Burma Gun Controls:
Recent events in Burma have led some people to wonder about kind of guns controls Burma has. Below is what I've found in a first round of research. Commentators are urged to supply additional information.
First, from the website of the Burma Lawyers Council, a pro-freedom organization based in Thailand:
A 1951 law bans possession of automatic weapons, grenades, and explosives with the intent to commit high treason. A rather narrowly-tailored law, at first glance.
However, the law states that the President can by decree add "any other arms or ammunition" to the banned list. And any person with a banned weapon is presumed guilty of intending to commit high treason, and required to prove his innocence:
Provided that, notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any other law for the time being in force, it shall be presumed, until the contrary is proved, in a prosecution under this section, that the person found going armed with; or in possession of, or having under his control any of the arms, ammunition or military stores specified herein, had the intention of committing the offence of High Treason.Sections 96-106 of the Penal Code recognize the "right of private defence" of person and property, including the right to use deadly force against certain felonies, including a night-time home invasion.
The Online Burma/Myanmar Library has an excellent search engine, and many articles. There are a lot of dead links to the full text articles, but you can usually find the article via Yahoo, once you know the exact title. Here are some interesting articles I found:
TheMay 17, 2006, issue of The New Light of Myanmar (a dictatorship propaganda organ) has an article (starts on page 16, then jumps to a previous page) expressing pleasure that "16 families exchange arms for peace."
A December 9, 2006 article in Kaowao News no. 121, the "Newsletter for social justice and freedom in Burma" reports:
Mon grass roots communities have urged the ceasefire group, New Mon State Party not to lay down their arms amid pressure given by the military regime. Public opinions have been heard during the party’s public campaign in Ye, Yepyu, and Three Pagodas Pass Townships under its administration this week.There are a number of other articles to similar effect, of the government press praising disarmament, or ethnic resistance advocates warning against it.
“We (Mon public) cannot give up our arms to them. We have sacrificed for so many years. The SPDC will surely take away our rights if the NMSP gives up their arms,” said a villager at the public gathering on December 4, 2006 where NMSP leaders Nai Hongsar, Ong Htow Mon and Captain Jalon Htow talked to over 120 attendees at Palai Japan village, a sparsely populated area near Three Pagodas Pass Thai Burma border town.
An August 2005 article from The Irrawaddy, "How World War II Shaped Burma's Future," explains:
In the beginning, Aung San and his Burman nationalists had sided with the Japanese. His Burma Independence Army was armed and trained by the Japanese, while the Allied powers armed and equipped hill peoples such as the Karen and Kachin to fight the occupiers. Centuries of mistrust between the Burmans and the hill peoples resurfaced, and those wounds have not yet been healed. Even today, many Karen talk with bitterness about atrocities carried out against them by the BIA during the Japanese occupation, and the Kachin are proud to point out that they already had celebrated their victory manau in Myitkyina by the time the Burman nationalists in March 1945 turned their guns against the Japanese.
The arming of the hill peoples, and vast quantities of weapons left behind by the Japanese, meant that Burma's ethnic conflicts from the very beginning turned violent. The hill peoples had the means to form their own militias and armies and the first, the Karen National Defence Organisation, was set up in 1947, a year before independence. The Mon formed a similar militia in 1948, while the most militant of the Burman nationalists, the Communist Party of Burma, dismissed independence as a sham and resorted to armed struggle in April 1948. That war continued until 1989, when the hill-tribe rank-and-file of the CPB's army mutinied against the aging Burman leadership of the party and drove them into exile in China. But the army remains under a different name, the United Wa State Army, and although it has had a ceasefire agreement with the government in Rangoon since the mutiny, it still has at least 16,000 soldiers--and they are better armed and equipped than the CPB's army ever was.
An October 2005 report of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (a Norwegian-funded organization which works closely with the UN) states:
Six percent of households [of displaced persons in eastern Burma] reported that they had at some point resorted to procuring a hand gun to minimize threats to safety and livlihoods. Given the threat of being suspected as either a rebel sympathizer by the SPDC or a government collaborator by the armed opposition, this gauge of the prevalence of assault weapons is considered high. Due to the breakdown in law and order and the ease of procurement, transport, concealment, and use, the prevalence of small arms is in itself a significant threat of violent insecurity.
(Executive Summary. Page 55 notes that some of the "hand guns" may be "simple hunting rifles.")
If you know more about the situation in Burma, please make a contribution to the Comments.
