Dean's World

The individual's right to arms is a necessary final line of defense against government oppression.

Dave, would you explain to me how a population armed with small arms could defeat a soldiery armed with heavy weapons, aircraft, night vision scopes, etc? The best example we have of such an attempt is playing out in Iraq just now, and the entire basis of the Iraqi insurgency is the supply of weapons from outside the country. Were the Iraqis armed only with hunting rifles and handguns, do you really think they could offer serious resistance to the US armed forces? Or are you perhaps advocating the ready availability of tanks, howitzers, RPGs, and heavy machine guns to American citizens?

Chris, consider that a population disarmed of all small arms would have far less chance against a soldiery armed with heavy weapons, aircraft, night vision scopes, etc.

Iraq was a contest, even though it's less than 1/10th of the size of the US. Further, in Iraq, we had essentially unlimited supply. In Iraq, the insurgents were not terribly well trained. The Iraqi military was not a good training ground. We also made clear that individual politicians did not matter to us, which made the politicians a lot safer.

None of those advantages would apply within the US. Even with all its power, armaments and skill, the US military could not hold against the civilian population.

Martin, it's true that a disarmed population would have even less chance than an armed one -- but if the chances of the armed one are insignificant, then there's not much point to the difference.

Even with all its power, armaments and skill, the US military could not hold against the civilian population.

Yes, certainly if all 300 million of us rose up as one, there'd be something to that. But let's talk about a realistic scenario, shall we? Let's assume that the government has lost contact with the people, the President is declaring that, in his role as commander-in-chief, he is not required to obey the law, and the Congress is supine. Now, how many people do you think would rush to arms? At this point, the government's oppression of the people and violations of the Constitution are still too small to get and kind of insurrection going. So we have to suppose that it gets much, much worse. Of course, there'd be no need to be blatant about it; you could continue with elections, but make sure that the right people are elected. You could continue with the President violating the law, and with Congress rubber-stamping his every action, and still the people wouldn't rise up. In order for the people to join a serious insurrection, the President would have to do something really dramatic, such as cancel elections. But why would any President be so stupid? Every despotism on this planet has elections, they just don't mean anything.

So can you suggest any conceivable scenario in which the people would rise up in an insurrection in sufficient numbers to have a chance? Remember now, only one-third of the American colonists supported the Revolution, and George III was a LOT worse than the present George.

Chris Crawford,

I can see two arguments. First, in a true SHTF scenario where the government is able to use the police against its own people (but not able to use the military), the availability of weapons would seem to be a valuable counterbalance. The Second Amendment is one of those things we don't really appreciate until we need it, and at present it's tough to argue that we're being severely oppressed by the American government.

The second point ties into the first: just as a gun must be maintained by proper lubrication, the ability to use firearms must be maintained by allowing people to own and practice with weapons suitable for such a resistance. As we learned in Vietnam, public perception can be more important than military victories. One reason Japan never tried to invade the continental United States was that, in the Japanese's view, there was "a rifle behind every blade of grass." I suppose this is a variation of "an armed society is a polite society," but it's also the reason Germany didn't invade Switzerland.

You're welcome to fine tune the scenario to get exactly the answer you want out of it.

But Martin, can YOU fine-tune the scenario to get something that is plausible and in which the currently armed population would succeed in insurgency but a disarmed population would not?

HokiePundit, how would it be possible for a government oppressive enough to require violent overthrow to NOT be able to use the military against the American population?

Our past does include a damn bloody civil war where a significant portion of the population was disarmed, poorly educated and generally oppressed.

That side lost.

A new American civil war would be the most horrific bloodletting in modern history.

The second amendment is a deterrent to run away government/police power. It is also a damn fine deterrent to riots.

We have had riots in our country fairly recently. (Cincinatti, LA, etc). They last what? A few hours, a few days. If you really push the definition letting putatively linked demonstrations count as one, perhaps a week or so of real unrest.

Left to the reader as an exercise: "Compare and Contrast American Civil Unrest with French Civil Unrest."

Kristian, your comments strike me as exactly backwards. You cite the Civil War as an example of what happens when a population is disarmed, but then you claim (incredibly enough) that the disarmed population lost. I remind you that the South was the rural population and the North was the urban population. The Confederate Army was composed primarily of small-time farmers who owned and frequently used firearms in the normal course of their daily lives. The Northerners in their more urban environment had little need for firearms. Thus, the American Civil War clearly demonstrates that an armed citizenry has no chance against a modern army.

This statement also flabbergasted me:

It [the Second Amendment] is also a damn fine deterrent to riots.

Um, if the rioters are all armed to the teeth with firearms, do you really think that riots will be less violent?

Oh for goodness sake, Chris! Think! What 'significant portion of the population was disarmed, poorly educated and generally oppressed' in the South? The slaves! And the South lost. If the war had really been about States rights and the slaves had been well armed free men the North would have had a much harder time of it, and very well may have lost. It was a close thing. Lincoln thought he was going to lose the election and with it the War.

