Shot heard around the world be fired first in Conneticut?

[Outis]

This is such a lame half-assed argument that it's hard to believe it's a common one among anti-gun idiots, and very easy to refute. But the point of an armed citizenry is not necessarily to have to use the arms to stave off a tyrannical government, but to force government to have weigh the costs before it gets to that point.

So refute it! Your statement here is utterly irrelevant: an accusation of idiocy, a bumper-sticker assertion, and no substantial counter-argument.

The government has already assessed the "costs." And despite your claims, nobody on either side of the political fence is interested in becoming tyrannical.

However, it must be noted that I am not "anti-gun" in any respect.

[Outis]

And how does gun registration keep guns out of circulation? That hasn't been answered here yet.

I'm not a fan of registration. Registration doesn't "reduce crime." Fewer guns don't mean less violent crime. The folks arguing for registration or for fewer guns haven't kept up with the facts: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/...useronline.pdf

[Cow Poke]

And how does gun registration keep guns out of circulation? That hasn't been answered here yet.

Exactly. So, AGAIN, if they "don't care", why do they want them "registered"?

[lilpixieofterror]

I'm probably not going to tell you anything you don't already know in the paragraphs below, so please bear with the redundancy.

Ok, let us see.

First and foremost, especially in our post-Patriot Act world, the odds of something like this being discovered and defused are pretty good.

And how well did that work out at the Boston Marathon, even when US intelligence was specifically warned about the very same people that carried it out? See, the thing about collection of information is that you actually need to be able to use and act upon the information you have and lets face it, the US government hasn't always been quick to react to serious dangers.

This is especially true of you're talking about a multiple-site insurrection. Coordinating something on that scale without electronic communications would be prohibitively difficult--it could be done, but each added complexity adds to the odds of a planning or execution failure. You know as well as I do--in any military action, communication is critical. And considering the type of things that are being watched for (which would include massive ammunition purchases, ingredients for bomb-making, bulk purchases of certain communication equipment such as pre-paid cellphones ... that's just what I can think of off the top of my head), it's pretty good odds that somebody would make a mistake, send an email at the wrong time, or buy too much fertilizer, and the authorities would have a clue that something was up.

The insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have done a pretty decent job dealing with superior forces that they are fighting against. Granted, the US isn't fighting for survival (as they believe they are) and is trying to earn the trust of those countries vs using what it needed to in order to deal with these insurgent groups. That does show it is quite possible to deal with a superior enemy, if you are willing to go far enough to do it. Second, there is always a counter to every strategy. Using a cell type system, in which command and control is decentralized, with each cell having an objective apart from the others ensures it is much harder to bring down the entire operation. Sure, cell systems do have their disadvantages (such as large scale corroboration between groups is far far hard to impossible to complete), but they seem to be pretty effective when you have to fight a superior force. My point? I don't think a large scale rebellion would be as unsuccessful as you seem to think it would be. I think the biggest problem against the idea of a rebellion isn't the fact it can't be done, it is just the fact there doesn't seem to really be any large scale issue here in the US that people are willing to fight a civil war over.

Military installations do have at least some security. Those that have sensitive materiel have security in depth, with orders to shoot to kill those who penetrate past a certain depth. Key political sites are the same way. Yes, you have some things that are less secure than they probably should be, like national guard armories, but the police know that these are vulnerable and watch them like hawks.

You're forgetting that I work on a military base, day in and day out, and I'm quite aware of how these security systems work. I will not go into details about them or how the specifically work, but there is no such thing as an impregnable fortress. I would have though Fort Hood and Washington Navel Yard shootings (among many others) would show that.

Could a single key military or political site be compromised? Probably, but it would be expensive in terms of casualties and materiel. Could multiple sites be compromised? Each additional site adds to the complexity of the overall plan.

True it does add in complexity and does increase chances of discovery, but you really would only need to hit the most critical sites first and foremost and you don't need to hit everything. Just the important ones (the trick would be knowing what ones to hit).

But they still train for them. The FBI, the National Guard, and (if it comes down to a Congress-authorized mobilization of the regular armed forces) the military take that "Against all enemies, foreign and domestic" pretty seriously, as you know.

And how well did that work during the US civil war? One of the greatest generals of the era (Robert E Lee) joined the rebels. People's loyalties are not always 100% united and are often divided between all sorts of things. Also, what if some believe the 'and domestic' part is taking down a government that has become too big? Taking down a group that just wants to harm other? Oh yeah, the FBI, National Guard, and military would hardly have an issue with taking out groups that just want to cause harm and destruction, but even then... don't always trust everybody.

First and foremost, the concept of "large scale rebellions" is something out of a pipe dream. At least as far as practicality.

I'd have to agree, there simply isn't any real issue that has a lot of people really up in arms.

* You know as well as I do what the biggest weakness of conspiracies are: people love to talk. The more people you add to a conspiracy, the more opportunity there is for somebody to spill the beans.

True, but don't forget pride also plays a part too. Lots of people dream of making the 'big bust' and having their name in history and may not report what they hear, wishing to take credit for it. This can lead to several different US agencies knowing something, but not willing to talk to anybody else about it.

* The larger the conspiracy, the more people need to be equipped. The purchases necessary to equip a force large enough to take multiple sites WILL be noticed.

All depends on how you go about it and how you do it. If I went out and bought lots of lets say... fertilizer, would that grab attention? Sure, but what about a farmer doing it? What about stealing what you need? What about slowly building up your supplies to escape notice? No system is perfect, after all, a guy did manage to sneak a gun into a secure facility and started shooting up the place.

* There are certain things that would be necessary or incredibly useful that civilians cannot purchase. Armored vehicles ... even police departments have these.

The insurgents don't have many things and still manage to do some damage with some pretty low tech solutions.

Folks like the Oath Keepers are, to put it bluntly, edging on treason ... but they're also not sufficiently saturated into the military to disable it, or to render any possible infighting into a stalemate. And, flatly, the military is NOT ignorant of the risk that they compose.

And how many of those 'oath keepers' went off and joined the confederates? Likewise, all of our founding fathers, to put it bluntly, were guilty of high treason against the crown and the British did end up killing many of them for treason. If they had it there way, every last one of them would have been hung, shot, beheaded, etc. Besides, you wouldn't need a lot, you just need those in critical areas. Even one traitor, in the right area, can do quite a bit of damage.

More later, perhaps--I'm starting to lose the thread of what I'm trying to say (fibro makes for some memory and cognition problems, and it's been a fun day).

Not a problem, try to have a good day.

[Outis]

And how well did that work out at the Boston Marathon

Entirely different situation. In your proposed scenario, you're talking about a minimum of hundreds of people. In Boston, you're talking about two main perps, two accessories-before, and two accessories-after. You're also talking about a case where the warning was given from the Russians, but where after the initial warnings, the Russians wouldn't give any further information--so the data available was incomplete. There is an incredible amount of difference between coordinating an attack between six people who live in the same neighborhood and hundreds of people at multiple sites.

Secondly, you're also talking different logistics. Getting some IEDs ready and setting them off requires a LOT less in the way of personnel and materiel than a multi-site insurrection.

the US government hasn't always been quick to react to serious dangers.

I'm quite aware of that. Small groups can fly under the radar ... but small groups cannot bring the necessary force to bear to take over "key sites."

The insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have done a pretty decent job dealing with superior forces that they are fighting against. Granted, the US isn't fighting for survival (as they believe they are) and is trying to earn the trust of those countries vs using what it needed to in order to deal with these insurgent groups.

The other factor to consider--in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is crippled by a lack of political will. We're fighting with one arm behind our back, and have been doing so since day one. (I am personally of the opinion that, strategically, Iraq was a huge mistake, but that's water under the bridge.)

I don't think a large scale rebellion would be as unsuccessful as you seem to think it would be.

Putting down a large-scale insurrection would not be cheap in terms of personnel and materiel ... but in that case, the US would not play softball with a wide-scale insurrection. Oh, they'd try to go easy at first, but they would eventually escalate, just as they did in the Civil War.

