US Gun Laws

[Asher]

Waco shows you how pointless firearms are in protection from the government.

That whole rationale for the right to bear arms is defunct in modern times.

[Al B. Sure!]

Waco shows you how pointless firearms are in protection from the government.

That whole rationale for the right to bear arms is defunct in modern times.

The Black Panther Party would have disagreed with you, as would the modern versions using that name.

I do wonder how Docfeelgood and Ogie would feel about Black nationalist groups being among the most ardent supporters of gun rights.

[The Mad Monk]

WACO

Patriots taken from us too soon.

By what standard of reason does that compare to Waco? Were Waco authorities blocking people from voting with weapons drawn?

[Asher]

By what standard of reason does that compare to Waco? Were Waco authorities blocking people from voting with weapons drawn?

The reason doesn't matter.

Group of citizens (a militia) took up arms to revolt against the government. They were slaughtered.

The government will always have more guns and bigger guns in the hands of better trained people.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

WRT to the Black Panther Party advocacy, I am about as enthused to receive that endorsement as say the KKK, or Modern Day Nazi party.

As for WACO example, my point stands, the limited resistance did spark the beginnings of outrage (given it was extremely mollified dure to the insane cult ideology), however unless I am seriously misjudging my country a large scale massacre of citizenry by the government would cause large scale unrest and military defection.

[notyoueither]

The particulars of that example undermine the point you're trying to make. Local law enforcement got too big for its boots, and there was a clumsy confrontation with irritated war veterans that amounted to a draw until they got the idea of using explosives. It was not a rebellion in any sense, and at no point did actual serving soldiers of the government become involved.

If you want to get an idea of how well civilian volunteers with hand-held weapons stand up to the U.S. armed forces, look at Iraq--bearing in mind the numerous differences:

1. US forces are there as an occupying power. They obviously have to leave sometime, and are vulnerable to political pressures.
2. Few US soldiers speak Arabic or are intimately familiar with the situation in the way the locals are.
3. The whole damned region is awash in AK-47s. How many American citizens own Kalashnikovs?

Even with those advantages, the Iraqi insurrection went poorly. Any time they tried to take a stand, they got butchered. After seven years of occupation, they've whittled down our numbers by what, 5000 people? And the substantial majority of those deaths were inflicted by IEDs, not guns. Finally, if the Feds get so pesky that armed insurrection is the best option, do you think they'll play more or less clean, the way we did in Iraq? I.E., no shooting people who merely look a little shifty, no paramilitary thug squads terrorizing uppity neighborhoods, no responding to gunfire from a house by destroying the house...

You are overselling the power of conventional military forces in a situation of internal civil strife.

The effects of ordering soldiers, NCOs and officers to combat their own fellow citizens is often unpredictable. It's mentioned in Ogie's link. The Governor did not send NG forces to the town because he did not know how the Guard would react.

[Felch]

The Waco cultists were very few in number, and they made the retarded choice to hold a position that could be besieged and overrun. A successful insurgency would seek to always have the initiative. It would rely on aggressive action, like those GIs that besieged the deputies. Or if it didn't have the resources to attack police stations, it would avoid confrontation and choose battles that it could win.

Otherwise you're right that the government would crush militias. But that's just common ****ing sense.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41154929/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Cheney opens door to tighter gun restrictions
Former VP: Limits on gun magazine capacity may be 'appropriate' in wake of Tucson

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, a staunch gun advocate, says tighter weapons regulations might be "appropriate" to prevent another tragedy like the Arizona mass shootings that left six people dead and a congresswoman seriously wounded.

Cheney, an avid hunter, said he is "willing to listen to ideas" on how to better control the purchase and use of firearms.

"Whether or not there's some measure there in terms of limiting the size of the magazine that you can buy to go with a semiautomatic weapon — we’ve had that in place before. Maybe it’s appropriate to re-establish that kind of thing, but I think you do have to be careful obviously," Cheney told NBC's Jamie Gangel, national correspondent for "TODAY."

"We’re looking for ways to make sure this never happens again, but you’ve still got to go back to the fact that it looks like the cause of this particular tragedy was this one individual who apparently has very serious mental problems," Cheney said in the interview, parts of which aired Wednesday.

The Arizona shooting spree on Jan. 8 in Tucson that claimed six lives and left 13 others wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, has renewed the debate over gun control measures.

Jared Loughner, 22, is accused of shooting Giffords in the face and then turning his gun on a crowd of people waiting to meet the congresswoman. The weapon used in the attack, a Glock 19 with an oversize clip capable of firing around 30 rounds without reloading, was legally purchased by Loughner two months before, Arizona authorities have said.