Secondly, who wouldn't agree with you? Of course! Being able to defend oneself is "preposterous."
More news of a group of citizens voting on the "preposterous" notion that they be able to defend themselves.
Hey, it worked for Ghandi .
Indeed, they would have been. But lets imagine, for a second, that they'd prefer not to use weapons in their defense. How about the rest of Burma's population?
There's just no way arming half the citizenry would stop something like a military coup or a government from acting this way. If either group decided they wanted to exercise supreme power they're certainly not bothered by the thought of sending the troops out to kill some folks opposing them. The populous has no chance of defeating the sort of force that can be directed against them by a modern military. There just is no self defense here.
Guns aren't the way to ensure things like this don't happen. Democratic institutions are what secure us against such atrocities.
Oh wait, that DID actually happen and it was called the Revolutionary War. A bunch of farmers got tired of being oppressed by the king, took up arms (private guns), fought against the oppressor, and won.
SomeFella is right - private ownership of guns has absolutely no place in ensuring liberty.
1. The Revolutionaries had private militias already.
2. The relative strength of arms between the two sides- rifles on both sides at the very first combat and later cannons were used by both sides.
3. The British were fighting a war across an ocean with much less than their full military might.
4. The Revolutionaries didn't actually win the war by themselves- I seem to remember some French fellas helping out a bit, with a navy?
5. The afore mentioned navy.
6. The "farmers" using the guns were mostly skilled with them since the guns were needed by many of them for hunting.
7. And I can't reiterate this enough, there was almost no qualitative difference between the weapons used by each side.
8. The Revolutionary army that formed borrowed heavily from the military and militias to find generals, tacticians, and weapons (cannons).
All of those things separate the above situation from what might occur today within a country.
I'm all for guns, but are you suggesting that Americans should be allowed to possess the sort of weapons that would enable them to defeat the U.S. military? (No roadside bomb jokes please)
So to dismiss the possible efficacy of an armed fightback is just silly.
The monks took the lead in the recent demonstrations only because ordinary Burmans were mercilessly and brutally quelled in 1988. They wouldn't even have taken up the mantle if the unarmed Burmese opposition hadn't been so easily and effectively pacified now as then.
It doesn't just take having arms. It takes having arms and a decision that it's better to fight, and risk being dead, than to live as a slave.
Armies are not merely instruments of killing and destruction. They exist to coerce other men into submitting to the political will of their adversaries.
No, we may not be able to stop government from killing everyone, but armed people, acting collectively, can thwart a government's political objectives. Give a tyrant a choice between ruling over men, or ruling over an uninhabited wasteland, which do you think he'd prefer?
Your last sentence is, of course, right on the money.
But I'm not so sure that an armed populace is not a deterrent to a government acting like Burma's. It is true that an all-out effort by most country's militaries would be hard to defeat for an armed population. But it is also true that totalitarian regimes have largely pursued a disarmed populace. Do they do this only for "public safety"? I doubt it.
We can see from our own experience, and the experience of others, that a smallish armed uprising by an indigenous element can be very effective. Sure, if a military is intent on razing and slaughtering everything and everyone in their path, well....
There's also the question of the human right (need) to defend oneself against tyranny, regardless of the eventual or absolute success of that effort.
Most of your "exceptions" still apply today.
1. Legal private gun owners tend, contrary to liberal popular belief, to be very skilled with their firearms. Most view it as their responsibility to train by doing things such as hunting and recreational target shooting.
2. If there is a military coup, I highly doubt the ENTIRE military will back one side. Units will pledge allegiance to both sides. This will most likely also happen if there is ever a serious citizen induced revolution.
Furthermore, what makes you think both sides need "equal" access to the same weapons to mount a serious resistance? The Vietnamese did a pretty good job with donkies and AK-47s and terrorists in Iraq have been giving us problems for years with nothing more then 40 year old guns and some improvised explosives.
ejo has completely mischaracterized the situation. What prevents a government from acting this way isn't the treat of force from its citizens. It's an adherence to political and normative customs that preclude this sort of brutish tyrannical behavior.
Does anyone think that the Chechen rebellion would continue is Moscow had its hands free to loose its nuclear arsenal? One thing that is allowing rebellions to continue right now in the face of overwhelming is the international community so denying the efficacy of the international community's power is also misplaced.
