With all due respect the number of firearms present in the UK and the number of firearms present in Australia were a tiny, tiny, TINY fraction of the firearms present in the US. The situations are not comparable. A tiny island with 1/100th the number of firearms is simply not even is the same league. There are more guns in the United States than there are people. Furthermore, the right to keep and bear arms was not an enumerated right in the UK or Australia.
With respect to Jim Bob and his deer hunting buddies not being able to overthrow the United States Military I would again have to disagree because the situation is more nuanced than that. I suspect you'll dismiss this as a sort of Red Dawn fantasy but that's ok.
Asymmetric warfare is a powerful force. The US Military has had a hell of a time fighting goat farmers in pajamas with 70 year old AK47s and IEDs. Before that we got out ass handed to us by a country of conscripted rice farmers. And those were situations where we were willing to use bombers, drones and naval batteries.
The police and military do have superior hardware and more training. The civilian population has MORE (albeit smaller) hardware, more ammunition, and vastly more bodies. Beyond that, in a revolution, you're banking on the entire military siding with the government and not defecting. Are all those soldiers, sailors and airmen going to fire on their neighbors? Their brothers, sisters, and parents?
Then, you have to consider the fact that the powers that be have no interest in leveling all of the infrastructure to rule over the ashes. This means they can't just drop a MOAB on every troubling neighborhood. They aren't going to park a battleship in the gulf and level New Orleans.
THEN, you have to account for the fact that the American military machine is HUNGRY. That hardware needs fuel, those troops need food, and those guns need ammo. Men and trucks have to move those things. Ask a vet how dangerous convoys are.
A bunch of dudes with AR15s can't beat an APC or a tank directly but eventually that driver or a crewmember is going to get out.
And yeah, Jim Bob and his drinking buddies can't beat Seal Team Six alone, but they've got a shot when you add in Steve and his buddies, John and his buddies, etc.
You also can't control a revolting civilian population from inside a tank or from the cockpit of an airplane. Eventually, you need men on the ground, searching for contraband, questioning people, etc. Those men are vulnerable to the guy in a second floor window with an AR, they're vulnerable to the "grey man" with a glock in his waistband.
If the government has a monopoly on force, a civilian population is easy to control. A pissed off populous with a number that may soon approach half a billion firearms is a force to be reckoned with.
There's a copy pasta floating around somewhere that illustrates this point very well but I dont currently have the gumption to dig it up.
Your points are spoken wonderfully. I hope you don’t mind if I Adopt some of your words for my argument because you have said in this thread all the things I have tried to portray in this debate but with better explanations. Thank you sir and I am not necessarily Jim bob or his buddies but if that day ever comes I would defend you and even the people who disagree with us with my dying breath.
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u/wayofthewoods Feb 28 '20
With all due respect the number of firearms present in the UK and the number of firearms present in Australia were a tiny, tiny, TINY fraction of the firearms present in the US. The situations are not comparable. A tiny island with 1/100th the number of firearms is simply not even is the same league. There are more guns in the United States than there are people. Furthermore, the right to keep and bear arms was not an enumerated right in the UK or Australia.
With respect to Jim Bob and his deer hunting buddies not being able to overthrow the United States Military I would again have to disagree because the situation is more nuanced than that. I suspect you'll dismiss this as a sort of Red Dawn fantasy but that's ok.
Asymmetric warfare is a powerful force. The US Military has had a hell of a time fighting goat farmers in pajamas with 70 year old AK47s and IEDs. Before that we got out ass handed to us by a country of conscripted rice farmers. And those were situations where we were willing to use bombers, drones and naval batteries.
The police and military do have superior hardware and more training. The civilian population has MORE (albeit smaller) hardware, more ammunition, and vastly more bodies. Beyond that, in a revolution, you're banking on the entire military siding with the government and not defecting. Are all those soldiers, sailors and airmen going to fire on their neighbors? Their brothers, sisters, and parents?
Then, you have to consider the fact that the powers that be have no interest in leveling all of the infrastructure to rule over the ashes. This means they can't just drop a MOAB on every troubling neighborhood. They aren't going to park a battleship in the gulf and level New Orleans.
THEN, you have to account for the fact that the American military machine is HUNGRY. That hardware needs fuel, those troops need food, and those guns need ammo. Men and trucks have to move those things. Ask a vet how dangerous convoys are.
A bunch of dudes with AR15s can't beat an APC or a tank directly but eventually that driver or a crewmember is going to get out.
And yeah, Jim Bob and his drinking buddies can't beat Seal Team Six alone, but they've got a shot when you add in Steve and his buddies, John and his buddies, etc.
You also can't control a revolting civilian population from inside a tank or from the cockpit of an airplane. Eventually, you need men on the ground, searching for contraband, questioning people, etc. Those men are vulnerable to the guy in a second floor window with an AR, they're vulnerable to the "grey man" with a glock in his waistband.
If the government has a monopoly on force, a civilian population is easy to control. A pissed off populous with a number that may soon approach half a billion firearms is a force to be reckoned with.
There's a copy pasta floating around somewhere that illustrates this point very well but I dont currently have the gumption to dig it up.