on a definition, even after I told you how I was using the term.) warfare. Ask the Mujahadeen how much they hated Hind gunships. Ask them how unpleasant life is when fire falls from the sky almost without warning. How much of the Vietnam campaign keyed on air superiority? How badly did the Wermacht fail when they didn't have it. Its not the be all and end all, but its a major part of any campaign and its something guerilla fighters LACK and have very little defence against.

Then you have this bizarre notion that Texas could defeat the armed forces of the UK, using only handguns and local knowledge. (I belief that was the pretext of this, that private gun ownership does not equate to undefeatable guerilla army.) Or that Kentucky could beat the combined military power of a large European nation using what it bought in walmart and a map...W

So, I'll say it again... Private (and legal) gun ownership does not immediately make you an unassailable fortress, nor does it make you an undefeatable guerilla force. Nor does it automatically make you skilled in war. It just means you have some guns. So do a lot of people. How many of you legally own RPGs?

Every example I've seen of "peoples army against real army" cited here has involved high grade weaponry, the kind of thing that is not normally or legally available, nor the type of thing anyone has just lying around. I doubt even Dox owns anything that deadly, and he seems to be the most knowledgeable in these matters.

And as a quick PS: Orwell.. you really think that I've insulted you directly as you have me? I beg to differ. Hows this: IN BIG LETTERS SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND: CONVENTIONAL IN THE CONTEXT I AM USING IT MEANS NON NUCLEAR. TWO CONVENTIONAL FORCES = ANY TWO OPPOSED GROUPS USING NON NUCLEAR MEANS TO FIGHT, BE THEY GUERILLA, REBEL, LOYALIST, GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED, OR MERCENARIES. GET IT THROUGH YOU THICK DELUSIONAL NUTJOB SKULL THAT I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REDNECKS WITH SHOP-BOUGHT K-MART ROUNDS AND THE UNIFORMED AND TRAINED SOLDIERS OF ANY GOVERNMENT YOU CARE TO NAME. Its you that seems to struggle with the difference.

Better? Do you feel vindicated now or would you like me to swear at you some more?

I don't want to make light of your loss, and I'm sorry that it happened, but that's the price of freedom. It's messy and it's sometimes ugly but it's a thing I'd rather live with than live without.

Yes, but I seriously doubt whether you rrread what I write.


Yeah, and ask the Soviets and Americans what good that air superiority did in winning the wars for them. There's no reason why we should automatically accept your definitions on all counts, so please stop being an arrogant dick. The point is that guerrilla warfare is different from non-guerrilla warfare, and you aren't taking that into account in your arguments.


Who said "only?" And who's buying their guns at Wal-Mart? If you're going to beat the hell out of strawmen, at least make better strawmen.


No it doesn't. Please read some of T-Rav's posts, I'm not going to bother repeating him.

Perhaps because you aren't getting it?
Air superiority doesn't win wars, it never has and it never will. It didn't win The US World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan, It didn't win the USSR Afghanistan either, only troops on the ground can do that and a resistance that has the general support of the civilian population has never been defeated by an army, EVER.

We LOST Vietnam, The USSR LOST Afghanistan, and in spite of the fact that Germany had been bombed around the clock for TWO YEARS they still were fighting in the rubble of Berlin. Air superiority DOES NOT WIN WARS.

Again, gun ownership means you have a population that can mount an immediate and effective guerrilla campaign against an invading enemy. You might or might not be able to win with that in the long term, but it means enemy forces are on the defensive from the second they set foot on United States soil. It's a matter that any invading force has to take into consideration beforehand, it's a deterrent.

Wanna know the key difference between the guns and ammunition that are used by soldiers and citizens? The citizens' weren't made by the lowest bidder.

...

