General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLet's think about the need for weapons to repel an out of control government coming for YOU.
This is a 20 mm Phalanx Close In Weapons System. This thing is deployed by the Navy on most surface ships. It is, for the US military, just another typical weapon in our arsenal.
How is your fucking Bushmaster and the gazillion rounds of ammo you have in your back yard dirt bunker going to help your sorry ass?
Give me, please, a fucking break. You're a moron.
Indydem
(2,642 posts)I don't know a single gun owner who has guns for the purpose of fighting with the government.
That idea is held by a fringe few, and then picked up by gun grabbers for the purpose of making all gun owners look like fools.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)tyranny. Your "fringe" is the public face of gun ownership. Face up to it. The silence of normal gun owners is complicity, and if you are in fact the majority then it's past time for you to start acting like it and get your rogue members under control. OR WE WILL DO IT FOR YOU.
The NORMAL gun owners I know like hunting and target practice and recognize that a shotgun in the home MIGHT be helpful if an intruder enters their property. They don't use guns as tools to intimidate people who aren't bothering them., nor do they feel the need to own dozens and dozens of guns and thousands of rounds of ammo. My dad and uncles were NORMAL, psychologically well-adjusted gun owners, so I know them when I see them. THEY are not the problem.
WE, BTW, are not gun grabbers. We ARE gun safety fanatics. The hallmark of gun nuts is a failure to admit that there are any safety issues involving guns or accept safety laws that protect the public.
a geek named Bob
(2,715 posts)The bunker folks are ground oriented.
Speck Tater
(10,618 posts)Run an hide.
Resistance is futile against the might of the armed forces. Your only hope is to disappear.
unblock
(52,243 posts)Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)your dinky little guns aren't going to keep you safe from the government
And lets be honest, how frequently are guns used to defend us from the government?
No, they defend your stereo from a druggie.
Or your honor from the ex-spouse.
Or your pride from the cheating spouse.
Or your manliness from the boss that fired you.
Or your attitude from a minority that disses you by being in your neighborhood or not turning down the volume.
Against your government, not f-g likely.
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)Apache attack helicopter. They can turn one of these bunker dwelling nutjobs into mist before he stops jacking off to internet porn to load his bushmaster.
oldhippie
(3,249 posts)Not sure what to do with it. Anyway, it's hard to swim and shoot my Bushwacker at the same time.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)and reminds me of people falling for Dick Morris's comedy routine during the election
Lasher
(27,597 posts)Why is this so if such firearms are inconsequential?
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)I think that should a serious revolution ever be needed (e.g. Jeb Bush steals an election and declares martial law because of a false flag terrorist plot), it won't be "patriots" lining up in formation toe-to-toe against the military.
No, I'd imagine it'd look like a bunch of Lee Boyd Malvo's. Asymmetric, guerilla-style tactics that leave no target for something like the Phalanx weapon system.
Of course that also presupposes that the military would act en bloc, and wouldn't fragment and have units become part of the "resistance".
Kaleva
(36,307 posts)That they don't stand a chance against the incredible firepower of the U.S. military.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)And they were far more evenly matched then with the Federal troops than the situation we have today.
Kaleva
(36,307 posts)The Brits never could defeat the IRA and they, the Brits, gave up and granted Ireland its independence.
The outcome of such conflicts is usually dependent on the will of the superior power. If they are willing to fight for a long time and are ruthless, the superior power usually wins. The Taliban have no chance of defeating the U.S forces in Afghanistan but it looks like they will win in the end because Americans are getting weary of the conflict.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Kaleva
(36,307 posts)I think the idea that there will be an armed uprising against the U.S. government as being pretty far fetched. On a hypothetical level, I just find this discussion interesting.
The real answer is: None of them, because they won't know they've been taken over.
Chorophyll
(5,179 posts)Not even during the B*sh Administration did I feel the need to own a gun. I must be terribly brave.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Not any reasonable doubt about that. And that's what would happen in any Waco-like situation that escalated beyond the ability of law enforcement to deal with...
But what about scenarios of actual widespread insurrection? A civil war, but not in the pattern of our own 19th Century version (with an attempt to form a separate nation), but something more like, say, Syria? Would the US military remain intact and fully under the control of the civilian government in such a scenario?
I'd say that's actually very unlikely. Any cause for such a widespread insurrection, one that had a significant percentage of the people ready to violently oppose the government, would also be a cause that applied to members of the military and their families. Their response to such a cause would more-or-less mirror that of the general population (with some consideration given to the rather conservative lean the current military has). Some would sympathize with the insurrectionists, some would e loyalists. Military training and discipline is NOT going to override those loyalties if the reason for the insurrection is sufficiently compelling.
The result of this spread of opinion would be the fragmentation of the military. It would in some cases split onto opposing factions, but I suspect the more common result would be fragmentation of entire units due to massive defections and AWOL incidents. Defectors would tent to try to take at least personal weapons and easily-transported systems like mortars and man-portable anti-aircraft weapons with them to the other side. The most complex and logistically-demanding systems would fast become unusable.
