Like I said: Even an organized and well trained militia are pretty much useless against a modern military. Police departments around the country have armored vehicles for these situations and any militia that gets too “uppity” is begging for a drone strike… or even just a mortar.
But yes. Individuals can’t do anything. We only have strength when we work together and look out for each other. An individual buying a gun to “protect themselves” isn’t gonna do shit and is mostly just going to escalate things rapidly. Whereas a community protecting themselves, with firearms or otherwise, can at least buy time.
But that requires coordination and a LOT of focus on “optics”. Again, The Black Panthers are historically one of the best examples of this. Yes, they have guns and do armed patrols. But mostly it is about community service and outreach so that killing one Black Panther means you are accepting the murder of that entire community. That isn’t going to stop things once things accelerate to a full blown civil war (just look at Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan for what the US military will gladly do to a village…) but it DOES buy time.
But Americans have this mindset that just buying a gun turns you into John McClane and you are going to single handedly solve all the worlds problems in three respawns or less.
The quintessential example is the US (and USSR before us) in Afghanistan. Yes, the Taliban and the Brave Mujaheddin Fighters ™. And… hit and run tactics… sort of worked. Moreso against the USSR where those militias were being armed by a different military superpower… and where the USSR troops were already behind the curve gear wise. Against the US? It is less that the Taliban et al “won” and more that we lost. We were bled out during an unpopular war where we had no meaningful objectives and no desire to actually fight and kind of just… left.
You aren’t going to bleed out the US Military to the point that they and the christofacists leave the continental US (or even Hawaii… Alaska we would sell to putin in a heartbeat). Instead, you are going to see something a lot closer to the nazi occupation of Western Europe where you just have mass punitive executions until people turn on the guerillas.
We aren’t at the point of pitched battles. People are calling for resistance.
And of we do end up at all out war with the government, the military will likely shatter and be considerably less effective than the military that couldn’t defeat the Taliban.
And do you think this would be a popular war? Fairly certain it would be less popular than any war the US ever fought including the US civil war. That at least had a purpose a reasonable number of people supported.
Which is a very different topic than “Just going to ignore all the times modern militaries have lost to insurgent groups”
But sure, let’s address your new argument while ignoring the old one:
People are calling for resistance.
Yes. And we need to understand what resistance is going to make a difference. One person owning a gun to protect themselves… isn’t even going to accomplish the stated goal. A well trained militia… ignoring the fact that getting one of those takes a lot more time than we have, is also going to be of very questionable value once the civil war goes hot.
But going to protests and speaking to the community organizers and figuring out how to protect each other? THAT is proving incredibly effective… at least for this phase.
And of we do end up at all out war with the government, the military will likely shatter
Having spent years having to work with military folk and officers… I doubt it. That is an entire org built around “just following orders” and “being apolitical because I serve the office, not the man”. Yes, people will bitch and moan. But they’ll get told “It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with the war. What matters is that you look out for the man in the trench next to you”. And once the bullets start coming back, they will gladly hose down however many protesters or militia soldiers they can because “it is them or us”.
be considerably less effective than the military that couldn’t defeat the Taliban.
Again, the Taliban did not defeat the military. The US government did. In fact, in most skirmishes (that weren’t just ambushes and IEDs), we massacred them.
Because, “victory” in that case is convincing the christofacists to leave “their country”. Which is the exact same reason the taliban just stuck around, waited for the coalition to leave, and went back to oppressing people.
But this also has the added factor that we already see with fuckface: It won’t take too many massacres by the military before the soldiers that we thank for their service realize they will be massacred if they lose.
The only way a civil war goes beyond “We put down isolated groups of terrorists” is if the military (whatever branches) tends to align with different forks of the government. I… am not optimistic with that and suspect any isolated bases deciding to not support the christofacists will realize how quickly they run out of supplies. But it could happen.
The militias will, at best, be cannon fodder to stand in trenches. Which… is what we see in Ukraine. Trained soldiers can engage in maneuver combat and take ground. Conscripts/militia can get given a gun, pointed in a general direction, and try to prevent those maneuvers from working. But a well equipped combat force is still going to steamroll over them.
Civilian deaths (North and South Vietnam) 405,000–627,000
The Korean War (1950–1953) resulted in a massive civilian death toll, with estimates ranging from 1.5 million to over 3 million, often cited as exceeding 50% of total casualties
And we have seen instances where the ice nazis murder first and fabricate an excuse later.