Yours,
Wince

Chris, you don't think that the rioters aren't already armed to the teeth and would be still even if guns are banned?

You have more faith in the thugs than I do.

But Martin, can YOU fine-tune the scenario to get something that is plausible and in which the currently armed population would succeed in insurgency but a disarmed population would not?

The "Amerika" scenario... our military is somehow neutralized and the President invites in the rest of the world's militaries as "peacekeepers". The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan comes to mind.

The Japanese non-invasion during WWII is another example.

On the flip side, disarmed populations can sometimes overthrow regimes. That seems to come down to a question of being willing to use brutality now and lose a lot of wealth, or cede power, hold on to the wealth, and maybe try again another day. In other words, the economic losses from not stepping down are too great to be worth holding on. Ukraine and Belarus come to mind.

Another example of what an armed populace can do against a modern military can be seen in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

While the Jews were ultimately defeated, this small band of people with only a handful of weapons held off the German Army for nearly a month. If this was instead the a well armed majority of all Jews in Germany fighting back who knows what the outcome would be. Possibly they could have held out for the remaining two years. Maybe they could have accelerated the allies victory. Regardless, it still would have been a better outcome than dieing in the Gas Chambers. It's much better to take one of the sumb!tches with you.

Tom, yes, the fact that 14% of insurgencies succeed does indeed establish that insurgencies can succeed. It says nothing whatsoever about the role played by public ownership of firearms, because the we don't know what role privately-owned firearms played in any of those insurgencies. Of the successful insurgencies I can think of in the last 60 years, I cannot think of one that succeeded using only privately-owned firearms. In each case, the winning forces (such as Castro's in Cuba) relied primarily on military small arms, not private firearms.

There is zero evidence that privately-owned firearms play a significant role in the success of insurgencies. And if we want to talk about the US, with the mightiest military in the world, well, forget it. No chance.

it beggars belief that you would maintain that an armed populace is not a very useful starting point for any rebellion

Can you name one? Let's consider: Viet Cong, Mao's band, the mujahadeen that threw the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, Castro... I can't think of one insurgency in which the armaments of the populace played any significant role. All of those insurgencies were won with automatic weapons, not hunting rifles.

As to your second post: If the "significant portion of the population" that "was disarmed, poorly educated and generally oppressed" was the slaves, then how does that comport with the immediately following statement:

That side lost.

The slaves didn't lose the ACW, the South did. And the South was most definitely NOT disarmed! Ergo, the possession of firearms by the Southerners was not a sufficient factor to give them success.

A lot has happened in the last hour or two. I'll try to respond.

BK asks you don't think that the rioters aren't already armed to the teeth and would be still even if guns are banned?

I suggest that you go back and read the context in which the point was made. Somebody suggested that the presence of firearms makes riots less violent. Are you agreeing with them?

Martin suggests that a Presidential suspension of elections would be a suitable provocation for an insurrection. Let me offer two points in response to that: first, if you consider how readily Americans acquiesced to a variety of outright violations of the Constitution (wiretapping without warrants, compromising of habeus corpus), do you really think that they would rise up against such an outrage? Especially if it followed some catastrophe such as a major terrorist attack? Given the lack of support for the Constitution among Americans, I'm not sure that a Presidential cancellation of elections would rouse them. Second, I doubt that any dictator would need to cancel elections. Even Chavez continues to hold elections. So why would an American tyrant need to cancel elections. As Stalin said, the power goes not to the guy who votes, but to the guy who counts the votes.

Dishman suggests that foreign forces on American soil would provide a valid motivation for an insurgency. But an American President would invite such forces only in the case of a dire emergency that the American President considers requires such a case. And how do you simply make the American military disappear? From the most powerful military in the world to nonexistence? Don't you think you're getting pretty far out there?

Dishman also raises a point that has been made twice before: that the Japanese were afraid to invade American because the Americans had guns. That's poppycock! The Japanese didn't invade America because 1) they already had a plan in place for overrunning East Asia; 2) the logistical problems of such an invasion would be enormous; and 3) their basic strategy relied upon the belief that the Americans would acquiesce to Japanese conquests and make peace. Invading America would have ruined their basic strategy.

BK offers the Warsaw Rising as an example. Actually, the Warsaw Rising was predicated on the belief that the Red Army would join in the fighting and liberate Warsaw, but instead the Red Army betrayed the Polish patriots -- it was Poles, not Jews, who fought in the Warsaw Rising -- and permitted the Nazis to annihilate the Poles. And the fact that they were annihilated in just a month gives a pretty good idea of what happens when lightly armed civilians take on a military force: they're obliterated. This is not a good example for your case.

See Chris, that's the problem with your searching for the perfent hypothetical scenarios. We have plenty of historical scenarios where civilian arms made a difference.