We have seen similar situations play out in insurrection in other nations. The government forces have an initial advantage, as more of their modern weapons systems remain operable. But at some point (and if they don;t achieve a rapid victory while those systems remain in the game), lack of logistic support starts to even the playing field. At this point, civilian arms tend to have a considerable influence, as the fighting begins to be more of a matter of opposing riflemen and such than of aircraft, armor, artillery, and so forth.
Hopefully, it never comes to this here. I'd expect a much more peaceful dissolution of the Union to be what really happens when this nation as currently constituted runs its course.
SQUEE
(1,315 posts)2 more, base housing. ..and that's all I will say, it's something that kept me up some nights when I was deployed.
Civil Wars are the bloodiest and most traumatic, the passions inflamed in a brothers war lead to unbelievable horror. Having seen Sarajevo in ruins a decade after hosting the Winter Olympics, seen ethnic cleansing of their fellow country men, I have always feared it could come here. My Grandmother has told me how incredible Berlin was in the Roaring 20's how civilized, and cultured and open it was, 10 years later she had to flee to America because of her last name.
Face it the Military itself will fragment as regional and cultural divides overcome unit cohesiveness.
You think the U.S. government will unleash MLRS and 155mm indirect fire on small towns in America? Air Strikes on Des Moines, Felt Wedge on Macon Ga, Bradleys patrolling downtown Cincinnati. Because if the fringe Right gets their wet dream of TEOTWAWKI, thats what will be necessary to win.
Never underestimate the resolve of the fanatical right.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Lasher
(27,597 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)OneTenthofOnePercent
(6,268 posts)to "control the streets". The people and neighborhoods and streets need to be controlled. Businesses don't run themselves, money doesn't do anything without people to work with it, and cities aren't valuable without their people in compliance. Governments and nations are built in a pyramid scheme, and without the populace, the rest of the governments sitting atop the people falters.
Your OP ignores the end game of a tyrannical government. The fact that the government has tanks, planes, nukes, and ships is irrelevant. They will not help to control a population at the street level. Those items only serve to make America stronger because we evidently don't give a shit if OTHER countries cities get destroyed... that's not our problem. I fail to see how the US destroying it's own infrastructure is productive to itself. You don't control millions of people in a city by destroying it. We're not talking about little pop-guns defeating a Soviet nuclear strike or anything.
At some point, to maintain or establish government control over The People, government boots will have to hit the ground. And what awaits government forces in the public jungle? Nearly 300,000,000 firearms owned by an estimated 80,000,000 people. If only 10% of gun owners are, as you say, stupid enough to resist our Armed forces... they would outnumber US troops 8 to 3. And the resistance would look American, speak American, smarter and more learned than other countries/enemies, and blend in to the rest of society 100%. The collateral damage would be so severe in such a campaign, that more enemy resistance would be created than destroyed.
If you doubt this is the case, look at Afghanistan. I'm currently stationed in Afghanistan as I type this. These are people who have little infrastructure, they live in mud/shit huts (the ones who aren't lucky enough to find enough trash and nails to construct a hard shelter), an have AKs and other remnants of 1960's technology Cold War souvenirs. Sure, we bombed the shit out of Afg to kick off this campaign. We tossed their fucking salad with billions of dollars of missiles, rockets, bombs, and jets. We even have that nifty CIWS/Phalanx over here. And what happened when it came time to actually take control? Ten years... over ten years they've resisted the Armed Forces of the most technology advanced and powerful military empire the world has ever known. I have little doubt that our Nation's millions of guns can adequately protect it from it's own government.
And nothing I wrote above even begins to address the fact that you think American Armed Forces, who exist to protect america and her citizens, would turn guns onto other Americans. To think that American troops would kill other Americans... your post, when viewed in that context, is absolutely disgusting. Fucking disgusting.
Stinky The Clown
(67,800 posts)This guy is part of some gun group.
He cited several incidents he thinks matter. Some townsfolk in Tennessee in 1927, for example.
Don't tell me these fucking kooks are not out there in serious numbers.
Larry Pratt. Director. Gun Owners of America.
Here's his picture.
PA Democrat
(13,225 posts)Matthews closed by identifying the wacko as Director of "Gun Owners Against the Government."
Did you catch his reference to the reason for the insurrection in Tennessee or wherever as a "stolen election"? I'd bet that Mr. Pratt is one of those teabagger nut jobs who think that Democrats have stolen the last 2 presidential elections.
guardian
(2,282 posts)a bunch of dirt poor, crazies with a 4th grade education and almost no resources other than some cheaply made AK47s and some homemade RPGs could never bring a superpower to its knees.
SCORE:
Afghans 1 --- Soviet Union 0
Afghans 1 --- USA 0
Somolia 1 --- USA 0