Go read this right now. Don’t go to bed. Don’t change the channel. Rachel Lucas: Guns and Freedom.
If I wore a hat, I’d doff it in respect to Rachel Lucas and her commenter/essayist Bill Whittle.
(via Instapundit)
Go read this right now. Don’t go to bed. Don’t change the channel. Rachel Lucas: Guns and Freedom.
If I wore a hat, I’d doff it in respect to Rachel Lucas and her commenter/essayist Bill Whittle.
(via Instapundit)
Is this my old friend, the same Armed Liberal who first posted me on the web regarding nanobot invasions and the Great Wall of China?
…and just what do you think your small-arm will be able to do against a remote-controlled droned armed with hellfire missiles? All the well-regulated minute-men in the state, let alone law-abiding gun owners, won’t be able to protect themselves… as an American citizen already found out in Yemen (and in Ventura County some years ago, a ranch owner, killed by “oh-we-thought-we-found-pot” drug police). That little exercise was not only meant to intimidate Hussein, it also scared the shit out of ME in CALIFORNIA… y’think being summarily executed by hellfire missile constitutes cruel and unusual punishment? Lucas might hate Gore and Clinton, but no presidential administration has scared me as much as Bush-Ashcroft-Rumsfeld-Cheney. It’s this team that inspires me to update my weaponry. They’re infringing on civil rights, spending money outside their means, and can call any one of us “enemy combatant” because there’s a war on, there’s a crisis and thereby strip us of any constitutional protections our forefathers promised us.
–Darryl Pearce
Darryl:
Small-arms in the hands of the citizens deters abuses of the government on its own citizens. Most of them, anyway. Or avenges them should they become to egregious and the justice system fail.
Remember, there’s over 280 million of us and some 65-80 million of us possess enough guns to arm the rest.
That’s called “deterrence.” The fact that we can resist a tyrannical government acts as an inhibitor.
Why else do you think that politicians like Feinstein are so concerned about the long-range armor piercing capabilities of the .50BMG rifle? Who do you know that rides around in an armored limousine?
and just what do you think your small-arm will be able to do against a remote-controlled droned armed with hellfire missiles?
A whole lot more than if he had like a rock, a stick, or a can of pepper spray. 🙂
Point taken. –darryl pearce
Re deterrance:
To quote myself (much easier than doing any new thinking, BTW):…an armed citizenry does two important things to the American polity:
a) it fundamentally changes the nature of the relationship between the individual and the State. I am pretty dubious about the apocalyptic fantasies of those who believe that a cadre of deer hunters could stand up against the armed forces of the U.S. or some invading army. In reality, I think that the arms possessed by the citizens of the U.S. are primarily symbolic in value, much like the daggers carried by Sikhs. But, having lived in Europe, I think that the symbolic value carries a political and social weight…
I couldn’t say it any better myself…;^)
A.L.
Darryl,
The Hellfire-carrying drones you mention represent a tactical threat to rebellious Americans in conflict with their goverment.
But wars are not won by tactics; strategically, precision munitions are not very useful against domestic rebels. The stockpile of such munitions is not unlimited, and, given that rebels will probably not be given to congregating in large groups in the open, the cost per life take is huge. The government would run out of Hellfires before it made a meaningful dent in the number of armed Americans ready to fight.
The primary value of such weapons is psychological–to terrify enemies, and to strike at their leaders. If deployed domestically by a despotic President, they would merely ensure massive anti-government riots, and perhaps some fence-sitters taking up arms against the government. Americans would not like the thought of their goverment bombing them.
Finally, there is also what you might call the “pistol principle.” The value of a pistol in combat between armies is minimal; it is mainly useful for fighting your way back to a rifle.
Similarly, small arms might come in darn handy in ambushing a National Guard armory to take the tanks and mortars stored there.
TO: (Un)Armed Liberal
RE: Rachel’s Read On Guns
An interesting read.
I’m something of a student of military history and am reminded of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising where several thousand Jews, marked for destruction by the Nazis, held off several crack SS divisions for months with nothing more than what they could strip from the SS soldiers they killed or fabricate.
Heck, even the Davidians held off the FLEAs for several months.
And the Montana Freeman are alive today, because, as I hear tell, they had anti-tank weapons.
Who needs weapons?
I’d suggest that everyone should have or know how to fabricate an AT weapon of some kind. Even a simple class C molotov cocktail….which oddly enough the Davidians didn’t apply to that M528 CEV battering down their household.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Hunting tanks is easy and fun. — 82d Airborne Division sergeant.]
TO: (Un)Armed Liberal
RE: Self-Defense
You can make a bomb out of a box of Biscuik….
It’s really quite simple.
Chuck(le)