Um, actually, all those historical scenarios buttress my claim that lightly armed civilians can't accomplish anything against a military force. The French Resistance accomplished little of significance against the Wehrmacht. Sure, they killed some people. But did they change the course of events? No. The same thing goes for the Polish resistance, the Czech resistance (anybody here remember Lidice?) and every other armed resistance to the Germans. It just doesn't accomplish anything. There were two places where armed civilian resistance did accomplish something against the Germans: Yugoslavia and Russia. In Russia, the partisans did manage to inflict significant damage upon the Germans. However, they suffered horrendous casualties and in fact most of the partisans were led by Red Army officers who had been bypassed in the initial invasion -- or were parachuted in. And they relied primarily on airdrops for their weapons, which were military, not civilian.

In the Balkans, Tito led the resistance and managed to tie down a lot of Germans chasing him. Again, most of his success was based on Allied airdrops of weaponry. Before the Allies got in air range of Tito, he was mostly on the run. Only after they got in range and started supplying him did he start to have an impact.

Let me offer two points in response to that: first, if you consider how readily Americans acquiesced to a variety of outright violations of the Constitution (wiretapping without warrants, compromising of habeus corpus), do you really think that they would rise up against such an outrage? Especially if it followed some catastrophe such as a major terrorist attack? Given the lack of support for the Constitution among Americans, I'm not sure that a Presidential cancellation of elections would rouse them.

OK, now we get to the point: Chris define "realistic" without the foggiest clue what reality is. The Constitution's doing just fine, Chris, despite whatever's running around in your imagination.

Martin, you claim that I do not have "the foggiest clue what reality is". Does this indicate that you have exhausted all rational arguments and must now resort to mudslinging?

There are a multitude of justifications for the right to keep and bear arms that are more important than the potential last line of defense against oppressive government. Especially in the modern US.

That being said, in defending against oppression, the value of guns comes into play long before the military enters the game. Look at just about every thug-ocracy we’ve witnessed in the last 50 years. Very few start with a conflict between the oppressed and the military.

The more likely scenario involves gangs or goon squads or armies of thugs who are not “officially” affiliated with the powers that be. Plausible deniability and all that. They act as enforcers and persuaders and intimidators.

The thugs might encourage people to vote a certain way, or to look away when certain things happen, or maybe to just smile as their daughters are raped. And they are seldom armed with anything more than an AK-47. Sometimes just machetes. It works in maybe 90% of the world, but it won’t work here. I'll kill them.

I can’t imagine a scenario where I as an American gun owner would ever need to go up against a modern military. But if it did somehow occur, I would expend my last bullet and last drop of blood defending my property and my rights.

I should be allowed to do that, right? If 50-100 million of others felt like wise (and the evidence says they do), our country might survive.

I can envision situations where I might have to go up against government associated thugs. Maybe they’re just “intellectual thugs” who want to take away my right to own guns. Maybe for no other reason than they personally can’t envision what good might ever come from such ownership. Or maybe because it just seems like the right thing to do. I’d have no qualms killing those folks either.

And here's an hours-old example of what I am talking about:

Venezuela

If the students could fight back with something more substantial than a bed frame, freedom would surely stand a better chance of survival.

would you explain to me how a population armed with small arms could defeat a soldiery armed with heavy weapons, aircraft, night vision scopes, etc?

Sure. Just make the ROE so byzantine and PC that anything the troops do with those heavy weapons, aircraft, night vision scopes, etc get them court-martialed and subject to vile slander in the public sphere. Have it so that every time a soldier kills somebody he's pulled off the line for counseling, thereby reducing the effective number of blooded veterans available in any unit. Then just get the press to say that the war is lost. Piece of cake.

Any time somebody brings up the idea that nobody needs a gun of their own, I think of something that Connie DuToit pointed out a long time ago:

Do a search on women with abusive husbands/boyfriends and a restraining order who died when the man involved violated the piece of paper. Note how many of the women had called 911 and were waiting for the police to respond— and in how many of the cases, the police did so quickly.

There's always new examples. What you don't see, however, is the number of cases where a former victim of abuse became trained in firearms and the abuser went looking for easier prey.

Or do a search on the history of gun control in this country, and how it was advocated as a way of keeping blacks powerless— something Condoleeza Rice's father understood in Birmingham, years ago.

The Second Amendment is a deterrent. I had rather have the mugger on the street looking at me and wondering whether I'm one of the folks who has concealed carry rather than wondering just what I've got in my purse. You may choose not to believe it, but it's like dealing with children: Reward the behavior you like and discourage the behavior you don't. Even knowing that you *might* get shot is a discouragement to behavior.

OK, so after all this discussion, nobody has been able to produce a single example demonstrating that a citizenry armed with civilian firearms can provide any meaningful resistance to a modern army. I think it is safe to conclude that it is impossible for a citizenry armed with civilian firearms to offer any meaningful resistance to a modern army.