The military junta of Burma, in addition to having no legal legitimacy, controls only about 60% of the country. The rest is in the hands of various "private" armies, which either war with the junta or have a more-or-less explicit franchise from the junta in return for a cut of the take from smuggling of gold, emeralds, pearls, Chinese jade, heroin, methamphetamine, and white-slaves.
And these aren't street gangs. They have uniforms, rifles, trucks, and even light artillery in some cases. They control vast sections of the country.
It doesn't strike me that few hundred pro-democracy monks with AK-47s is going to make a huge difference in the political situation.
The military involvement in a coup wouldbe the dispositive factor in my opinion if there were no international intervention. But that also plays into my argument that what prevents this sort of thing from happening in the Western world is a commitment to Democratic principles and ideals that would tend to make the military support the former regime instead of following the tyrant to power.
Many posters have commented that an armed citizenry would be of little use against someone hellbent on killing everyone who opposed him/her, but I think the argument about the use of war as a political tool relies on some of the assumptions that undergird my own position. War isn't a salting of the earth anymore because it's not possible to create and sustain a government built on fear and oppression without the support (maybe tacit support) of the international community, or at least part of the international community.
What are you talking about. The provincial Shan State, Mon, etc. ethnic rebellions are armed. It is the city-dwelling ethnic Burmese opposition who are unarmed.
Well in the case of Hitler and Pol Pot, they chose the latter. In fact in the case of Germany at the end of World War II, it was only the direct disobedience of Hitler's orders by the few sane people left in the German High Command that spared the German people complete destruction of their own lands by the retreating army. Both were only defeated by large organized military forces from outside.
If a tyrant has an air force that he is willing to use against his own people, then a purely internal insurgency has almost no chance of succeeding.
Sorry, I don't know much about the situation in Burma. I thought from your post you were implying that these forces had survived and hurt the government and wanted guns so they could really carry the fight to them. My mistake. I'll admit I'm more concerned with the theoretical discussion than a direct discussion of what's occurring in Burma and how to fix it.
I think we can make a deal here. You can rely on some UN bureaucrat to secure your liberty in the event of a national emergency and I will rely my personal firearms and those of my neighbors.
Just don't come running my way when the UN doesn't help you.
The same units fighting the ethnic rebellions were recalled from the border provinces to crush the recent demonstrations. This was achieved in a few days of concerted brutality.
Those very same army units have been fighting the armed ethnic rebellions for years. In other words, guns can be very efficient indeed.
Don't get me wrong, I think that stuff matters. But ultimately, if someone wants to force his will on me, he has to get out of all the fancy equipment and come stick a rifle in my face.
That's fine, and so long as we're making rational arguments, don't come running to me when your child is killed as a result of the explosion of the handgun-related death rate in your country while you indulge your chimeric illusion of joining a local militia to fight back a democratically elected government with superpower military strength that has turned on its citizenry.
Come on now.
Gee, in the U.S. Civil War, the people of Georgia fought for four long years while those in New York, except for a few short riots that were quickly put down, never rebelled against the U.S. government. I guess that must be because the people in Georgia were better armed.
Hitler ended up with a wasteland because people stood up to him. Our air force didn't seem to do a very effective job at breaking the political will of the North Vietnamese.
Hitler ordered Speer to destroy all German industry and infrastructure as the army retreated. Speer didn't do it. That was my point. We are talking about internal rebellions, not the ability or will to resist foreign invasion.
I'm throwing the BS flag on that red herring. My glock, which is secured nicely in a gun safe in the closet in my bedroom has nothing to do with handgun violence. Neither does the Glock I have secured in a locked desk drawer right nex to me right now.
Handgun violence is only a problem because of failed liberal policies. Let's build some more prisons and throw those that commit crimes with guns away for a long time. Then, lets pass out some handguns to lawful citizens and allow them easy access to concealed carry permits. This will solve our problem - not more gun control. Regulating legal guns has almost no effect on the sale of illegal guns.
Where on earth do you think all those criminals get those guns they use to commit crimes with? They steal them from law abiding citizens from you. Most home burglaries occur when no one is home. So that gun you bought to protect your family and property does you absolutely zero good and in fact just becomes a another gun in the hands of a criminal.
If you have another reason to support private gun ownership, it sounds like you might with the crime deterrence, then let's hear it, but your fear that the government is going to turn on us and the only thing holding it back is our gun ownership is deluded and preposterous.
I suppose I should be honest and say I don't oppose private gun ownership at the moment. I am leaning toward that position more and more though. This "guns preserve Democracy" argument is a red herring with regard to our country.
