From: jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner)
Newsgroups: alt.president.clinton,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: more on gun control (was Re: Gun Control: A modern...)
Date: 16 Nov 92 18:05:16 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

thank you for posting this in the correct group. followups -again-
directed to talk.politics.guns.

davidw@cie.uoregon.edu (David Weingarten) writes:
> jsteiner@anwsun.utoledo.edu (Jason Steiner) writes:
> >davidw@cie.uoregon.edu (David Weingarten) writes:
> >> OK, I've got to set some of this in perspective.  Let me start
> >> out by saying that I am TOTALLY anti-gun.  England has something
> >> like 7-10 gun deaths a year, and we have 20,000 or more.  That
> >> alone says something.  I am for STRICT gun restrictions.
> 
> >you realize, of course, that every place such restrictions have 
> >been put into place they've failed miserably.
> 
> Like?

Washington DC. that ever-so-peaceful jewel of a city.

> >and the logic goes:
> >1. the founding fathers said we should be allowed to
> >2. we can't anymore (an arguable point, and i will)
> >3. therefore, we shouldn't be allowed to anymore
> >faulty.
> 
> hardly.

i'm impressed by your reasoning abilities.

> >and then my wife will use a common 9mm pistol to kill you while 
> >you're sleeping. ever heard of guerilla warefare? -that- is what 
> >would happen, not a full out military conflict.
> 
> Get real!  Do you honestly think you'd be able to get NEAR enough
> to anybody of any importance to shoot them?  Forget it!

ok, a common hunting rifle then. the point is that you won't -always-
be in your tank. you have to eat, sleep, use the loo. or we could
just go the Brit route & toss a grenade into a club full of enemy
troops & officers. the point is, war doesn't have to be waged on
-your- terms. if you expect the enemy to do that you can also expect
to lose.

> >conquering a country with military force is -much- easier than
> >supressing a fiercely independent people who are defending
> >their own homes. in such a situation, a handful of people with 
> >automatic weapons are practically unbeatable.
> 
> Again, the military has much better technology than you could ever
> come up with.  They could pick people off in the middle of the night
> and you'd never know what happened.  They HAVE secure 
> communications, you don't.  They have intelligence forces that 
> could figure out who's doing what, and they have the special attack 
> forces to take out every one of them.

sounds like what we had in Viet Nam. or what the Soviets had in
Afghanistan. worked well, didn't it? technology doesn't win wars.
it helps, but it's only one small factor. strategy is much more
important. so far you've outlined strategies for a full scale
assault for what would be a guerilla war. such misapplication of
force has always failed in the past & will continue to fail in
the future.

> >> If you want to overthrow the US government, you'll have to do a 
> >> lot better than automatic weapons.  You'll have to have a lot 
> >> more than teflon-coated bullets.  You'll need your own network 
> >> of communication that you KNOW is secure.  Good luck.
> 
> >computers. modems. faxes. encryption programs. the kinds of things
> >the government is already trying to control. "for our own good", of
> >course.
> 
> Not "trying."  They DO control them.  Wiretaps are easy for the 
> government.  And in the case of a civil war, they wouldn't bother
> with warrants.  Encryption programs are a joke to the military.

tap me all you like. you'll hear white noise, produced by the
very same encryption systems the military uses. or they may just
hear me telling my friends what a great day it's been. there
are as many ways to -hide- messages as there are to encrypt them,
and it's entirely possible to do both.

> One of my friends from college was Air Force Intelligence, and he
> said they got hundreds of letters a day with "uncrackable" codes.
> He said none of them took their computer more than about 2 minutes
> to crack.  You could use some of the mathematical encryption that's
> on, for instance, typical UNIX systems, but if you did, they'd just
> shut down your phones.  You don't actually think they'd be nice
> and LET you send encrypted messages, do you?  How dumb are you?

ahh, so there is secure encryption after all. (read sci.crypt for
more info) "but if you use it they'll just shut down the phones."
remember, -they- have to use those phones as well. or at least allow
them to be used for business purposes, or the country would shut
down & be vulnerable to outside threats. again, you're thinking
full-scale assault. i'm thinking rats in the walls. you can take
out the walls, but then you don't have any place to live. and the
"rats" can always go to short wave.

> >> You'll need MASSIVE quantities of explosives.  Good luck getting 
> >> those without the CIA/FBI paying you a visit.  
> 
> >trip to the grocery store. let the CIA visit. after all, we've -
> >only-got a few assault rifles. and some plastique.
> 
> Man, you've been reading "Soldier of Fortune" too much. The 
> quantity of explosive you'd need would fill a warehouse.  And if 
> they ever found out you had it (which they would) you'd 
> "mysteriously" disappear. We're talking treason here, they're going 
> to pull all the stops.

Soldier of Fortune has never published plastique recipes to my knowlege.
the information is all available at my local library tho'. who says
we'd have to stockpile it? or even need it for most purposes? you.
and you're thinking on a full scale military level, which isn't
the situation we'd be seeing.

> >it's pretty difficult to apply force with extreme prejudice when 
> >the "good guys" and "bad guys" are all mixed up together. Viet Nam 
> >anyone?
> 
> A) Our technology has increased since then.  B) As I said earlier
> in this post, they can cut off every means of communication you
> have.  You seem to have forgotten that they control the country,
> and you're a band of rebels.

