I got this reference.
The US decided to drop the bomb on Japan because they were worried about Russia rapidly closing in on Japan after destroying the Japanese northern forces. Truman wanted a total and very quick surrender only to the US, to avoid a situation like Eastern Europe.
Furthermore…you are proving my point. You think Japanese owning guns would have stopped nuclear bonbs? Keep in mind China (the original invader brought up) is an H-bomb wielding power.
Finally, if there is ever a situation where there is an imminent invasion from a major power and the only thing left are small arms wielded by people in West Texas, that implies a total collapse and failure of the world’s most powerful military, which I presume, would be pretty deep s***.
I can’t say if they are inherently violent, but they commit a highly disproportionate number of violent crimes as a group (although that group is somewhat arbitrary given that “black” is overly generalized), so they are clearly more violent.
This is despite America’s best efforts to improve the status of African Americans over the past 50 years. Heck, we even give the poor free daycare!
Palantir needs to watch Red Dawn.
The Founders were just as concerned with the US Government becoming despotic. After all, they overthrough their government and realized that a Government for and by the People needed an armed populace.
Are black people in the US predisposed towards poverty, violence and crime? Of course - this is statistical fact. Whether you believe that this predisposition is cultural, genetic, due to pre existing conditions, or due to policy is a different matter.
The case for owning guns as national defense is quite far fetched. The probability that private gun ownership will make a difference in an invasion scenario must be multiplied by the extremely remote probability that the US would face a ground invasion in the first place. Perhaps this is due to my lack of creativity, but I cannot imagine any situation where, not only does a foreign power invade the US, but it somehow bypasses the US military in a way that requires that ordinary citizens take up arms in national defense.
The oppression of US citizens by the US government itself is more plausible, even if such a scenario is more or less unprecedented in the modern developed world. However, I would argue that a period of prolonged resistance against the US government would be worse and certainly more violent than a swift defeat of the civilian population due to lack of arms. As mentioned earlier, the civilian force will lose no matter what. So, it would be better if they were to just surrender, rather than to endure a violent civil war.
You know I’m always making great quotes like this at home…but the wife, she just doesn’t get them.
Iraq.
Iraq.
Iraq is incontrovertibly different from the US. It is a small country with a recent history of autocratic governments, political instability, and occupation by foreign powers. I assume therefore, that you are joking in your response, given that no reasonable person would draw clear parallels between the two countries in this context.
Especially because gun ownership in Iraq is about 1/3 of the US and more in line with “socialists” like France and Germany.
Furthermore, when the US was in full invasion mode, it handily crushed Iraq, the insurgency came later, involves a few key ideological players that don’t have following in the US, and finally, didn’t actually stop US invasion, rendering the point moot.
It might not necessarily go down as a full-fledged invasion-type scenario. Another possible scenario is that a state or group of states realize (as a result of public sentiment or whatever) that the Fed Gov’t needs them much more than they need the Fed gov’t and decides to declare independence. “Secession” has such a negative connotation in today’s parlance, but I wonder why when history has shown that political unions are anything but permanent. Even within the Federal government, there are inconsistencies in how this is viewed: why, for example, are the Kurds more worthy of autonomous self-governance than Texans?
If Texas were to declare itself an independent state, then the Fed government would face a choice of sending hired guns to force re-integration, but I think the appetite for doing that and the optics of such a move are much different than the last time this happened in the USA.
Recent autocratic government and political instability? Saddam Hussein ruled incontrovertibly for nearly 25 years before the US invasion.
Besides that glaring error, Iraq was obviously different in many ways. For example, its rebels numbered relatively few compared to the US and they were significantly less well armed. despite those facts, they fought off the most powerful military in the world for years, nearly causing a political retreat. The point is obvious. You’re wrong that a well-armed populace cannot successfully take on an invading army, despite what caveats and assumptions you make about how an invasion could play out.
Imagine ownership was as high as in the US and if the entire country actually opposed the invasion (instead of a small force).
Don’t expect AF to be much better. There’s about four guys and one girl that catch these references.
Compared to Iraq, the US is extremely unlikely to face an occupation scenario, thus an armed population is much less relevant to the US. Having a military as strong as the next 10 countries counts for something. This was the point that I was making. While the same measures can be applied to any two countries, the probabilities of each scenario determine their relevance. Both Argentina and the US could default on debt, but one CDS trades at 10bp, and the other at 40%.
I would agree that the US *today* is not likely to be invaded by any nation other than Mexico. But that doesn’t mean that this will hold in 20 years. And it also does not mean that an armed populace does not dissuade a President from acting extra-constitutionally.
Iraq is a pretty weak example. Had you said Chechnya, that would have made far more sense, but even after Chechnya drove back Russia, Russia responded a few years later by OBLITERATING them.
Neither is a “good” example, because America’s population is far larger and better armed. But each demonstrates that an armed rebel force, even if quite small in comparison to an invading army, can be quite effective. It’s enough to dissuade a foreign force from invading, even if the US military is crippled at some point.