If they think someone in an apartment has a gun, they aren’t going to run away. They are going to just shoot. What makes ice back off is when the community stands up and makes it clear that they are going to have to murder a LOT of people to get what they want… and that works for now.
Which is why fuckface is working so hard to get the us military to “support” ice. They are actually trained for this and will just chuck some grenades into that apartment.
Just to add on. This is nothing new. This is why cops/swat do so many “no knock raids”. The idea is “Well, this person might be armed so we are just going to sneak up, kick down the door, flashbang every crib we can find, and shoot anyone who resists”.
And that works because even if you “train a lot” and carry your glock in your waistband 24/7, shock and awe tactics disable brains at all “training levels”.
That is my position. It would be cool if peaceful protest succeeds at reforming the nation, but I don’t think it would happen. In such a situation, having the resources and accepting the possibility of violence would go a long way towards saving the lives of innocents.
If it turns out peace works, I would gladly end my gun range subscription and abandon social media. I want to spend my time with anime girls, not the bullshit that Trump and his kind are flinging around.
No, I am saying that being armed and predisposed to peace go together. It gives people the option to fight if it becomes necessary. The Black Panthers are the way.
All the gun nuts leap at the idea that they can grab a rifle and fix the world. And they shit on the actual legacy of The Black Panthers by distilling them down to that.
The vast majority of what made/makes The Black Panthers effective is that they focus so much on community outreach. Far more time is spent getting to know the neighbors and families than sending bullets downrange. All because the goal is to NOT fire a shot. Because the shitbags understand… if you shoot Jamal then you are going to be attacked by multiple city blocks worth of people who can personally talk about how Jamal helped make sure their kids got home safe or literally just gave them a chance to talk through their pains and worries
Instead, all the gun nuts are leaping at the chance to justify buying a new optic or buying a third ar-15. And… there is definitely a lot of “Wow. Even the Libertarians think we should abolish ICE” going on.
Like I said: Even an organized and well trained militia are pretty much useless against a modern military. Police departments around the country have armored vehicles for these situations and any militia that gets too “uppity” is begging for a drone strike… or even just a mortar.
But yes. Individuals can’t do anything. We only have strength when we work together and look out for each other. An individual buying a gun to “protect themselves” isn’t gonna do shit and is mostly just going to escalate things rapidly. Whereas a community protecting themselves, with firearms or otherwise, can at least buy time.
But that requires coordination and a LOT of focus on “optics”. Again, The Black Panthers are historically one of the best examples of this. Yes, they have guns and do armed patrols. But mostly it is about community service and outreach so that killing one Black Panther means you are accepting the murder of that entire community. That isn’t going to stop things once things accelerate to a full blown civil war (just look at Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan for what the US military will gladly do to a village…) but it DOES buy time.
But Americans have this mindset that just buying a gun turns you into John McClane and you are going to single handedly solve all the worlds problems in three respawns or less.
Just going to ignore all the times modern militaries have lost to insurgent groups?
In skirmishes? Sure.
In terms of wars? Not so much.
The quintessential example is the US (and USSR before us) in Afghanistan. Yes, the Taliban and the Brave Mujaheddin Fighters ™. And… hit and run tactics… sort of worked. Moreso against the USSR where those militias were being armed by a different military superpower… and where the USSR troops were already behind the curve gear wise. Against the US? It is less that the Taliban et al “won” and more that we lost. We were bled out during an unpopular war where we had no meaningful objectives and no desire to actually fight and kind of just… left.
You aren’t going to bleed out the US Military to the point that they and the christofacists leave the continental US (or even Hawaii… Alaska we would sell to putin in a heartbeat). Instead, you are going to see something a lot closer to the nazi occupation of Western Europe where you just have mass punitive executions until people turn on the guerillas.
We aren’t at the point of pitched battles. People are calling for resistance.
And of we do end up at all out war with the government, the military will likely shatter and be considerably less effective than the military that couldn’t defeat the Taliban.
And do you think this would be a popular war? Fairly certain it would be less popular than any war the US ever fought including the US civil war. That at least had a purpose a reasonable number of people supported.
