Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Gun Control:  A modern, REALISTIC view.
From: ehorne@zeus.calpoly.edu (Eric T Horne)
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 02:11:55 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

In article <1992Nov16.085334.10791@nntp.uoregon.edu> davidw@cie.uoregon.edu (David Weingarten) 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.
>
>>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.

Nice response. Care to explain the reason for your well-thought one-word
response to this?

>
>>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!

If the rebels are in the minority, you are probably correct, it
would be difficult to kill anyone of importance without killing
yourself. If you go on a suicide mission, however, you can
kill lots of important people. If you have the overwelhming
majority of citizens, you may be successful (less people to stand
guard!)

>
>>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.

Yes this is true. "They" meaning the government do have squads of
people who would do the things you mentioned above. They are in
the military or related to military (CIA, FBI, etc).

>
>>> 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.
>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?

Over the phone lines? probably not. Over radio communications, they
would have no control except to jam the frequency. You could do the
same back to them, I am sure there are some HAMs out there who know
how to jam frequencies. Or even locate frequencies. Anyone wanna
confirm this?

Also, just a point about your debating style. It is typically not
polite to ask how dumb someone is during a debate. It will also take
away from your argument, and make you look bad. Try to keep it
to arguing points, not IQ levels, ok?

> [stuff about a warehouse full of explosives deleted]
>
>>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.

It has not increased enough to attack only the "bad guys" on the
field. Think about it. You can not drop a bomb, or shoot a bullet on
a crowded (or not so crowded) battlefield with good and bad guys
mixed up, and be positively sure about not hitting someone on your
side. Communication is not an issue on this point, I fail to see why
you brought it up (unless, of course, you are trying to make your
points seem better or bigger)

>
>>> 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.  He took over the farms and
>put in his own people.  It worked quite well.   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.

I disagree. If the US doesn't care about "opening up" on civilians, why
did it not "open fire" during LA riots? They probably could have tested
out that "bad guy seeking" ammo you were talking about! 
Situation:
  You are white (I am making a point here, I do not know if you are or not,
  and I really don't care in the first place). You walk down the street
  of a predomently poor black neighborhood. You know that the blacks
  in this particular fictionary neighborhood tend to blame whites for
  their hardships (they may be right or wrong in doing this, it doesn't
  matter for this situation). You also know that the blacks in this
  neighborhood will attack white people if they see them on "their turf".
  Question 1: Would you go in the neighborhood anyway?
  Question 2: Would you go in if you were armed?
  Question 3: Would you go in with a group of other white people?
  Question 4: Would you go in with a group of armed people?

  and of course, for all questions, please explain your answer.

>
>>> 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.  "If you have more military, it's harder for the military to 
>take over."  Huh?  In China there are 300,000,000 military.  That's
>more military than the US has citizens.  Do you think that if the
>students in Tienamen square had AK-47's they'd have won?  HA!

Well, the students at Tienamen Square were not trying to over take
the government, they were trying to communicate with them. Also, if the
citizens ARE the military, and the government is bad, and the citizens
want a new government via revolution, the government suddenly has no
military (or a very small portion of it). It is hard to defend with
little or no military/special forces. Having the citizens BE the army
rids of the need for a standing army (unless, of course, the government
is bad.)

>>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.

Same could be said of yourself!

>>> 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.

How many people were killed via US military actions? > 20000. lets
banthe military.
How many people were killed in auto accidents? >20000. Lets ban 
automobiles. 
How many people were killed by alcohol (direct/indirect)? >20000.
Lets ban alcohol (oh I forgot, they tried this. It didn't work. 
Surprise surprise!)

>
>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.  Isn't it more productive to try to work WITH
>the government?  I mean, if the government got THAT out of hand,

Like the slaves did? Or the women who couldn't vote did? 

>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.
>
>			-- David
>