02-23-2021, 11:54 AM
(02-23-2021, 09:16 AM)Au165 Wrote: This is kind of off-topic, but it's a fantasy to think civilians with rifles and small arms can put up any resistance to this government and the military weapons we have today. It made a ton of sense at the time, but they never could have dreamed of the weapons we'd possess today. This is where people will point to tribal resistance in other countries, but the reality is that tracking foreign terrorists is much harder than finding U.S. citizens on our own grid. If it was a true resistance they would launch aerial assassinations via drone strikes and with the NSA ability to track comms, especially those on U.S. backbones, people would be found almost instantaneously.
The other issue here is most resistances have to be supported by a foreign state to have any chance at success. Who is going to support a U.S.-based one that such a resistance would accept help from? The only ones that could really provide tech that would make a difference are China and Russia, two places that you'd have to assume this hypothetical resistance would not accept help from.
There are reasons to own guns, but the fantasy of checking a government that possesses weapons that can vaporize millions of people in seconds isn't one of them. Of all the arguments I think that is actually the weakest today.
Ugh, no offense to you, but it honestly hurts my head when people make this statement because it is so wholly grounded in ignorance of actual conflict that it's maddening. As Bel already correctly pointed out, if this schism, god forbid, ever happened a sizeable amount of the military and police would be on the side of the "rebels". But this also ignores a basic fact of warfare. In order to have a country you have to have infrastructure. In order to hold territory and maintain that infrastructure you need boots on the ground. A tank cannot stand at a crossroads and check papers. A drone can't kick in the door to a residence and search it. To occupy territory you need troops, and troops are as susceptible to bullets as a civilian. What you're advocating above would be Washington D.C. surrounded by a pile of rubble and nuclear wastelands, because that's the only scenario in which this overwhelming firepower is applicable in a civil war.
