Subject:
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Re: guns, guns, guns (was: demographics (was: My Gun Control Rant))
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:53:46 GMT
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Viewed:
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1059 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Low writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> > My guns are owned in part so that I can assist the revolution if I should
> > decide that that is the right course of action.
>
> Are guns necessary for a revolution?
They are necessary for an armed insurgency. Revolution is a messy term because
it has so many contextual meanings.
> Perhaps non-violent movements can more
> effectively create social change: Gandhi and post-colonial India, South
> Africa in the past decade.
And you would claim that these two nations are exemplars of successful national
organization?
> Interestingly both these countries have examples that
> show how a culture of violence can become the norm, with no "gains" to anyone
> involved (India's conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir; tribal/gang/poverty
> related crime in SA).
I'm pretty sure that someone's getting rich whenever armed conflict happens.
> Even if guns are necessary for a revolution, are they sufficient?
Absolutely not. That is why it is important that we (in the US) get rid of all
the unconstitutional "laws" that infringe the right of the people to keep
and bear more substantial arms. It is also why it is important to keep the
knowledge of improvised munitions alive for all.
> 1. Chris points out his right to choose to join the revolution or not. The USA
> is much more culturally diverse now than it was at independence. Would the
> armed population be united against an illegitimate government? Would the Klan
> and the Nation of Islam find enough common ground that they would forget to
> hate each other?
They might if the threat was great enough. Probably not. But neither of those
groups represent even vaguely mainstream US opinion. And if
the result of the coming revolution is that the US cracks into a bunch of
smaller states, well more power to it. That is how it was supposed to
work anyway. Murderer Lincoln ruined what hope there was for that 150 years
ago.
> And even if they did:
> 2. Would the world's most powerful military force be deployed against its own
> citizens? Could this actually happen? And what would happen if it did?
I suspect the US military, if called out for particularly heinous actions
against US citizens, would fracture. But we have had one revolution where
military engagement was widespread enough to squash the resistance.
Let's say that 100,000 of us get together and start a revolution. That is a
big enough group that we could cause some serious mischief, but small
enough that the military wouldn't have too much trouble putting us down. We
would be called terrorists and criminals by the people inciting the
military to attack us. I doubt they would issue orders like "Roll your tanks
over those poor honorable freedom-fighters until the streets run red
with the blood of the oppressed."
When the US government wrongly entered a military engagement with the home of
the Branch Davidians, they cast their enemies in the least
flattering terms they could think of. They were a cult, not a peaceful
Christian sect. The lived in a compound, not a home. David Koresh was a
child molester not a sexual liberal. The same would be done in a revolution.
Chris
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