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Really illustrates the importance of our own second amendment.
by neonIcon 7y ago
Really illustrates the importance of our own second amendment.
- idlewords 7y agoA population armed with guns can no more stand up to a modern police force or army than one without firearms. People in Iraq and Yemen were heavily armed.
- dragonwriter 7y agoWhich does illustrate the importance of the idea of the second amendment, but also it's failure in implementation: The second amendment does not exist to arm the citizenry against the police/army, it exists to provide a militia of citizens so that government will not (because the citizenry will be both capable and, being politically empowered, will not stand for the alternative) resort to permanent professional police and armies for security. But it turns out the citizenry, armed or not, like the government applying violence, and don't want to be bothered to be on the pointy end, so even with the second amendment we have abandoned reliance on the citizen militia in favor of professional security services, along with a weird civic cult of worship of those services.
- remotecool 7y agoThis has been my thought too. China is allowing these protests to go on. At any point, they can roll in the tanks, and they will be over. Without meaningful ways to defend themselves, there really is no way to win against the Chinese government.
- idlewords 7y agoHow do you defend yourself against the Chinese army with just handguns and rifles? You can post the answer here, or better yet, sell it to Taiwan confidentially for billions of dollars.
- psychrometer 7y agoAsk the Vietnamese.
- Retric 7y agoFor a more recent example ISIS was crushed. The Vietnamese had massive foreign support. China is unlikely to give up so easily, and no country is going to want to keep arming such a resistance.
- doanguyen 7y agoJust to be clear, in the most recent conflict between Vietnam and China, we had very limit foreign support, even the support from the Soviet.
- doanguyen 7y agoI'm glad that you asked. We had a long history with our big "brother" China. But I don't think this is relevant because at the end of the day, Hong Kong and Taiwan are still Chinese.
- decoyworker 7y agoThe Vietnamese had room to maneuver and hide and had the support of the locals. In addition you overestimate how little the Chinese government gives a shit about the average citizen. In such an engagement there will be no "hearts and minds" war. If they decide to go the military route they will flood HK and massacre anybody who gives off the slightest whiff of sedition. Personally I think they'll just continue arresting and making people disappear to the mainland so there is nothing damaging on the news.
- verttii 7y agoIn all fairness the Vietnamese had among the most battle-trained armies of the time, with massive manpower, enough of weaponry and extreme determination. Plus a difficult terrain. Equipment-wise they had infantry weapons, artillery, air force, aerial defense... HK has maybe a difficult terrain?
- Udik 7y agoI hope you're being sarcastic. Partly because the idea of civilians using guns bought at the supermarket to oppose the Chinese army is hilarious; partly because the idea that you need guns to get freedom, is general, even more laughable. Sorry.
- neonIcon 7y agoIs the creation of the United States laughable? What was used in order to gain that freedom from Britain? Firearms maybe?
- Udik 7y agoThe last time some of the US states tried to secede from the rest of the union and gain their "freedom" (they were of course heavily armed) they were attacked and crushed in a war that lasted 4 years and caused almost a million deaths. So in that case the weapons didn't work. Or did they? Sometimes armed rebellion has good outcomes, sometimes (probably more often) it has horribly tragic ones. Prolonged political pressure and alliances, non-violent protest, can give equally good results without the risk of creating bloodsheds like the US secession war or the current Syrian civil war (that as horrendous as it is, has yet to claim as many victims as the US secession war).
- nameismypw 7y agoThis is a very privileged and perhaps even ignorant view to take. Not everybody has the luxury of waiting for a peaceful revolution to happen.
- Udik 7y ago> This is a very privileged and perhaps even ignorant view to take. I'll spare myself the obvious retort. Not everyone has the privilege of starting an armed revolution and succeed, or simply survive. Not everyone who does is guaranteed to be in the right (for example the US states that tried to secede). And the outcome can be complete destruction for yourself, for your city and your region, and hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions displaced and homeless- many of whom couldn't care less about your "revolution". Do I condemn armed resistance? No. Of course not, sometimes it is inevitable. But the idea that you should distribute firearms to people just in case somebody one day decides he's fed up and wants to start shooting other people for freedom, or for white supremacy, or- why not- for a religious caliphate- that is ridiculous.
- omnimus 7y agoPublic armed with personal arms would change nothing when tanks roll in. Power of public is in numbers. Revolutions happen when everybody including soldiers become the protesters. Unfortunately in this media age thats going to be harder and harder.
- devoply 7y agoNot really, say Texas wanted to declare independence. How long would a Texan militia last against the US military? Modern empires can't be resisted period. It's just a question of whether you want to destroy yourself to keep them from ruling you. In that case they still can't be resisted but at least you deny them their victory. You either belong to one empire or another. The only way for Hong Kong to resist would have been if they never unified with China and joined as a territory of the US or Europe or something when Britain was done with them. Americans and the US like to perpetuate the freedom myth, but it's mostly bullshit used to destroy countries in the name of liberating them to benefit the US financially or strategically. The reality is much more stark.
- neonIcon 7y agoConsider if you will how well we fared in Korea, Vietnam, and in the Middle East against farmers and normal folks. As a Texan myself, I'd like to point out that a large percentage of the United States military happens to originate from or was stationed in our great state. I happen to think we would fare quite well in your hypothetical scenario..
- devoply 7y agoWith Korea, the US basically conquered half of it and made it kind of territory or vassal. Vietnam would be the only victory for the belligerent. The Middle East with US intervention is pretty much destroyed, where Iraq is more or less a vassal state and Afghanistan is still out of control but more or less destroyed, and Syria is burning. In foreign cases the invading army will eventually leave the country if you can make victory for them too difficult politically or militarily, not so if the army is domestic.