What we can safely conclude is that you ignore counterexamples and logical refutations by redefining them away.

Suppose we tried to clean up this stupid mess over guns with a new amendment to the Constitution: "The right of any adult to own single-shot rifles, double-barreled shotgun, or non-automatic handguns shall not be infringed."

No. How about you shove that up your nether regions?

Demonstrably, you haven't listened to any counter-arguments and now you presume to rewrite the Constitution for the rest of us. Tell me, if you dissemble falsely in such small matters, why should I give up my guns to you? How have you gained my trust?

You have not. You are exactly the kind of person I preserve the right to bear arms against.

Chris-

Chances are you are correct- an armed citizenry stands little chance against a modern army. I concede that point, congratulations.

Do you have any meaningful, realistic response to the other far more likely scenarios presented in this thread?

my Army friends tell me counterbattery radar can ruin your weekend in about fifteen seconds flat

Yeah, well that's where training comes in. I mean where are you gonna do that with a tank?

Anyway, RPGs, tanks, etc for US citizens? Why should only 3rd world citizens have all the fun? All of these are presently held in small numbers by private citizens, BTW, up to combat-worthy aircraft. Can't typically get ammo, but they're around.

Mark@Urthshu, I was thinking of the practical limitations of pack howitzers in today's environment (depending on the opposition). There's a reason artillery is self-propelled these days. ;-)

David Avera makes a good point, too. The circumstances under which the U.S. military would be ordered into action domestically matter a lot. Many of those people take their oaths of enlistment seriously.

There are a great many people who'd like to take away all your guns. They keep nibbling away at the problem and, although they haven't gotten very far, they have been making slow steady progress and the momentum seems to be slowly shifting against you.

You are of course entitled to your own opinion, Mr. Crawford, but not to your own facts. Go to the Wikipedia article "Concealed Carry in the United States" and see the progress of "shall-issue" concealed carry laws in the several states from 1986 to 2006 (okay, real 2A absolutists are against permitting, and with some justification, but that's a tale for another time).

Consider that President Clinton's AWB is likely what cost the Democrats control of Congress in 1994 (he said as much himself).

It is also quite likely that Heller v. US, coming in March to a Supreme Court near you (if you're near Washington, at any rate) is going to be decided in in the favor of free men and women. How much in favor, and with what consequences? That remains to be seen, but this Court is likely to affirm that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right.

Note also how hard and how far both Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have had to run from their records as gun-grabbers as they seek the Presidential nomination (and if you think we're letting them get away with it, think again). The best they can hope for is that Heller turns out to be Christmas for the advocates of ordered liberty, and renders their pasts moot.

The notion that the momentum is shifting against us is merest Brady Center/Joyce Foundation Kool-Aid.

What we can safely conclude is that you ignore counterexamples and logical refutations by redefining them away.

Exactly. When you honestly look at history, including all the small wars that are going on at present you will find that small arms in the hands of the local populace do make a significant or meaningful difference. If the populace of Afghanistan were disarmed, the fight would have been over. Same for the tribal regions in Pakistan. There are rebellions in Nepal, Burma, India, the Phillipines and all over Africa. They don't make the news, because they don't kill Americans. Even though many of these low intensity wars are small, they last for years. And because of them, the large urban populace has to consider to desires of those pesky tribes in the boonies.

These people are generally armed with AK-47's. The only difference between those and the AR-15's which are legal here is that you have to pull the trigger once per bullet on the AR-15. Tactically speaking, that isn't much of an advantage. American troops almost always keep their M-16's on semi-automatic. Full-automatic wastes ammo. Then again many of these rebels are armed with ancient rifles and handguns like the Webley revolver captured along wiht the high-value Al Qaeda operative who owned it in Iraq.

So Chris, let's apply your standard to other rights. How does freedom of speech or the press stop a modern army? Oops. They don't. Not by your standards, because they can't put up meaningful or significant resistance. (Saddam's non-free newspapers and speeches didn't help him much, either.) And freedom of speech and freedom of the press are more dangerous than an armed populace. Marx killed 100 million by writing. Hitler failed when he made an armed attack, but he won by speeches.

When we say that an armed populace is a bulwark for liberty and that it deters tyranny, we mean that it operates in the same way as freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which are also bulwarks for liberty and do deter tryanny. Bulwarks can be overcome. Detterence can fail. But not always.

You want strong arguments? These are strong arguments. The Founding Fathers thought them very persuasive, and they were better stundents of history than either you or I.

I would point out that perhaps we should also have a well-regulated militia like the Swiss do. All adult males must keep and be proficient with military small arms. The Swiss have done very well at staying neutral. It isn't just the mountains. They were sucessfully invaded before. (William Tell was Swiss and led a successful rebellion with his privately owned military small arm - a crossbow.) I would make one change. I'd say all adults, not all adult males.

Not many riots in Switzerland, either...