You're forgetting that I work on a military base, day in and day out, and I'm quite aware of how these security systems work. I will not go into details about them or how the specifically work, but there is no such thing as an impregnable fortress. I would have though Fort Hood and Washington Navel Yard shootings (among many others) would show that.

Again, you're comparing apples to coconuts. A single shooter is going to take lives and cause damage, but he's not going to seize a critical military or political site. You need multiple people for that, and multiple people working together have to coordinate. I know very well that there is no such thing as an impenetrable site. But I also know that a terrorist attack is far easier than a hostile seizure. Comparing the relative difficulty of the two is neither tactically valid nor logically sound.

True it does add in complexity and does increase chances of discovery, but you really would only need to hit the most critical sites first and foremost and you don't need to hit everything. Just the important ones (the trick would be knowing what ones to hit).

And while I will not ask you to comment, if I were the one designing a military site, you would have at least two C-in-C areas ... and at least one of them would be a decoy. ALL C-in_C centers, real or decoys, would have restricted access with multiple kill-boxes along the access path. But then again, I tend to take a very dim view of attempted insurrection.

And how well did that work during the US civil war?

We live in a different culture. Before the Civil War, we were a collection of states with a weak central government and a minimal central army (as compared to the state militias that were called up during the war): Lee, for instance, did not leave US service because he felt the Confederacy was either morally or politically correct. He left to fight for his _state_, not for the Confederacy as a whole. People saw themselves as citizens of their states far more than citizens of "the Union."

Now, we not only have a stronger central government and centralized military, we have a culture where people are citizens of the United States, and where "state citizenship" is largely ignored. There can be no comparison with pre-Civil War culture.

True, but don't forget pride also plays a part too. Lots of people dream of making the 'big bust' and having their name in history and may not report what they hear, wishing to take credit for it. This can lead to several different US agencies knowing something, but not willing to talk to anybody else about it.

Agreed. Pride has been, and will be, a major stumbling block. In some ways, while I vehemently disagree with many of the provisions of the Patriot Act, the forced coordination of the intelligence services was at least well intended, if not well implemented.

I'm not saying putting down an insurrection would be a walk in the park: it would not be. But it WOULD be put down, regardless of cost.

[seanD]

So refute it! Your statement here is utterly irrelevant: an accusation of idiocy, a bumper-sticker assertion, and no substantial counter-argument.

The government has already assessed the "costs." And despite your claims, nobody on either side of the political fence is interested in becoming tyrannical.

However, it must be noted that I am not "anti-gun" in any respect.

Lpot basically already showed where it's flawed. And I don't believe for a minute you would use such a refutable argument if you were pro-gun rights. In any event, if you don't want to be mistaken for one then don't use the same false mantras that they use.

[Outis]

Lpot basically already showed where it's flawed.

LPOT has shown where such an insurrection could be successful in the short term--though even at that, it would face long odds, and would be eventually defeated. She has not demonstrated that it would be successful in the long term (say, more than a year). And as I said, if the argument is so refutable, refute it. LOPT has not even attempted to refute the assertion that the government could easily overwhelm any insurrection: she's looking at details and short-term results.

And I don't believe for a minute you would use such a refutable argument if you were pro-gun rights. In any event, if you don't want to be mistaken for one then don't use the same false mantras that they use.

I don't care what you believe. If you honestly believe your guns make one bit of difference to the government, that's YOUR issue, not mine.

[Carrikature]

Somehow things seem to have been shifted from "other people don't want you to have guns" to "the government doesn't want you to have guns".

[Outis]

Somehow things seem to have been shifted from "other people don't want you to have guns" to "the government doesn't want you to have guns".

Which, on the federal level, is positively nonsensical. Obama's got some screwy ideas on guns and gun control, but he's not instituting the massive "gonna get your guns" seizures that some on the right claim to fear.

[seanD]

Which, on the federal level, is positively nonsensical. Obama's got some screwy ideas on guns and gun control, but he's not instituting the massive "gonna get your guns" seizures that some on the right claim to fear.