- vict00ms 7y agoI'm not a student of military history but these all seem disparate examples that don't support the point that you're trying to make. Are you trying to say something about the nature of the US Military's (in)ability to hold territory or making a point about foreign occupations?
- monk_e_boy 7y agoMinor point: not everyone is American. Some countries are democratic without the need to bear arms.
- andromeduck 7y agoAll of them much smaller and/or less demographically diverse.
- neonIcon 7y agoYou're absolutely right. Until that one day comes that you might need to bear arms. Or bear arms, that could be cool too /s
- sorokod 7y agoNobody messes with nuclear powers - how about a right to bear tactical nukes?
- Spooky23 7y agoNot really. Civil disobedience is the only historically effective way to defeat a modern state. With open warfare, the historical playbook for putting down this sort of thing is clear. Roll in the tanks, and infantry from Mongolia or whatever. Sometimes the revolt get put down immediately, sometimes you end up with guerrilla warfare.
- verttii 7y agoThere will be nothing like guerilla warfare in Hong Kong though. Literally no one has any military experience there, and nobody owns a weapon either. It's just not Singapore. Meanwhile, the Chinese PLA certainly doesn't suffer from any manpower shortages to contain the situation when they eventually want to.
- chewz 7y ago> There will be nothing like guerilla warfare in Hong Kong though. Literally no one has any military experience there, and nobody owns a weapon either. You don't need guns. Making car bombs and IEDs requires only determination and some practice. PLA as any modern army is poorly equiped to combat urban guerilla. Such a dense maze like Hong-Kong had never been experienced by any army. Loss of face for China would be collosal if any sort of prolonged and effective resistance happend after intervention. But I hope it won't be necessary.
- verttii 7y agoThe people in HK have no training in any form of warfare, guerilla or not. They're just not mentally nor physically equipped to conduct any sort of warfare, especially against a superior power like China. I doubt China ultimately cares about loss of face.
- chewz 7y ago> The people in HK have no training in any form of warfare, guerilla or not. In a population of 8 milion you will find more then enough smart, determined, intelligent people who can learn quickly enough and innovate. The only thing that China is afraid of is the loss of face :-)
- andromeduck 7y agoAlso state's rights, that's basically what they're fighting for.
- TheBranca18 7y agoYou mean the first amendment right? The US military machine would decimate any civilians wielding weapons if they were so inclined. They wouldn't even have to use troops, they could do so with drones.
- nyolfen 7y agoyes, who could imagine a group of civilians with small arms defeating the US military
- nostalgk 7y agoWhy has the US military machine failed to wipe out a few thousand foreign insurgents (generally less well equipped than American civilians) using drones then? Why did many of my peers, troops, die? I have severe doubts that the US could contain a civil uprising scenario, especially given international pressures. About 42% of Americans *live in a household with guns according to Gallup, with approximately 30% owning them. If even 10% of those people decided to revolt, that would be approximately 9 million people. I'd wager that's vastly more than the insurgent military forces we've lost to in the past few conflicts we've had.
- TheBranca18 7y agoTo add context here, I responded to someone who said the current Hong Kong situation illustrates the importance of the second amendment. Which I think truly was a myopic, insipid comment. As far as your contention that they haven't wiped out a few thousand foreign insurgents, are you referring to Iraq or Afghanistan? Afghanistan is an interesting case, I truly don't understand what the current goal is. I would add that the US monitors its civilians with multiple agencies, including Homeland Security and the NSA, and I would think it'd be easier to do on the domestic side than have to contend with foreign governments and the distances involved in operating overseas. I'm not sure about the Gallup poll you're referring to, but the Pew Research poll I stumbled upon has 30% of Americans owning a firearm with an additional 11 to 12% living in a household with someone who owns a firearm. I don't really agree that means 42% of Americans own firearms. In fact, the ratio of households that own a gun has been going down for decades (You can see this here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/despite-mass-shootings-number-of-households-owning-guns-is-on-the-decline/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/despite-mass-shootings-number-o...). The issue is there are fewer and fewer people owning guns, but those people own far more guns than they did previously. Which is where the extremism and mass shootings come in (along with our current social and political structure). Here's a quotation from the article I linked above: >They found that those who own guns own an average of 4.8 firearms. But they also found that half of all guns — 130 million guns — are owned by 14 percent of gun owners or 7.6 million people. That's 3 percent of the U.S. population. The international pressure angle is interesting and not something I've really thought a lot about. Incidentally, the current administration doesn't seem to care what international governments think.
- awinder 7y agoI think the other 26 amendments + constitution probably have more to do individually, and absolutely do as a collective, with the freedoms of our society. I don't know if you've seen an obese person with a peashooter go up against an apache helicopter, for instance, but I don't think the state has had to worry about who can deploy more force in over a century.
- Clubber 7y agoYou're being dismissive. We're leaving Afghanistan because some skinny guys in robes with little more than AK's successfully stood up to the most powerful military that ever marched, for going on 18 years now. It happened in Iraq too, and Vietnam.
- awinder 7y agoThese are all examples of a foreign power fighting a war, not an internal conflict which is mediated by internal violence. Winning a war by not losing is a completely orthogonal endeavor to getting what you want internally. How’d it work out for Syria?
- kortilla 7y agoEvery modern conflict has pretty clearly demonstrated that military might is not nearly enough to control a country.
- mindslight 7y agoDiscussion of practicality aside, thinking "$bad_thing can't happen here because of $blank" is base exceptionalism that only results in creating a blind spot for yourself.