Yours,
Wince

Lastly, let me point out that my careful, reasoned responses are triggering frantic, vicious, ugly mudslinging from a few people.

Martin, could you stop claiming Chris isn't rational. He's rational. He just doesn't find the same reasons persausive that you do. Apparently he's a Fourth Amendment absolutist. As such, he should sympathize with Second Amendment absolutists, but there is no rule of logic which says that one must consider the Amendments equally important.

That said, Chris, if your repeated insults are the standard by which we should measure careful, reasoned response, you are getting careful, reasoned responses in reply. What? You didn't think you were insulting? Sorry, you were. I'm not seeing any insults in this thread which are significantly or meaningfully different from the insults you have been slinging. If you are refering to Martin's comment about bearing arms against you, I think you have simply stumbled on the line where he believes he will rebel. You should consider that. I expect he's trying to deter the tryanny you wish to impose.

Really. This discussion has been quite tame.

And yes, your chosen position is tryannical. That's not mudslinging, or vicious or ugly. That's a valid critique.

When considering how to protect against tyranny I prefer the following order of application:

Soap box.
Ballot box.
Jury box.
Bullet box.

Right now, we are doing 'soap box', but 'ballot box' did for a lot of Democrats recently. I believe 'jury box' helped out Bernard Goetz.

Yours,
Wince

Martin, could you stop claiming Chris isn't rational.

When he rationally responds to arguments instead of dismissing and ignoring them, I will. And if pointing that out is "mudslinging", then he has no business participating in a debate. (To his credit, he's improving on the responding front. Now if he can just work on the selective redefinition front, we'll have an honest discussion.)

You want mudslinging? Try this:

So let's cut the crap and be honest here. All these rationalizations about guns protecting us from malevolent black helicopters -- these are crazy fantasies; rationalizations, not reasons.... You're foisting these ridiculous arguments that a child could devastate.

What does that tell you about the nature of the gun advocacy movement? Does it not indicate that the real reasons for gun advocacy are deep-seated emotional ones instead of cool calculations of optimizing social benefit?

He's making the classic mind-reading argument: "I don't care what you say, I know what you really think." That's not a rational argument.

I'm not a gun owner. I've fired guns maybe a dozen times in my life. I have no emotional attachment to guns. And after years of being pro-gun control based on irrational arguments from the Brady campaign and semi-rational ones like Chris's, I did research, read history, got educated, and came to the rational conclusion that the NRA is right, and Chris is wrong. For him to dismiss that all as a result of some gun fetish is mudlsinging.

Go police that mudslinging, Tom! Go! Go! Go!

jaymaster asks whether I agree or disagree with this statement:

A modern military and an oppressive government are not the same thing.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement.

Tom, you're throwing a lot of stuff at me. I'll concentrate on the two most salient:

The first is your assertion that small arms play a salient role in modern insurgency. The trick here lies in the difference between "small arms" and "civilian firearms". You're mixing AR-15s with sporting rifles. The huge majority of civilian firearms in this country are handguns, shotguns, and sporting rifles -- weapons that have no significant utility in a real insurgency.

Your comment on freedom of speech defies my understanding. Please rephrase it in tighter logical terms.

You talk about the deterrent power of civilian weaponry. Deterrence only works if it is credible. You have not yet presented a credible argument that an American citizenry armed with civilian weapons could prevail over the American military. (Again, I remind you of the argument regarding the willingness of the military to obey orders to oppress the citizenry). If there is no credible argument that such a citizenry could prevail, then there is no deterrent value.

Lastly, I'd like to address your accusation that I have been just as insulting as the fellow who'd like to shove my proposed amendment up my ass. I am eager to apologize for any insult. Please cite the insult so that I can apologize for it and correct the offending sentence.

Chris, you're still missing the point: your definition of "credible argument" isn't one shared by everyone. I've read plenty of credible arguments on this thread. You just declare them to be not credible, and don't recognize that others see it differently. Since you can't see the other points of view, that leads you to make insulting statements like these:

So let's cut the crap and be honest here. All these rationalizations about guns protecting us from malevolent black helicopters -- these are crazy fantasies; rationalizations, not reasons.... You're foisting these ridiculous arguments that a child could devastate.

What does that tell you about the nature of the gun advocacy movement? Does it not indicate that the real reasons for gun advocacy are deep-seated emotional ones instead of cool calculations of optimizing social benefit?

The "mind reading" tactic is an insult, whether you recognize that or not.

Yes, that was either insulting mudslinging on his part, or it was a proper complaint about irrational arguments, like you made.

Tom, point out the irrational argument I made. Put up or shut up.

And for that matter, I'm still waiting for you to point out where I threatened to take up arms against him.

Err, bad, HTML, I think. Kevin at The Smallest Minority. He would love to debate you, Chris, and is not particularly rough and tumble, although he, like you, does consider his opponents to be operating from emotion, not reason. And he's sarcastic.

