"The tree of liberty must be refreshed... with the blood of patriots and tyrants"

[Sandman]

The thing is, if 'might makes right', and we want to make sure that the general population has a decent amount of rights by giving them a decent amount of might, there are better ways to do it than making certain classes of firearm legal.

Simply having guns available is obviously not enough to conduct an insurrection. You need organisation, training and discipline as well. With that in mind, a citizen's army is surely a better option than an armed citizenry.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Dracon II
Perhaps it was conceivable that an armed populace would be a considerable check on Government power in the age of muskets... but I'm really not so sure about it now.

See I hear this argument all the time, but have you been paying attention to Iraq lately? Or Vietnam 30 years ago. Or Somolia. Or...

The greatest army in the world can be beat without tanks and jets and battleships. All it takes is a few guns, some guerrila tactics, and a lot of determination. With the like 300 million guns we have in this country, that's more than enough to stop the US army cold. Plus the army would be a heck of a lot more hesitant to just go and bomb Omaha.

[GePap]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


See I hear this argument all the time, but have you been paying attention to Iraq lately? Or Vietnam 30 years ago. Or Somolia. Or...

The greatest army in the world can be beat without tanks and jets and battleships. All it takes is a few guns, some guerrila tactics, and a lot of determination. With the like 300 million guns we have in this country, that's more than enough to stop the US army cold. Plus the army would be a heck of a lot more hesitant to just go and bomb Omaha.

Why? If anything, a trully dictatorial government would be much more inclined to be utterly ruthless if its possition at home was threatened.

Just think of it this way-the current insurgency in Iraq is probably smaller in terms of supporters than the 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam, who at the same time was facing the Kurdish uprising in the north. Saddam, with far less power than the US, crushed the shiite uprising in a way the US has not done to its uprising. He was able to do so because he was willing to be far more ruthless than the uS will ever be willing to be, because his aims were different. His aim was survival, while the US has some nebelous foreign policy goal.

Also, in Vietnam the guerrilas did lose-the Viet Cong was decimated in 1968-69 and the US and its allies eventually lost to a state's army, North Vietnam. In somalia, a handful of US soldiers died, and the reason the US pulled out was purely political. You simply can't compare that to a regime fighting for survival.

You say the US would never bomb Omaha? Look at pictures of Atlanta or Richmond in 1865 and ask again what a regime fighting for survival would be willing to do.

[Patroklos]

Gepap is right,

The only reason we have difficulty fighting insurgents is our own scruples.

That, not their guerrila tactics or anything else, is what lets them continue.