What is the difference between a citizen, and a subject?
A citizen has rights, a subject has privileges.
Gee, maybe because it was a Union city and Confederate sympathy wasn't enough to provoke large scale resistance?
Don't be dense, Thomas. No one said that being armed means having the will to fight. The point made was that when people do decide to fight, being armed can make a difference. Hence the comparison between the unquelled armed ethnic resistance with the quelled unarmed Burmese street opposition. In both cases those facing down the Burmese army were willing to risk death. The difference between one (effective resistance) and the other (a quelled uprising) is the presence of arms.
Learn to read, Thomas.
There is no need for personal attacks in a civil discussion. Your comments were not extreme but that's all it takes to get the name calling ball rolling. I see no reason why you felt you had to include either the last sentence or the one at the start of your primary paragraph. Such rudeness detracts from the peaceful debate we are carrying on.
...is long on vague, unsupported claims, and short on facts:There's 'just no way,' huh?
And how the hell would you know that?
The 2nd Amendment didn't just fall out of the sky. It was put into the Constitution for a damned good reason - despite the handwaving by the puckered up, criminal-coddling, anti-Constitution Left. And it wasn't put into the Constitution to guarantee guns for hunters.
Always?
The US can't significnatly reduce illegal drug import and manufacture, so I'd like to know how similarly draconian laws against guns would fare significantly better. (Note that the amount of guns required to supply US criminals with a new gun for every crime is a small fraction of the drug smuggling.) Please be specific. Heck - instances of gun control laws co-incident with dramatic reductions in crime would be nice. (If you're going to claim that certain gun laws explain 2-5x differences, it would be nice to show that they were associated with comparable reductions.)
I don't know that at all. David thinks that the situation in Darfur would be much better if the refugees there were armed.
Actually it is the difference, and you can't explain the difference, hence your resort to snark.
"you apparently, believes that all the world's problems can be solved with guns"
Except that I'm pro-gun control, and view with incredulity Second Amendment jurisprudence. I couldn't be more different from the Kopels of this world.
That however does not stop me from conceding a good argument when I see one: that yes, in certain dire situations guns CAN be useful. (One can accept that point but still maintain that, overall, an aggressive gun-control regime is still preferable for other reasons.)
That you can't accept such an obvious, uncontroversial point is telling. You're as much as an ideologue as you imagine Kopel to be.
Maybe long, long ago if we all lived in liberaltopia and we had to make a choice the moment the gun was invented such it might of had a significence. But now there are just too many guns out there in the world. It's like Pandora's box.
Regulating guns only takes away a means of defense from lawful citizens, who by and large aren't the ones commiting gun crimes. It shouldn't be a surprise but criminals don't really care about the law too much and thus don't care about gun control.
Private gun ownership, by lawful citizens, has proved advantegous over our history. It helped win our Independence, helped fight the War of 1812, kept migrants safe during Western Expansion, and kept the peace in the Wild West. (Yes I am aware that there is a current debate about this subject.)
We also have a long legal history, rooted in common law, involving the right of self defense. Private gun ownership plays an important role in being able exercise thie important right.
Furthermore, people like John Lott have proved that concealed carry laws and private gun ownership lowers crime.
One thing liberals can't get through their heads is that gun control is effectively a dead issue. It probably cost Al Gore the 2000 election and after that no one wanted to touch it. When I saw Wayne LaPierre declare gun control dead I said to myself, "you know what he is completely right." The left couldn't even come close to reauthorizing the incorrectly named "Automatic Weapons Ban" (which should have been call "A Ban on Guns with Arbitrary Physical Characteristics.") Something like 47-48 states now have concealed carry permit laws and some even now provide expanisve protections for those who use firearms to defend themselves from crime.
Liberals also don't realize that their stupid gun control policies actually kill real people. VT was a "gun free zone", but someone must have forgotten to tell the crazy guy who showed up and killed two dozen people. Good thing there were no guns in the hands of law abiding citizens then - who knows maybe only three or four people would have been killed. Likewise, the DC gun ban has only brought about more and more gun crime. I just find it really funny that these criminals just don't understand the law and leave their guns at home.
Would it be worse?
