From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Registering "Assault Keys"
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:26:54 GMT

In article <1dn0q0INN6qa@CATHY.NA.CS.YALE.EDU> yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) writes:
}starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}>}But other than by such means I cannot see any form of government oppression
}>}emerging which could be remedied by small arms.  I mean, what is a person
}>}whose house has been wrongly confiscated to do?  Barricade himself inside
}>}and be shot to death in an exchange of gunfire with the police?  I think not.
}>}Certainly the press would not report him as the martyr he would actually be.
}>
}>Fairly plausible fictional accounts of exactly this sort of thing are given
}>in the movies "Harry's War" and "Stranger on My Land."
}
}Right.  They are fictional.  In real life, the cops have so many methods for
}dealing with such a situation that it isn't even funny.  In either of these
}two movies, did the cops call for backup, and did twenty cars arrive as would
}happen in reality?  Did one of the cars show up with a teargas grenade
}launcher, and another three cars with the SWAT team?  I think not.

Plausible was the operative word.  In "Harry's War," the called in the
National Guard, who had tanks.  In "Stranger On My Land," they formed a
posse out of local government officials were deputized by a Federal Marshall.
Calling in the army was ruled out for reasons of bad publicity, also a major
factor in the "Harry's War" scenario.

}>  There's also a fella
}>named Rodney King who lives in LA that might not have gotten beaten quite
}>so badly if armed citizens had been able to calm the cops down a bit.
}
}Good lord.  What sort of world do you live in?  The reason the cops started
}attacking King was that he made what they perceived to be threatening
}moves.  Can you imagine if someone had shown up and waved a gun at the cops?
}That would be a threat an order of magnitude greater than the one King
}posed.  Such a person would be unlikely to escape alive and uncrippled...as
}King did.  Even if he did manage to hold the cops at gunpoint, he would
}certainly not have been able to "calm them down".

That's not what I proposed.  What if all the witnesses has been armed and
asked the cops to lighten up?  I submit that it's a bit difficult for cops
to take on an entire neighborhood over a relatively minor number of swings
of a baton.

}>There's also the case of the Afganistani rebels who successfully repelled
}>the Soviet Army (including Yeltsin) with the aid of stinger missiles.
}
}I was not talking about the possibilities of producing a nationwide
}revolution of a military sort.  Such a thing is even more impossible than a
}local homeowner standing off the cops.
}
}The Afghans would never have been able to counter the Soviets without
}importing their weapons from friendly surrounding nations.  Stinger missiles
}may be man-portable, but they are sophisticated and expensive -- extremely
}difficult either to design or to manufacture.  The role that the Stingers
}played in the conflict was not exaggerated.  Without them, the Soviets could
}have used their armored helicopter gunships with impunity.  Do you know the
}Viet Cong orders for dealing with AC-47 aircraft?  "Don't shoot at the
}Dragon.  You will only make it angry."

This doesn't refute my point, but only supports it.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns