There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15. That country is deluded and everyone falls off eventually and trump may have actually accelerated the country out of it's golden age
> There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15.
It would depend on their patience.
The insurgency in Iraq was eventually suppressed (American COIN manuals were updated). The insurgency (?) in Afghanistan outlasted the patience of the invaders.
So how long do the 'gun nutters' want to keep at it compared to the opposing force?
Further, it's worth asking how effective, on average, is violent disobedience. Generally speaking a movement has about double the odds of success by not using violence:
I don’t feel well educated in modern military actions- are you saying that civilian gun owners in America would contribute meaningfully to the national defense (maybe because of things like civil resistance in other modern conflicts?), or am I misunderstanding? Do you have any suggestions for how I could start to broach the topic? It’s so broad and fast-moving that it’s hard to know where to start.
Yes absolutely they would and insurgencies are not the same thing as two nations fighting each other. America has twice as many gun owners as there are people in Afghanistan, a large chunk of them have combat experience.
Civil wars happen all of the time. Not only is propaganda effective, but militaries have ways to mitigate this, like moving soldiers far away from home to fight in places they don't have familial/cultural/economic/etc ties, which also makes it more likely that the propaganda will work.
The thing that makes the large quantity of American gun owners potentially useful in that sort of scenario is not that they possess guns. That matters a little, but usually most of the equipment a resistance uses is captured and/or supplied by allies. The thing that would be useful is these individuals' skills with firearms. It's theoretically kind of an alternate route to a similar (but lower) background proficiency level that some countries achieve with mandatory military service.
Note however that America is not only not unique in having that background proficiency -- but unlike mandatory military service, this approach has not really been tested. It's far from a certain proposition either way.
The hardware still matters because it lets you execute suspected collaborators and force the occupiers to incur cost hardening their logistics train (i.e. insurgency 101 type stuff) without waiting for the bureaucrats in whatever foreign country wants to fund your insurgency to prepare your arms shipments.
If you're in a situation where the thing you're doing can be meaningfully called an "execution", a firearm is a convenience, not a necessity. There are also plenty of effective attacks on logistics trains that don't involve firearms, though I will grant that they are at least sometimes a force multiplier there. Hence "that matters a little".
Exactly the type of gunnut I'm talking about. You lot couldn't handle being asked to wear a COVID mask, you wouldn't be able to handle actual war against a state armed with ya assault rifle and tinned food
I think you misunderstand me. I have never owned a gun, fired one exactly once more than 20 years ago (Boy Scouts), and advocate for more gun control (not less). I would be totally useless in any realistic fight. The argument has some merit though, in that it is as yet unclear how much it would matter.
I don't think that unclear merit outweighs the very clear and data-driven drawbacks. I just prefer to engage subjects like this in a charitable manner.
What makes you think the us army would unite against them? Sure a few nut militials would be suppressed, but if gun owners in mass are raising up that means a large controversy that the military will be aware of. The us military is not full of 'yes men' who will follow orders that blindly on home turf, a lot of them will follow.
> What makes you think the us army would unite against them?
I'd turn that around and ask, "What makes you think the people would accept the gun nuts rebellion?"
Many would be celebrating in the streets if the military showed up with tanks and started blasting. Furthermore, there's enough people in the military from far, far outside whatever state is being threatened to care that much about the locals.
Again, you are assuming a small rebellion - of course those will be put down. Texas has enough gun owners to put down a small rebellion without the military (they would let the military/police do it). However if things got so far that the majority of gun owners were willing to go to war that implies the US is at least very divided and the military is going to at least partially be on the side of the rebellion.
The 2nd amendment types are a little too impressionable for their guns to be of much use. They were soundly defeated in 5th generation warfare without the need to fire nary a shot. Less gullible americans tend to not own guns, so they were also defeated without firing nary a shot. Now America is just a big dumb worm that Netanyahu has his hooks in and uses to cruise around the desert with.