Well no. Somewhere between two and a couple hundred people were killed in this week's protests in Burma. Let's agree with Kopel and say the protesters showed up armed with AK-47s. What do you think the end result would have been? Would the miltary have been overthrown or would they have just killed a few thousand protesters instead of a couple hundred (remember they were willing to kill three thousand in the 1988 demonstrations)? Sure, maybe a few soldiers would have been killed. I guess David would have considered that a moral victory for the protesters. But other than the much higher body count, we would be in exactly the same position we are in today. Except of course the government would be in a stronger position internationally because they could claim the protesters fired first.
Well no, the status quo doesn't make a lot of sense. But simply arming the citizens is not some magic bullet (pun intended) that will suddenly make everything all better as David seems to think it will. In fact the weight of history demonstrates just the opposite. Armed insurgencies and violent revolutions (with the U.S. as I noted above and possibly Romania--and that was an extremely short-lived revolution under extraordinary circumstances--being the only notable exceptions I can think of), even when they are successful in overthrowing oppressive governments, almost inevitably lead to a new set of dictators replacing the old ones.
You shouldn't need a gun for protection because you can rely on government sponsored safety officials. You don't need a gun to resist an government that might become cppressive because you should always believe in the good nature of the government. You don't need a gun to defend yourself from government death squads because you can believe in the goodness of the international community to intervene.
I wonder how fast that liberal academic would change his tune if the George W. Bush death squad was knocking on his door...
Hebetudinous lack of imagination. Protestors are wily enough not to "show up" with guns and be open targets until they're fired upon and the situation degenerates into open warfare: then and only then do they have the option to up the ante and perhaps respond with forceful resistance. Do you imagine that people are going to simply show up with weapons in a cautious face-off with the state? People are not such simpletons as you make them out to be.
At a MINIMUM, the possibility that protestors may so respond with force means that the junta would think twice before escalating the situation for fear of opening up more fronts than they can handle. Among other considerations, the political and territorial integrity of Myanmar is paramount. Insurrection in the centre would tie up units otherwise sent to pacify the border regions. The threat of an popular, ethnically Burmese insurgency may force the junta to deal instead of taking the easy option of escalating since such escalation, in the face of unarmed opposition, would be costless to them.
All these are plausible outcomes with arms. Without arms, these are impossible outcomes. Your denial, A PRIORI, that guns won't make a difference in all situations is tantamount to saying that these other plausible outcomes cannot possibly exist. Which is nonsense.
That's moving the goalposts. The question is: does arming the populace have a positive effect on the ability of the populace to initiate and sustain a rebellion. The quality of the governments brought about after a successful revolution is not germane to that question.
Does your non sequitur posed as a response imply that you agree that an armed populace is better able to initiate and sustain a rebellion? Note: this doesn't mean that you have to accept guns as a net positive, simply that there exist situations where guns have positive utility.
Kopel with almost every post says it.
Let's run the scenario again and posit that the police know the protestors are armed. I can see a larger number of cops armed more heavily and on a hairpin trigger. Think that cops facing down an armed mob that might be able to seriously hurt them won't be ready to use maximum force to protect themselves?
What I'm driving at is arming the populous in a situation like this may create a perverse incentive for the police to act more harshly more quickly.
And the implication in this post is that the only reason this week's protests in Burma failed is because the protesters were not armed. This conclusion is simplistic and ill-informed.
Most pro-gun people I know will concede that having a gun is not always the best idea. Why can't liberals do the same (but in reverse) and recognize that sometimes it is just simply better to have a gun?
In other words, Kopel doesn't say it.
He doesn't even imply it. The one reading the implication in is you.
Keep it up, Thomas. You're a waste of time.
Even though I have a valid concealed carry permit in this state I would not say, go to an anti-war protest with a gun. Simply possessing a gun in such an environment where police acitivity could happen is simply not wise.
On the otherhand, you bet that when I hvae to drive through North Philadelphia (known internationally for its high crime and murder rate) you better bet I am taking a gun (if not two) and some extra ammo.
They show up with guns; even less could escape the blood bath after the protesters fire the first shot and the junta respond with a hailstorm of return fire.
My position is that the protesters are in the best of the terrible situations because they aren't armed.
I also concede that there are circumstances where it is better to have a gun, lots. But my concern is with the balance between the benefits of having the gun in certain positions and the detriment of having the gun in other situations.
Crushing street protestors is no longer a costless exercise for the regime. It becomes a step they will take with somewhat more circumspection. They might even choose to avert bloodshed by lowering fuel prices in compromise. (A rise in fuel prices sparked the demonstrations to begin with.) If a compromise costs less than the perceived cost of an armed response, the junta might consider dealing. This isn't rocket science.