A) technology doesn't much matter in guerilla wars. B) they can't
cut off every means of communication without hurting themselves.
anything they can use, we can use.

> >> The United States has the biggest military in the world.  (China 
> >> outdoes us for pure manpower, but that's irrelevant.)
> 
> >hardly. you can't threaten people with brute military force. they
> >tend to react with "so? nuke us if you like. destroy our homes &
> >factories. -you- need them as much as we do." the threat of a large
> >& vicious police force is a lot greater, just the sort of thing
> >that personal assault weapons would curb. at least, -i'd- hate
> >to be a gestapo agent walking into a neighborhood where every 
> >citizen hates me & has an AK handy.
> 
> Stalin, anybody?  History proves you wrong.  Stalin killed thousands
> of people, and nobody even noticed.

and those people were well armed. hardly. -lots- of people noticed.
they were just to scared & *unable to do anything about it*. you
want to put US citizens in the same position should our own Stalin
come along?

> And once again, a "whole neighborhood" of ak-wielders is going to 
> get demolished. What was that college that got fired on in the 
> 60's?  Open firing on a whole group of people is not something the 
> US govt. has a big problem with.

*BIG* laugh. the students at Kent State were carrying flowers, not
weapons. and the US government is -still- trying to live that fiasco
down. the objective of a guerilla war is to wear your opponent down,
force them to spend a lot of money, time & effort to take out what
amounts to a few gnats. and it works well.

> >> The NRA fools that expect to protect themselves from a US 
> >> military coup are living in the 1700's.
> 
> >or in Switzerland. it's difficult to have a military coup when the
> >citizens make up a good portion of the military.
> 
> On the contrary.  Then you have more people in the military than you
> have regular citizens.  That's the weirdest logic I've heard in a 
> long time.

no wonder. it's what -you- said, not me. what is -said- is that if
there -is- no standing army then it's pretty damn difficult to
have a military coup. any coup would then be one run by the -people-,
which happens to be the possibility the framers were providing for.

> >> With this in mind, is gun control a reasonable thing?  Well, the 
> >> original intent of the 2nd amendment having been outdated by the 
> >> size and strength of our military, the obvious answer is YES!  
> 
> >then maybe it's time to return the military to the people, as the
> >framers intended?
> 
> Did they?  I don't think "voluntary service" means "every citizen
> should be in the military." [ad hominem attacks deleted]

*tsk tsk* twisting my words again. there's quite a bit of difference
between "every citizen should be a member of the military" and "every
member of the military should be a private citizen." even someone
who went to Catatonic State knows that.

> >the answer is far from obvious. your premises are false, your
> >logic is faulty and your conclusion is one proven not to work.
> 
> You're AWFULLY sure of yourself.  Try again.

no, i'm not sure of myself, but i'm AWFULLY sure your logic is faulty.

> >> In England, the COPS don't even carry guns.  If somebody is 
> >> reported breaking in somewhere with a gun, they don't surround 
> >> the place with unarmed cops, they call in a special force of 
> >> snipers and pick the guy off.  It works.  Less than 20 gun 
> >> deaths a year.  More than 20,000 here.  Which side of this 
> >> argument looks most reasonable? Let's get real.
> 
> >on the other hand, we don't get mortar attacks on the White House 
> >either. let's do get real. English styles just happen to be a bit 
> >different than ours.
> 
> Yeah, they're civil, we're barbarians.  I'd rather have mortar 
> attacks on the White House (which is pretty damn unlikely to happen 
> just because we illegalize guns) than to have 20,000 people/year 
> get killed by guns.  The White House could be reinforced to 
> withstand it.  The Common Man can't afford or acquire heavy-duty 
> body armour.

well that statement is completely false. what is even more unlikely
than mortar attacks is that gun deaths will go -down- because we
make them illegal. on the contrary, when guns have been made illegal
firearm deaths have actually gone -up-. criminals don't follow
laws. that's why they're called criminals. i'm sure mortars are outlawed
in England, too. that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone.

"Make a law, solve the problem!" is just as false now as it ever was.

> It always depresses me to find that people are actually so 
> self-deceived as to think they could overcome something as 
> formidable as the US Military.

it's been done before. and it wouldn't even get to that point if
the US Military is made up entirely of our friends and neighbors.

> Isn't it more productive to try to work WITH the government?  I 
> mean, if the government got THAT out of hand, you can believe that 
> I'd be one of the first to die trying to fight it, but I sure 
> wouldn't expect to win.  I'd be fighting simply as a matter of 
> principle.

but until then you'll give up all principle, even the ones put forth
as very important by the founders of our country. you make me sick.

-i'll- gladly work with government, and -do-. the first point is that 
there are people who -don't-, and laws simply do not affect them. the
second point is that there may be some time in the future when the
government doesn't -want- to work with people, and then our only
out will be violence. if we don't practically have that option now 
should we attempt to correct the problem or simply make the problem legal?

jason

--
 "Why was I cursed with a woman like you? You're my misery! A knife in my 
  heart! Come on, we can discuss this later. Let's just get married."
	                   - Adam, from the best episode of Northern Exposure
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,` jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu ,`,`,`
Newsgroups: alt.president.clinton,alt.politics.perot,talk.politics.misc,talk.poltics.guns