Guns are not only for counter-insurgency on invasion/warfare. For most people I know who own guns, that's not even on their top 10 list of reasons. But if you don't think they'd be a factor, then you disagree with some of the top generals around the world.
Civilian guns (armament generally, not just guns) aren't for going toe to toe with a trained military in the field.
They're for putting a bullet in you and/your your family if you act as a collaborator, taking potshots at the logistics train, and all the other nasty stuff you have to do to make occupation costly in terms of both life and dollars. Every cent spent on putting bullet proof glass in the camera installation van and drone cages on the police station and using those cameras and drones to track down the guy who shot you for collaborating is a cent that must be extracted from either the occupied population or the population that's financing the occupiers and not spent in direct pursuit of the political goal.
This is an employee posting it to hackernews, which lets be honest is glad for any content that isn't a repost from 15+ years ago. Most people won't have heard of this vanity publication. And if this is news then il go elsewhere
It's very easy to upset a human. Is it learned behaviour? Would a kid ever take "offense" to something like this... probably not, we must have learnt this at some point
It's so not ok that we have laws against misleading people. Not against this particular misleading (I don't think, although if Asimov had a formal estate they could probably sue).
I can't open "Tom Cruse's Fine Wine" because I'm not Tom Cruse. It's wrong morally but also illegal. We have laws against things like that and Tom Cruse would surely sue my ass, successfully. The proof of that is that there is no "Tom Cruse's **" businesses out there.
It might stop being illegal if the person dies because to sue you have to have standing. Unless there is formal trust like e.g. Tolkien's works and business affairs which probably have standing to sue "Tolkien's Fine Wine".
A child would also take offense on being mislead. Not this particular misleading because it only misleads people who know who Asimov is and like his books. Your hypothetical child doesn't.
But tell a child you'll buy him an ice cream if he finishes his chores and let's see how he reacts if you mislead him by not buying an ice cream.
> It's very easy to upset a human. Is it learned behaviour? Would a kid ever take "offense" to something like this... probably not, we must have learnt this at some point
Are you human? You're talking like you're an alien from another planet. Unfamiliar with humanity and it's customs.
Here are some facts that may interest you:
1. Humans do not hatch from eggs, they grow from spores underground and emerge as children.
2. There is little need for learning in human society, as children inherit most knowledge they need as genetic memories from their parents.
3. Humans never discovered fire, usually they developed the technology for electric heating elements first. Only later did they work out how to use fire technology.
Young children can absolutely be jealous - I can easily imagine (perhaps it's even a distant memory of having witnessed) a toddler being upset that someone else actually has the same name, nevermind co-opting it.
It is apparently contaminated/not pure enough and refining it isn't financially viable compared to mining it from more pure deposits (according to the german wikipedia page)
They mean ethically as in doesn't break any copyright laws... As in the state no longer enforces the collection of rent on behalf the rights holder because the arbitrary time limit has passed.
America had the advantage of getting through WW2 relatively unscathed with lots of resources and intact infrastructure that it used to leverage against the reconstruction of Europe, Japan and the USSR and entrench its cultural and economic hegemony. Also the US essentially colonized the West with nuclear weapons under the guise of "Pax Americana" and making the dollar the reserve currency.
That's really it. Not moral superiority, not technical ingenuity, not the indomitable American spirit. Just imperialist opportunism.
Loads of natural resources, no local military threats, and historically a government that stayed out of the way and allowed individuals to reap the rewards of their efforts.
The first is almost impossible to screw up, though we're really trying on the last front.
We're ranked number one based on the summation of all the angsty teen America bad comments on social media. At least that is the stat the press goes off of I believe
Yeah lol, if you're suddenly policeman of the world going after evil regimes, how is North Korea still standing? They're forced to be robots or they're killed
consider that the same people that tell you what's going on in the DPRK also said iran was two weeks away from nuking the middle east, that something called the cartel of the sun was responsible for the drug trade in the united states, and that epstein killed himself.
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