Last edited by claire-333 on 30 Nov 2008, 5:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This goes round in circles again and again. Where do people get the idea that I think air support is the be-all and end all? Can I not cite a specific example? Can I not focus an argument on specific parts? Can I not analyse by segment, or must everything be forced into broad, easily understood strokes, preferably with pictures and popup sections. NOTHING ON ITS OWN WINS WARS. I ALREADY SAID AS MUCH MYSELF. The fact that I chose one area to cite as an example has apparently been read to mean that I believe only bombers can win conflicts, and everything else is secondary. Would you like me to diversify? Are you any more capable of dealing with tanks than you are with bombers? CAN YOU LEGALLY OWN ANTI-TANK WEAPONS?

And I eagerly await the return post that says "tanks on their own cant win wars"....

As I said, tanks we can handle. IEDs would be effective against them, as would terrorist tactics. And Dox already said that even tanks require infantry support, and an enemy infantry would not be sustainable in such a hostile environment.

IEDs don't do all that well against armour at all. And are people deliberately dodging the queries?

Can you legally purchase anti-aircraft missiles or RPGS or anti-tank weapons in the united states.

IEDs, if they are made properly, can do quite a bit of damage. Any college chemistry major could go into their school's lab and start producing TNT or similar explosives, which would carry the potential of doing a lot of damage. You can legally purchase RPGs, but they can be hard to get ahold of. Rockets as used by hobbyists could be adapted for use as light anti-tank weapons or even as surface-to-air missiles. From the DOJ concerning amateur and hobbyist rockets: "These large rocket motors could potentially be adapted by terrorists for use in surface-to-air missiles capable of intercepting commercial and military airplanes at cruise altitude and for use in “light anti-tank” weapons capable of hitting targets from a range of nearly five miles." Not exactly intimidating, and still technologically at a disadvantage, but we aren't entirely out in the cold.

So we can move on? lovely.


No we can't own any anti tank weapons, but tanks are easy enough to deal with. Take out a tread, they're immobilized. You can walk up and kill the crew (tanks are generally supported by infantry for this very reason). IEDs with explosively formed penetration charges can take out tanks at speed. Such IEDs are fairly easy to build, you just need some sort of high explosive (C4 would do), A casing and a bowl shaped piece of copper. The copper is what forms the penetrator, they've been used in Iraq with some success. Interestingly though. you yet again chose a weapon which is of limited use against guerrillas. Tanks are generally used against other tanks. If I wasn't sure you were master of all things military, I might begin to entertain the notion you don't know what you're talking about.

Maybe I can help clarify something here, unless I'm greatly mistaken, Orwell, T-rav20 and myself are arguing that the US could not be successfully occupied, while Macbeth seems to be of the impression that we are saying that our citizens could defeat an invading army. There is a big difference, for example we could not occupy Vietnam, even though we killed an estimated 1,000,000 Vietnamese in exchange for 50-some thousand losses on our side. Numerically, we wiped the floor with them, but we failed in our objectives in the country, the same situation that we are currently facing in Iraq. We could have easily razed Vietnam to the ground, just as we could reduce Iraq to a plain of sterile glass, but what good would that do? What we can't seem to do terribly well is hold a hostile territory, and if with all our military might we can't successfully occupy a small Third World country with no civilian armament, who on earth could occupy a country the size of the US with an armed populace larger than the entire population of most other countries? Sure, someone could gas the whole place or nuke it flat, but invade with ground troops and occupy? Not a chance.

To get this thread back on track, one thing that I don't understand is why the very people who would benefit the most from firearms are often the most vocally opposed to them; women, gays, and others who are more likely to be targeted for violence. In their own way, guns are one of the more egalitarian pieces of technology around, an inexpensive pistol provides just about as much protection as an expensive one, would be attackers are equally vulnerable to gunshot wounds regardless of their race, strength, sex or income. There is a reason that they are called "equalizers", they negate inborn advantages like superior strength, as well as giving the lone victim a chance against a group of attackers. All that, plus they can be a lot of fun too, what more could you ask for?

Ah! Fun with guns. That's the problem for me. I've shot pistols, rifles, machine guns when I was in the army. I don't like destroying things. I make things and that takes a bit of thinking and time and understanding. All the things not necessary with guns.