Which is a very different topic than “Just going to ignore all the times modern militaries have lost to insurgent groups”
But sure, let’s address your new argument while ignoring the old one:
Yes. And we need to understand what resistance is going to make a difference. One person owning a gun to protect themselves… isn’t even going to accomplish the stated goal. A well trained militia… ignoring the fact that getting one of those takes a lot more time than we have, is also going to be of very questionable value once the civil war goes hot.
But going to protests and speaking to the community organizers and figuring out how to protect each other? THAT is proving incredibly effective… at least for this phase.
Having spent years having to work with military folk and officers… I doubt it. That is an entire org built around “just following orders” and “being apolitical because I serve the office, not the man”. Yes, people will bitch and moan. But they’ll get told “It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with the war. What matters is that you look out for the man in the trench next to you”. And once the bullets start coming back, they will gladly hose down however many protesters or militia soldiers they can because “it is them or us”.
Again, the Taliban did not defeat the military. The US government did. In fact, in most skirmishes (that weren’t just ambushes and IEDs), we massacred them.
Because, “victory” in that case is convincing the christofacists to leave “their country”. Which is the exact same reason the taliban just stuck around, waited for the coalition to leave, and went back to oppressing people.
But this also has the added factor that we already see with fuckface: It won’t take too many massacres by the military before the soldiers that we thank for their service realize they will be massacred if they lose.
The only way a civil war goes beyond “We put down isolated groups of terrorists” is if the military (whatever branches) tends to align with different forks of the government. I… am not optimistic with that and suspect any isolated bases deciding to not support the christofacists will realize how quickly they run out of supplies. But it could happen.
The militias will, at best, be cannon fodder to stand in trenches. Which… is what we see in Ukraine. Trained soldiers can engage in maneuver combat and take ground. Conscripts/militia can get given a gun, pointed in a general direction, and try to prevent those maneuvers from working. But a well equipped combat force is still going to steamroll over them.
Civilian deaths (North and South Vietnam) 405,000–627,000
The Korean War (1950–1953) resulted in a massive civilian death toll, with estimates ranging from 1.5 million to over 3 million, often cited as exceeding 50% of total casualties
…
Not including combatant casualties.
We’ve seen already instances where ICE has backed down when there was some actual resistance
And we have seen instances where the ice nazis murder first and fabricate an excuse later.
If they think someone in an apartment has a gun, they aren’t going to run away. They are going to just shoot. What makes ice back off is when the community stands up and makes it clear that they are going to have to murder a LOT of people to get what they want… and that works for now.
Which is why fuckface is working so hard to get the us military to “support” ice. They are actually trained for this and will just chuck some grenades into that apartment.
Just to add on. This is nothing new. This is why cops/swat do so many “no knock raids”. The idea is “Well, this person might be armed so we are just going to sneak up, kick down the door, flashbang every crib we can find, and shoot anyone who resists”.
And that works because even if you “train a lot” and carry your glock in your waistband 24/7, shock and awe tactics disable brains at all “training levels”.
You’re entire argument is they’re killing us already, we really don’t need to give them another reason…
You prepare now, when you can still buy arms, not after when you have had that right and other rights taken away.
That is my position. It would be cool if peaceful protest succeeds at reforming the nation, but I don’t think it would happen. In such a situation, having the resources and accepting the possibility of violence would go a long way towards saving the lives of innocents.
If it turns out peace works, I would gladly end my gun range subscription and abandon social media. I want to spend my time with anime girls, not the bullshit that Trump and his kind are flinging around.
But you’re suggesting that we… don’t arm ourselves, and that we should just stand by and let them kill us…make up your mind
No, I am saying that being armed and predisposed to peace go together. It gives people the option to fight if it becomes necessary. The Black Panthers are the way.
Exactly.
All the gun nuts leap at the idea that they can grab a rifle and fix the world. And they shit on the actual legacy of The Black Panthers by distilling them down to that.
The vast majority of what made/makes The Black Panthers effective is that they focus so much on community outreach. Far more time is spent getting to know the neighbors and families than sending bullets downrange. All because the goal is to NOT fire a shot. Because the shitbags understand… if you shoot Jamal then you are going to be attacked by multiple city blocks worth of people who can personally talk about how Jamal helped make sure their kids got home safe or literally just gave them a chance to talk through their pains and worries
Instead, all the gun nuts are leaping at the chance to justify buying a new optic or buying a third ar-15. And… there is definitely a lot of “Wow. Even the Libertarians think we should abolish ICE” going on.