Martin, I see that you have offered some specific examples of what you claim to be mudslinging. Let's walk down Logic Lane together and analyze them, shall we?

In other words, you're redefining the insult away. Let me quote Tom:

What? You didn't think you were insulting? Sorry, you were.

And then you go back to the mind reading:

It was a rhetorical question, not a declaration, and therefore constitutes an insult only to those who admit its applicability in their own minds -- in which case it would be a correct observation.

You made an offer:

I am eager to apologize for any insult. Please cite the insult so that I can apologize for it and correct the offending sentence.

The insults were cited; but instead of apologizing, you tried to explain them away, and compounded them in the process.

Tom, point out the irrational argument I made. Put up or shut up.

I didn't mean any particular arguments made by you. To me, Chris's paragraph applies to all RKBA advocates, and it's his opinion, not mine. But he's allowed to rationally maintain that your arguments aren't rational.

rational: 6. proceeding or derived from reason or based on reasoning: a rational explanation.

Of course his reasoning about your reasoning could be incorrect. But that wouldn't make it irrational. Just faulty.

And for that matter, I'm still waiting for you to point out where I threatened to take up arms against him.

Martin I owe you a big apology. You only complained about rationality. It was 'Mark @ Urthshu' who wanted to bear arms against Chris.

I index names by first letter only. I don't know why I so often make that mistake. This is a reason, not an excuse.

Yours,
Wince

Well, it appears that several people have taken umbrage at a remark that was not meant to be personally insulting. Let me expand upon my thinking about this issue.

Discussion, if it is to be of any utility, must focus on points of disagreement. If all we ever do is nod our heads up and down in unison, none of us learn anything. The real value of discussion arises when we disagree. Therefore, good discussion relies on vigorous disagreement. This in turn means that each participant in the discussion should energetically attack those ideas he disagrees with. But at the same time we should not engage in personal assaults. This means that we draw the line between ideas and people. Attack the ideas as vociferously as you can; don't even mention the people.

This leaves at least two grey areas: indirect attacks and attacks on third parties. The first of these arises when you attack an idea in terms that are intrinsically personal. For example, calling an idea "idiotic" suggests that its advocate is an idiot; by contrast, calling an idea "ridiculous" makes no such intimation. This requires very careful wording and I'm certain that I occasionally err in this regard -- although I didn't notice any such instance in my quick review of this discussion.

The second grey area lies in attacks on third parties, especially public third parties. If you choose to call Mr. Kerry a fool, I have no justification for feeling insulted if I am a supporter of Mr. Kerry. Similarly, if you call liberals fools, that gives me no justification for feeling insulted if I consider myself a liberal (which I don't, actually). But there's plenty of room for error here. If you refer to me as a liberal, and then later call liberals fools, then you're crossing the line.

In the particular case cited, I clearly assigned my questions to the gun advocacy MOVEMENT, not to any particular person. I was, however, referring to behavior by a few participants in this discussion. It is fair to alter my statement to be something like this:

"People who suggest that my proposal be shoved up my ass are motivated by deep-seated emotional issues rather than cool calculations of optimizing social benefit."

Would anybody here care to disagree with that statement?

Chris Crawford,

I think it would help if you were to define "civilian arms" versus "military arms." To my mind an AR-15 is a civilian weapon while an M-16 is not (and if anyone participating in this discussion doesn't know the difference, they need to look it up before proceeding).

Clearly a Marlin 336 isn't going to prevail against an F-15 (although "citizen defense against a war waged by the American military" isn't, to me, a major rationale for the Second Amendment). Wars are rarely, if ever, fought unconditionally. If they were, the folks with nukes would win every time. Used as tools, however, "civilian" arms can be enough for the purpose. The purpose small arms in the hands of the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't to defeat the U.S. militarily but to allow them to fight off our limited attacks (for instance, attacking with light infantry and special forces) so that they can survive to continue their non-military actions. To some degree, they've had some success.

Similarly, I don't think that the Japanese High Command in WWII thought that their armies would be slaughtered by American hunting rifles and revolvers. However, they viewed the cost, in light of the losses they would take (probably involving attacks on officers, as in the European resistance movements) too great for the potential benefits of invasion. In this case, it was merely the threat of force provided by firearms that deterred the enemy.

We do and don't face such an enemy right now. We don't face an aggressor on our border (although I'd be interested to know your opinion on allowing Alaskans to own multi-shot or even selective-fire weapons during the height of the Cold War) and so no wide-scale invasion is likely. However, we do face the threat of terrorist infiltration; in a hypothetical situation where a terrorist were to pull out a pistol in a subway (or start shooting from a clock tower) and start shooting at civilians, would you object to those civilians pulling out their own firearms and returning fire?