(BTW I'm really enjoying the conversation. Thank you for everyone carrying on this debate with me.)
Nowhere in the post does Kopel advocate armed protesters. Arms are useful only when the situation has moved beyond protest. There is quite a bit of argument in this thread about the effectiveness of civilians (and their weapons)against a modern military. I would suggest you study strategy and tactics a bit more. The idea is not to engage in open combat - the army will win. But small numbers of men armed with light weapons can be very effective in hit-and-run, with the ultimate ability to bleed the army dry. In the case of the Revolution, the Continental Army lost nearly every major engagement against the Redcoats, but Francis Marion sure tied down a bunch of British resources in the South. Likewise, the VC/NVA lost EVERY major engagement against the U.S. Army, but we left Vietnam after taking 58,000 dead. As for the quality of the arms, even the U.S. Army and Marine Corps equips snipers with Remington Model 700 rifles; if you doubt their effectiveness, google "Carlos Hathcock."
Simply put its dangerous. There are carjackings, murders, kidnapping and forced rapes. If you are the victim of a crime in North Philly they want more then you're money and car - they probably want you or are so high on drugs they don't care if they kill you. Also, most likely, the criminal will have a gun.
Protest
In this situation possessing a gun, even legally, is more dangerous. The likelihood of having to use it is very very small because of probable high police precense. Even if there was a situation where use of it might be necessary, it will probably end poorly for you because of all the cops. Police shoot first and ask questions later. Defending yourself with a firearm will most likely result in you getting shot yourself. Furthermore, a police encouter, which is very probable at a turbulent protest, is always escalated when you posses a gun (legal or illegally.) Considering cops are usually already on edge at these types of protests it is not wise to further escalate an encounter.
Does this make sense?
Are you unaware that the violent crime rate in places like Seattle (which as part of Washington State has a very permissive gun-keeping-and-bearing climate) is much lower than places like Chicago or DC? I not only know that, I live it, and as a consequence am extremely unworried by the nightmare scenario you paint.
J.F.,It would--they might be able to fight the government to a stalemate like the Southern Sudanese did.
Gee, and I thought the lesson of Vietnam is we lost because of pansies like me who didn't have the guts to do what was necessary to win. That if it we had just thrown in a few more divisions and stayed a few more years we could have beat the VC/NVA. Which is it?
I'll confess I've moved completely off the Kopel topic. I wasn't drawn into this discussion so much because of what Kopel said but because of the potential issue to resolve here. Whether an armed citizenry is a viable means of holding a government in check. In both the cases you mention we're looking at something different. They're examples of an occupying foreign (nominally foreign during the Revolution) army trying to suppress a resistance. I think there are important differences between that an a corrupt government turning on its people. Yes, hit and run tactics are effective but not at winning a war. They are very useful where the side with overwhelming force also has a lot of other pressure on it to discontinue the war with less incentive to continue it. A dictator trying to suppress an uprising has no incentive to end a war like this. In the Revolutionary war the Brits could go home; in Vietnam we could go home. A dictator cannot withdraw and is thus forced to push the fight to extreme measures. Do you doubt that we could end the turmoil in Iraq if we were given a free hand? If the whole populous is against you then carpet bombing areas of resistance is ok with the dictator- everyone already hates you.
Yes most certainly Archon.
I think this returns to the crime prevention/state suppression split I'm tracking. Lemme take a break and I'll get back to you on it. :-)
I’m not sure how much it helps or hurts your basic point, but apparently at least a couple of these were not “easy ones”:
1. The Revolutionaries had private militias already.
I suppose there were some private militias, but the most Patriot militias were local, county, or colony funded and controlled.
2. The relative strength of arms between the two sides- rifles on both sides at the very first combat and later cannons were used by both sides.
Assuming you meant Lexington &Concord MA, there were no “rifles” at the very first combat, and probably none during the whole first day of combat, but there were cannons used by the British army regulars that day. I think you meant “muskets” instead of rifles, or maybe “muskets and fowlers” if you want to make a somewhat fine distinction.
3. The British were fighting a war across an ocean with much less than their full military might.
I would guess about 1/3 of the whole British army (around 65-70 regiments) served in North America, out of less than 200 total British regular regiments.
4. The Revolutionaries didn't actually win the war by themselves- I seem to remember some French fellas helping out a bit, with a navy?
