Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 21:31:10 -0500 (CDT)
   From: "Ranma Al'Thor" <ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>

   On Sat, 7 Sep 1996, frosty wrote:

   > [...]

   > The philosopy is that if the people have guns, then an oppressive
   > government won't stand a chance in hell of existing, why?, 'cause
   > we'll shoot them.  If

   Yeah, like that has ever worked in American history.  Go read about 
   Shay's rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, or oh, the Civil War.  An armed 
   citizenry doesn't have a chance in hell against organized military forces 
   with superior resources.  Especially now, when the military has tanks.  

Official US Army doctrine is that without serious infantry cover
armored units in urban areas will get their heads handed to them.
While you might argue about how organized the Russian troops in
Checknia (sp.) were, it and Afghanistan should give one pause.  Or
what about the Rangers in Somolia?  If an internal rebellion starts
without fixed lines of battle, can the military afford to keep their
people in armored vehicles or forts all the time?  If not, lots of
them get picked off when they aren't well protected....

If things get really nasty, you go after their families (and the Feds
are currently quite willing to go after the families of their targets).

Would the politicians ordering this find life pleasant---as well as
lengthy---in such an environment?

   Unless we all start carrying rocket launchers, there isn't much we could 
   do but die.

There are *all sorts* of ways to kill tanks and helos; clog the
intakes with styrofoam.  Feed a turbine acylene gas---the results are
not pretty as it revs out of control.  And there's the old standby of
Napalmolive.

   The field record of armed, but untrained citizenry against anything well 
   armed and disciplined sucks pretty hard.

You are assuming the citizenry would fight set piece battles against
the official military.  Obviously, if we play the game on their terms,
we lose.  That suggests we should chose an alternative approach if
push comes to shove.

Also remember the objective is not to "win."  The objective is to bend
the will of your opponent to your liking.  Making tyranny too
expensive would probably suffice.  Absent a system of political
commissars and a Gulag, do you think the US military would follow
orders implimenting tyranny on a large scale?  Do you think they'd all
be on one side?

   It was indeed the philosophy behind the second amendment, but it didn't 
   work even then.

   > we don't have guns, then only the criminals, police, and military
   > have them, and don't even think that the criminals wouldn't have
   > an easy time getting them, remember that much of the crime here
   > is centered around IMPORTED drugs.  And then, if our government
   > had a chance, they'd probabally bring this country down to
   > martial law, but our guns keep them in check.  About now, you're
   > realizing that I have no faith in my government, and you're
   > absolutely right.

   Well, I have no faith in the ability of a bunch of disorganized people 
   with guns, however big, to successfully defend themselves from tyranny, 
   especially when the government is so much better armed than they are.

And when it comes to individual levels, the citizenry is much better
armed---more guns, and generally better guns (the M-16 in isolation
was a big mistake; add grenade launchers on up to the whole panoply of
combined arms and it's a mistake we can in some sense "afford").

Sure, the military can bring a concentration of force to bear vastly
superior to what the citizens can (but don't forget how cheap chemical
and biological weapons are), but can the government afford to level
half the country's households to confiscate our firearms?  Absent a
seriously motivating ideology like Communism, and lethal ruthlessness
at the top to enforce it, I doubt it.

And can they impliment a serious tyranny without confiscating our
firearms?  I doubt it; certainly this century's tyrrants felt that was
a necessary step.  I consider gun ownership to be among other things a
very useful tripwire, and that's why I defend gun ownership so strongly.

   If the philosophy behind owning guns is to defend ourselves from tyranny, 
   it's a failed philosophy.

Unfortunately (unless you believe we live in tyranny today (for which
a good, but I'd say premature, case could be made)) you can't prove
that proposition.  We have guns, and we don't have tyranny---yet.

Ob-Tyranny-Fanfic: the multiple Ryougas fanfic series (names escape
me, but one excellent side story (better than the original) was a
Guyver?  crossover) provide one example of fanfic tyranny.  The
1984/Brazil inspired one with "extenders" et. al. is my favorite---the
Ministry of Confusion achieves the level of suspense where you wonder
if the characters you care about are going to make it.  This is hard
(especialy in fanfic), but necessary to make a really good fanfic of
that type.

Parallel Lives is approaching that level.  Sailor Moon fanfics often
achieve it, but then again, it's a substantially more dire series than
Ranma.

					- Harold