From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Gun control (was Re: democratic platform)
Keywords: joke, very funny, haha, etc.
Date: 21 Aug 92 17:17:08 GMT
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA

In article <1733tdINNj6l@agate.berkeley.edu> fcrary@ocf.berkeley.edu (Frank Crary) writes:
>In article <183162@pyramid.pyramid.com> glambert@pyramid.com (George Lambert) writes:
>
>As far as access, I think the Russians were _lucky_: The coup planners
>could have had enough foresight to increase the security/post new
>guards around the military arsenals, which would have left the 
>Russians unarmed.

The Russian population did not have access to military arsenals.

>
>>However, the big weapons against
>>this coup were: faxes, TV, radio, telephone and an unwillingness on a large
>>part of the military forces to engage (slaughter) their own people.
>
>Think about this for a moment: All these factors were relevant only
>because the defenders were armed. If the people had not turned out
>to defend the Russian leadership, they would have been arrested within
>hours. There would have been very little for the faxes, TVs, radios, etc...
>to communicate to the world. As long as an organized resistance existed,
>these communications were a vital tool, but it was an armed population
>that keep the organized resistance in existance.
>

No.  These factors were relevant because the coup plotters were
strangely concerned about world image (the press conference
with Yanayev's shaking hands.  Why have a press conference if
you don't care about world opinion?)  Also, the troops were from
the Moscow area and didn't want to open fire on their friends
and relatives.  Yeltsin had also visited their bases a couple
of months previously and had left them with a good impression
of himself.

The armed people you saw on TV were Yeltsin's bodyguards and
members of the military that had come over to his side.  The
civilian population only had gas and Molotov cocktails to
use.  It was enough in this case because it wasn't a military
backed coup.  


>Further, the main reason the support of a large portion of the military
>was needed, was alos the armed resistance: The coup planners needed
>a sizeable force (or certain loyalty) to fight its way into the 
>parliment building and arrest Yeltzin et. al. They had no such force
>that was loyal enough to do this. Were the resistors unarmed, a much 
>smaller force (which the coup planners _did_ have) could have arrested
>them and ended organized opposition.

They did not have the loyalty of the KGB Alpha group which could
have stormed the White House and captured Yeltsin in 20 minutes.
They refused partly because most of the people inside and
outside of the White House would have been killed.

Again, the resistors outside the White House were unarmed.  
Of course, troops loyal to Yeltsin were there too and that 
helped the Alpha group make up their mind, but the large 
group of civilians protecting the White House were unarmed.
On the night of the planned assault, Yeltsin appealed to the
military to basically 'do the right thing'.  Note, he didn't
appeal to civilians to shoot at anyone.  The radio broadcasts
from the White House asked civilians to guard them but to
move away if the tanks came.  


>
>>The problem with this whole argument is
>>that nobody I know or talk to on a regular basis has any fear of a military
>>coup in the US.  Nobody.
>
Oh I don't know.  Right after the Russian coup a survey was
taken in US and Russian schools.  Guess which group had the
highest fears for a coup (or another one)?  That's right,
the US students thought that a coup could easily happen in the
US.

And coups don't have to be military.  What about a sort
of 'creeping coup'?  

>Nobody has a reasonable fear of this _today_, or even perhaps for the 
>next 25 years or so. Our Constitution was written over 200 years ago
>and has (hopefully) enough safeguards to continue protecting our
>freedom for another 200. I have no idea what might happen 100 years
>from now, so I consider the safeguard of an armed population important.
>(Many people with no reasonable fear of fires still have insurance to
>cover damages from such an eventuality.)
>
>>What gun-owners need to do, in my opinion, is rather than offer these tired
>>and paranoid sounding arguments (the only valid one is self-defense)
>

What everyone needs to do is to stop using the Russian coup as
an example - either for or against an armed population.  That 
was one of the absolutely worst coup attempts ever made.  This
is not to say that it wasn't a near thing.  Without Yeltsin's stand
and the large number of people and tanks that came to his side
the coup would have succeeded.  But, the plotters were using
outdated coup plans.  We cannot extrapolate from there to
what might happen here (unless Quayle plans something :)

After having said all that, I would much rather live in
an armed population if a coup happened than in an unarmed one.


Julie
#include "std_disclaimer.h"