5. The afore mentioned navy.
The French navy was instrumental in blocking Cornwallis’ escape from Yorktown, but the thousands of French troops under Rochambeau probably helped out a bit more. If you mean attacking British shipping in the Atlantic, the Dutch and Spanish helped the French with that.
6. The "farmers" using the guns were mostly skilled with them since the guns were needed by many of them for hunting.
In New England and New York, many were also veterans of the Seven Years War (AKA French &Indian war).
7. And I can't reiterate this enough, there was almost no qualitative difference between the weapons used by each side.
Little difference, although some historians have made the claim that American rifle units, with the longer ranges of rifles vs. smoothbore muskets, were instrumental in winning (I am not sure I agree with that, for what it is worth). With a few exceptions (like Yorktown), the British usually had significant advantage in cannons.
8. The Revolutionary army that formed borrowed heavily from the military and militias to find generals, tacticians, and weapons (cannons).
While probably true, I think this is not a useful distinction. Many of the top officers in the American Revolution were chosen because of prior military experience; in any widespread revolt against some kind of US military dictatorship, there are plenty of ex-military officers around. As for weapons, the colonials’ first heavy cannons in the Revolution were taken from Fort Ticonderoga after it was captured. Later in the war, many arms came from France, Netherlands, and Spain. French muskets were so common in the continental army, they became the model for post-war US military muskets (Springfield).
Thanks for making such a serious argument, but if you're going to throw a bullet in my lap, I'll shoot it: your point proves too much. If you bomb the snot out of [supply] lines of communication and mine the harbors [Haiphong] used to import weapons, well... you end up with a bunch of unarmed people, and the Army wins. So the [textbook] case that Vietnam is an example of is that (i) a rag-tag force can bleed an army dry, at least in certain types of terrain (mountains, jungle, and urban areas), IF (ii) that rag-tag force has weapons, i.e. the opposing army doesn't interdict them, and (iii) the opposing army wants the civilian population to survive reasonably intact. Care for any more history lessons?
Imagine that there is a racial incident in the South and the local Sheriff decides that the only way to make the situation right is to round up a bunch of black people and subject them to short sham hearings by the local judge then execute the sentence (presumably death.) Essentially, lawless has overtaken this town and the sheriff has the guns to back up his position. Would an armed citizenry in this circumstance be able to make a difference?
Sure. Most likely the State or the Feds would swoop in to resolve the situation. But action like that could take days or even a week to put together. By then you could have a lot of bodies twisting in the wind. But, some armed citizens might be able to hold out until that happens or even might be able to show enough force to convince the sheriff his plan isn't worth it (or better, resolve the situation on their own.)
Although it is rather implausible that a bunch of armed citizens could win a direct military confrontation with the entire professional US army, we have to remember that oppression can strike at any level of government.
Solution: Since guns scare you, don't get a gun. But don't presume to dictate your perverted understanding of the Constitution to the rest of us law-abiding citizens.
Do you really think that an army opposed by its domestic population is anything other than "occupying?" You also make the assumption that an army will mindlessly execute the will of a dictator. It doesn't quite work like that - bleed an army enough, and it will say "no." To head off your assertion that this doesn't occur in "modern" armies, research the pilot's strike during Vietnam. The other side of the issue is more direct: defending against hit-and-run (i) radically increases the economic cost of fielding an army, (ii) radically reduces military effectiveness, and (iii) if not done effectively, will gradually attrite the army to the point of lacking military effectiveness.
To add to the historical points made by Dew, keep in mind the vastly superior logistics situation of the Redcoats. Despite the 3,000 mile supply line, the British were well generally equipped, well-fed, and well-armed. Compare, e.g., the situation at Valley Forge. The British still lost. For more modern examples, see Vietnam, and Iraqi Freedom.
You are still resorting to the "you are always better off without a gun" argument and you're answer is strained at best and at worst (for you) it makes no sense whatsoever.
If the local sheriff is hell bent on rounding up black people to pay for a crime, he will do so despite the impending intervention from the outside. Maybe a rational person wouldn't do so, but guess what there are alot of irrational people out there.
I would rather die fighting back with a gun in my hand then swinging from a tree.
There are four boxes of freedom - the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box. They should be employed in the order above.
I think you're right about a lot of what you've said, but I think the effect of an armed citizenry isn't a sufficient reason, by itself, to justify private gun ownership. I think the effect would be much less than you think.
But like I said before, I'm still open to the proposition that an armed citizenry helps deter crime. That combined with the right of self-defense and the small incremental benefit of checking a dictator's grab for power may justify private gun ownership. I just think the primary ground- preventing a government run a muck is not sturdy enough.