A particular policy doesn't have to be used immediately. It could be used by a future successor, much like Obama is using, and in a lot of cases expanding, the overreaching policies that Bush put into place.

[Outis]

A particular policy doesn't have to be used immediately. It could be used by a future successor, much like Obama is using, and in a lot of cases expanding, the overreaching policies that Bush put into place.

There's no particular policy that could be used--with the exception of gun registration (which I think is a positively stupid idea anyway).

Background checks don't increase the chances of confiscation. Banning certain types of weapon as "assault weapons" is about screwy, but it's not going to lead to a confiscation. Banning certain clip sizes is _beyond_ stupid, but it's not going to lead to confiscation.

Registration laws are problematic, at best, and to my mind an unwarranted intrusion. Registering guns does not reduce crime rates, as the results from Canada's attempt to register firearms clearly demonstrates. It's expensive, and because even law abiding citizens tend to ignore such laws, it's futile. More to the point, a gun registry _is_ the one point of vulnerability that could lead to confiscations.

The folks screaming about confiscation are jumping at shadows.

[seanD]

There's no particular policy that could be used--with the exception of gun registration (which I think is a positively stupid idea anyway).

Background checks don't increase the chances of confiscation. Banning certain types of weapon as "assault weapons" is about screwy, but it's not going to lead to a confiscation. Banning certain clip sizes is _beyond_ stupid, but it's not going to lead to confiscation.

Registration laws are problematic, at best, and to my mind an unwarranted intrusion. Registering guns does not reduce crime rates, as the results from Canada's attempt to register firearms clearly demonstrates. It's expensive, and because even law abiding citizens tend to ignore such laws, it's futile. More to the point, a gun registry _is_ the one point of vulnerability that could lead to confiscations.

The folks screaming about confiscation are jumping at shadows.

Background checks is a strawmen. I'm certainly not opposed to background checks. We're talking about gun registry. But you rightly recognize the suspicion in registry, which has been the point of the discussion since it has veered away from the main point of the thread.

[Psychic Missile]

There is already background checks in place and you want to limit people's rights based upon their relatives? Suppose such a law existed before, how about the neighbors? How about cousins? How about somebody else? Why couldn't he have stolen weapons to use from somewhere else? Do you see the problems here yet? Such a law would not work either for somebody really dedicated to doing the crime. Do such laws currently work for illegal drugs? How about prohibition? Did they work then? Sorry PM, but those are knee jerk reactions that don't work. Prohibition of common items almost never work and are rarely effective at preventing people, who really want those items, from getting those items.

I think just people one lives with should suffice. "People will just break the law so we don't need the law" is a bad argument that is basically an argument for anarchy. What I'm proposing isn't knee jerk either. I'm going by what other countries have in place plus consideration for our country's special circumstances.

[myth]

Not at all? Purely and simply? It must be nice to live in a world where there is ever only one motivation for a given behavior....




I'm not sure what you're contradicting. You said yourself that you're sworn to uphold the law, which is all I said. More to my point, though, is that I find such interpretation a really bad idea. There's a system in place for determining if something is constitutional.

To pull a shorter quote for your earlier post that I originally responded to: "To then publicly state that they will refuse seems to be dereliction of duty, plain and simple."

You said it was dereliction of duty for an LEO to publicly state his/her refusal to enforce certain laws. I said that, rather than it being a dereliction of my duty, it would a violation of my oath of office to even enforce certain unconstitutional laws. We're talking polar opposites. You think I should I enforce an unconstitutional law, apparently. I don't.

[myth]

Does the oath put that judgment into your hands, or is that an assumption? I'm not being smart here, I am genuinely curious.

It actually doesn't specifically say, either way. Arguments could be made both ways, but I believe that adding an additional component to the oath (i.e. "I shall enforce all laws that have not been found to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court") is over-reaching.

The actual oath merely says (paraphrasing here) that I will faithfully enforce constitutional laws. Because it doesn't add to that, I'm forced to interpret the meaning myself.