As Tom Hawkson pointed out, you have the disadvantage of being outnumbered here, so I'll summarize for clarity:

1. Would you please clarify what you mean by "civilian arms" and "military arms?"
2. Not all fighting is symmetrical; sometimes guns can be a proper tool for accomplishing a certain type of fighting, as has been done in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. The threat of force may be just as effective as the actual use of force.
4. We have (reasonably believed ourselves to be) in danger of large-scale invasion in the past, and we (reasonably believe ourselves to be) in danger of individual-scale invasion at present.

HokiePundit, I'd like to thank you for presenting clear challenges to me, so here are my answers:

1. Would you please clarify what you mean by "civilian arms" and "military arms?"

Civilian arms consist of handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles. No automatic or semi-automatic weapons included. "Let your fingers do the loading".

2. Not all fighting is symmetrical; sometimes guns can be a proper tool for accomplishing a certain type of fighting, as has been done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, but not civilian weapons as I have defined them above.

3. The threat of force may be just as effective as the actual use of force.

Agreed -- but with the proviso that the threat of force is only as powerful or effective as the potential consequences of the application of that force. A handgun doesn't have as much deterrent power as an AK-47.

4. We have (reasonably believed ourselves to be) in danger of large-scale invasion in the past, and we (reasonably believe ourselves to be) in danger of individual-scale invasion at present

What is "individual-scale invasion"? A terrorist act? A mugging?

I am urging you to take a course of action that precludes such a disaster. Embrace a reasonable position. Admit up front that we don't want to see military weapons in the hands of any maniac who comes along. Agree that we have to do something to make it harder for hot-headed kids to shoot up schools. Support legislation that provides protection against the obviously unacceptable uses of guns; that will in turn guarantee that you will protect the obviously acceptable uses of guns. The gun advocacy movement has been assuming a slippery slope situation that I don't believe exists.

I am sorry, Chris--I will admit no such thing. Legislatures have passed law after law--many of them in the teeth of the plain language of the Constitution, but leave that aside--to achieve everything on your laundry list...

...and much good has it done.

First, your prescription has been weighed in the balance of experience and found wanting. Second, you're asking for a victory you have not earned and cannot earn. Third, the side of ordered liberty has compromised--repeatedly--and gained nothing thereby. That is the lesson of both the 50-year trend you cite, and the 20-year trend I cite. Every time RKBA advocates made a "reasonable" compromise, that became the new starting point for the next "reasonable" compromise. By 1986, our side decided rightly that there was no point in conceding--and we started winning.

You mentioned slippery slope, Chris. I'll tell you a brief story. I used to be a gun control advocate, probably in the same general neighborhood as you (at a guess, and my apologies if I am incorrect): I wasn't interested in taking Elmer Fudd's hunting rifle, but I thought the NRA was extreme. Then, about 2001, I started reading up on the history of the California AWB, when politicians started floating confiscation of the semi-auto "assault" rifles Californians had dutifully registered with the state earlier in the decade, with the promise that the state would never try to confiscate them.

Do you know what stopped it? It wasn't impassioned letters to the editor, nor the U.S. Army remembering its oath of enlistment. It was basically the person running the California state police doing the math and saying, in effect, "No thank you, I don't care to feed my officers into a meat grinder."

In other words, a prudent concern about the response of the armed citizen. I urge you, Chris, to think carefully about the lesson of California: You may at some point be able to pass laws of your liking, under circumstances I cannot now foresee, but you will still have to Come And Take Them.

Civilian arms consist of handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles. No automatic or semi-automatic weapons included. "Let your fingers do the loading".

You must know very little about actual civilian arms to use that definition. A large percentage of handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles are semi-automatic. I own one semi-automatic handgun and one semi-automatic rifle which were not used as standard issue arms by the military in this country or any other.

I would not be surprised if sales of semi-automatic weapons surpass all others in this country. I've certainly purchased more semi-automatic weapons (3) than otherwise (2).

Sorry, but your definition is utterly worthless and invalidates the arguments you have made.

Yours,
Wince

Chris Crawford,

There's our problem: you argue that we should only have "hunting" weapons and then declare that such weapons have never provided a proper deterrent. I'm not sure there's been such a situation in the past 50 years, seeing as semiautomatic rifles and pistols have been readily available for the past century (variants of the 1903 Springfield rifle and 1911 pistol are still popular and prevalent today). In many places, fully automatic weapons have been available for the past 50 years. It'd be like saying that zeppelins can't carry people on transoceanic voyages because no one's done so in the past 50 years.

Basically, I don't know that there's any data for what you're arguing. If by "civilian arms" you include semiautomatic rifles and pistols then you come up with a pretty decent amount of data that can be used.

Oh, and, for the record, Mark @ Urthshu should apologize.

No. As in way. Record it all you like. And I was, for your record, as polite as I could be.

I'm reading a lot of this and I have to wonder why we're even having an arguement.

The 2nd Amendment is a right that cannot be done away with. Discussing if it's relevant to the world today isn't a debate to be had. It doesn't matter. It's a right we have and that is that. There is no giving it up.