The shootings have prompted some lawmakers to call for banning high-capacity gun magazines. A 1994 assault weapons ban outlawed such clips, but President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans allowed the ban to expire in 2004.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., on Tuesday introduced a bill to ban the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones allegedly used by Loughner. McCarthy's husband was killed and son wounded by a gunman on the Long Island Railroad in 1993.

The bill would limit the number of clips sold in the U.S. to 10 rounds maximum.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., plans to introduce a similar bill in the Senate.

A new survey released Wednesday shows an overwhelming majority of U.S. gun owners, and Americans in general, support tougher measures to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals, the mentally ill and others barred by law from owning weapons.

Eighty-one percent of gun owners, and 86 percent of all Americans, back requiring personal background checks for all firearms sales, regardless of whether the weapon is bought from a licensed dealer or from a private seller at a gun show, the poll said.

Ninety percent of those polled in both groups also support fixing gaps in government databases that are designed to prevent criminals, mentally disturbed people and others from obtaining guns.

The survey of 1,003 registered voters nationwide was conducted from Jan. 11 through Jan. 13 jointly by the Republican-aligned polling firm American Viewpoint and the Democratic-oriented firm Momentum Analysis, and released by the bipartisan coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

The obvious take away of all this is that Mobie and Asher are apparently and without question DL's of Darth Cheney.

[The Mad Monk]

The reason doesn't matter.

Group of citizens (a militia) took up arms to revolt against the government. They were slaughtered.

The government will always have more guns and bigger guns in the hands of better trained people.

I said standard of reason, but you know that.

[The Mad Monk]

Waco shows you how pointless firearms are in protection from the government.

...and when you get down to it, Waco instead shows you how pointless wooden fortifications are in protection from incendiary tear gas grenades.

[Elok]

You are overselling the power of conventional military forces in a situation of internal civil strife.

The effects of ordering soldiers, NCOs and officers to combat their own fellow citizens is often unpredictable. It's mentioned in Ogie's link. The Governor did not send NG forces to the town because he did not know how the Guard would react.

The "Battle of Athens" seems to have been little more than an armed riot, which ended quickly. Whether the Guard sympathized with the local GIs would depend on their familiarity with the situation, among other things. Their awareness of circumstances will depend a good deal on the flow of information--which is controlled to some extent by the government. It's hard to say what would happen if it had turned into a real insurrection, but I submit to you that a prolonged battle of "aggressive action" such as Felch suggests would have the armed forces quite eager to waste them, if it didn't simply turn the citizenry against the rebels for inviting reprisals. The best you could hope for in such a situation is the government deciding to defuse the situation with some concessions. At worst, the revolt splinters, faction fights faction and it all degenerates into a hopeless bloody mess. Which justifies almost any action that will restore order, including carpet-bombing opposition strongholds with napalm.

In any case, smuggled firearms would be readily available from one source or another, and the weapons commonly possessed by civilians would be of extremely limited use. They would need to up the ante with greater firepower to stand a chance--which makes the Second Amendment kinda moot. Oh boy, you legally owned a hunting rifle, and two of your neighbors had pistols, and that one John Birch nut down the street had an Uzi. I'm sure the gummint's shaking in its jackboots.

If I were to rank the first eight amendments by their importance in defense of liberty, I would put #1 squarely at the top where it belongs; information is the real weapon. Then the ones about bills of attainder and habeas corpus, etc. #2 would go at the bottom, right above involuntary quartering of troops.

[Elok]

The obvious take away of all this is that Mobie and Asher are apparently and without question DL's of Darth Cheney.

Hitler opposed cigarette smoking. Buy yourself a pack now, *****!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Rumsfeld believed that the Iraqi resistance was not a credible threat. Why I think we have found our next DL.

[Asher]

It's not the guns that the resistance in Iraq has that's causing the big problems. It's the 'splosions.

[Felch]

When I say aggressive action, I don't mean stand up fights with militia digging trenches and being blown out by the Army. I mean finding out that your neighbor is deployed in some other state to suppress the rebellion, so you break into his house and murder his family. I mean kidnapping and executing any collaborators, pacifists, or fence-sitters. You have to make sure to murder and intimidate moderates, so that compromise becomes impossible.

Really a successful rebellion is a cruel and terrible thing, I think it's far beyond what you guys are thinking of. Pistols and other small arms play an important part in a termite war like the Algerian War. Rebellions are at their most effective when they're at their most brutal.