And I daresay when the moment arrives to have it removed from the Bill of Rights is the moment it is most needed.

I think what our friend Chis is missing is that the Founders saw government as a necessary evil. It was to be limited, tethered, and leashed as much as possible and not to be used at all when able. Government was the monster waiting to devour all it's own.

Government is a wild beast that you're just keeping at arms length. Turn your back on it at your own peril. It's not a question of if it will bite you, but when. And anyone that says otherwise doesn't know the lessons of history and should be kept from making policy decisions.

Chris, I am pointing out that gun control laws have failed utterly in preventing criminals from getting their hands on guns. Always have, always will. I direct your attention to the incidence of gun crime (not homicide, but gun crime) in England and Washington, DC, to name just two recent examples.

NRA supports Project Exile and Project Safe Streets, as well as "target-rich environment" (gun-free school) legislation. They're wrong on all three, and as a member I periodically remind them so.

Income tax: In fact, There are a number of people who are doing just that. They have not taken up arms, but they are fighting just the same. I think they are misguided in general, and I am persuaded that, for better or worse, the 16th Amendment was properly ratified. Therefore, I accept it as part of the supreme law of the land, but I work when I can to change it. I would prefer a consumption tax coupled with the repeal of the 16th and a general dismantling of the welfare state, so it'll take most of the weekend, I'm sure. ;-)

Your traffic law example is certainly a straw man. Traffic laws are not, in the main, unjust towards those upon whom they are imposed. Gun control laws, apart from their unConstitutional nature according to the public meaning of the words in the Second Amendment, generally work to deny citizens their inalienable right to life by denying them access to the means of effective defense of same. Unjust laws cannot bind in conscience; only naked, overwhelming force can keep them in place. That is tyranny: and no talisman, no giant papier-mache heads on the Mall, no piece of paper has ever restrained a would-be tyrant.

What does? Daunting force, and the will to use it if forced.

You may predict I'll suffer political consequences for advocating ownership of AK-47s all you like. If dire warnings of potential future hardship were decisive, Columbus would have stayed a shoemaker and been glad of the work. To use a football metaphor, I say you can tell me how bad you're going to beat me all you want, but come Saturday you'll still have to get out on the field and play the game.

At 12:02 I challenged anybody to present any argument that they claimed I have overlooked.

1) Civilian arms do not consist of only handguns, shotguns, and (single shot) hunting rifles. Many popular hunting rifles are semi-automatic. Heck, many popular shotguns are semi-automatic for that matter.

2) (Not ignored, but missed the point entirely) The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was a small group of poorly armed people holding off against a much larger and more sophisticated enemy for a very long time. Yes, they lost. But only after a month instead of the few hours it would have taken had they been unarmed. This is unquestionably positive. If they had been a larger and more well armed group, they may have held out until the end of the war. This would also be unquestionably a positive outcome.

This leads into: 3) You don't necessarily have to win independently. Our founders certainly didn't. But they do give you time to seek assistance. By the time the UN gets around to actually helping Darfur most everyone will already be dead. If, however, the population there were armed, they might live to see that help.

In a second American Revolution you would see the same thing as the first. You'd see the population seeking assistance from outside. Brittain, France, Spain, Italy, Australia, would all be potential allies of the American citizen. Civilian ownership of arms can prolong the conflict until help arrived from allies who could combat the heavy military equipment.

They can't do that if they are already dead, enslaved, etc.

4) Riots. There are many cases of people defending themselves, their homes, their shops with firearms (sometimes as simple as brandishment) during riots. Do you really think taking firearms away from (only) the non-rioters (Unless you think the Crips would turn in their guns too) would make things less violent? Or do you just prefer that the innocent store owner dies instead of the thug?

5)Critical Mass: No one is arguing that a civilian, with even a military weapon, is a one-to-one match to the military. No one. Not even the Founders. No ones even argued that it's a 3-to-1 match. That's why the militia was to be *all* able bodied males. That way the potential size of the militia was always orders of magnitude larger than the standing army. A 2 million strong army is not a match for a 100 million strong militia aremed with mostly semi-auto hunting rifles*. Sure the military could destroy the land area, but they could not hold it. However, they are more than a match for 100 million armed with pitchforks.

Further, you don't have to fight F-16s with an AR15. They don't run on gasoline. You attack the much easier target of their supply chain (fuel). You don't have to fight F-16s on the ground at all.

*7) The difference between an a Ruger Mini-14, an AR15, and a semi-auto 30-06 deer rifle is that the first is a popular semi-auto rifle used to hunt ground hogs and other varmint, the second is functionally identicle to the first except cosmetically, and the third is the most powerful rifle of the bunch.

So yes, civilian small arms can be more powerful than military small arms.

Well Ken, my point wasn't to define where the critical mass point is, only to assert that there is one.

And that the number gets lower, the more well armed they are (or can be readily).