This is what happens when citizens are kept unarmed: Locals die defending monks.
A well regulated Militia,being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.That's the correct version right Smokey?
I am not against guns. But to imply that guns in Burma would create a nice set of condtions seems about as silly an argument as can be mustered.
I don't know about that. It's worked before.
"A 19 year old Black male accidentally stumbled on a jerky elevator and bumped the 17-year-old White elevator operator who screamed. The frightened young fellow was seen running from the elevator by a group of Whites and by late afternoon the "Tulsa Tribune" reported that the girl had been raped. Despite the girl’s denial of any wrongdoing, the boy was arrested and a large mob of 2000 White men came to the jail to lynch the prisoner.
About 75 armed African Americans came to the jail to offer assistance to the sheriff to protect the prisoner. The sheriff not only refused the assistance but also deputized the White mob to disarm the Blacks. With a defenseless Black community before them, the White mob advanced to the Greenwood district where they first looted and then burned all Black businesses, homes, and churches. Any Black resisters were shot and thrown into the fires. When the National Guard arrived, they assisted the others by arresting all Black men, women, and children, and herding them into detention centers at the Baseball Park and Convention Hall. As many as 4,000 Blacks were held under armed guard in detention.
Dr. Arthur C. Jackson, a nationally renowned surgeon and called by the Mayo brothers (of Mayo Clinic fame) "the most able Negro surgeon in America", was shot at the Convention Hall and allowed to bleed to death.
The "Chicago Tribute" Newspaper reported that Whites also used private airplanes to drop kerosene and dynamite on Black homes. By the next morning the entire Greenwood district was reduced to ashes and not one White was even accused of any wrongdoing, much less arrested."
This was in 1921.
In other words, the sheriff did pretty much what is described in the hypothetical. Then disarmed the black men when they presented themselves to him, thinking he still represented law enforcement. Please explain how these folks were better off disarmed.
SomeFella doesn't understand that he is also a member of the militia.
This is too easy!
When you're in a no win situation, do you sacrifice the lives of those who might make it out so you can ensure the perpetrators of injustice meet their end at your hand instead of later on?
And Britain and Switzerland are or at least were very well armed.
Guns are just one component of societal stability. Guns alone are not enough, but without guns society seems a lot weaker in the long run.
If you know everyone has access to guns, you automatically lean towards solutions that do not require violence. If you know that only your side has guns, it opens up a lot of options to impose your preferences by force.
well regulatedMilitia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.More to the point, let's look at the case law. U.S. v. Haney, 264 F.3d 1161 (Okla. 2001) at 1165, 1166: Thus, the militia does not include the private anti-government groups that sometimes refer to themselves as “militias.” Haney is not part of the “well regulated” militia, that is, a “militia actively maintained and trained by the states,” Wright, 117 F.3d at 1272. At best, Haney claims to be a member of the “unorganized” (and therefore not a “well regulated” state) militia.
Furthermore, see id at 1166
Accord Wright, 117 F.3d at 1274 (“[T]he substantial segment of the population comprising the unorganized militia is not well regulated as that term was intended by the drafters of the Second Amendment.”)
This basically cuts the entire second section from the statute you quoted. Nice try though.
Take your time. We'll wait.
On the other hand, could someone please name one country in which a dis-armed populace has been the victim of genocide.
Stand back. Here they come.
(1) You assume that there is a "safe haven" and an ability to get there. Many Jews were not able to flee Europe. Those that resisted, e.g. the Warsaw ghetto, although ultimately defeated, did quite well, and took a heavy toll on the German Army in the process. Please note that it took an army willing to exterminate the population in order to win.
(2) You may not be one of them, but there are many of us who choose to, quite literally, "live free or die." [State Redacted] is my home, no government has the power to make me leave. If you choose otherwise, that's your business, but it is morally wrong for you to force your choice on the rest of us.
(3) A well reasoned point was actually made by Smokey. The burden of proof isn't on those seeking to justify gun ownership. The burden of proof is on those seeking to regulate it, particularly in light of both examples (Switzerland and Phoenix, AZ) and empirical evidence showing that guns, at best, have no effect on crime rates, or possibly decrease crime rates.
Sorry, Professor, I'd help if I knew anything.
Second, the "urban opposition" that Archon and others are talking about is hell-bent on non-violent resistance--or have you not been reading the news? The monks took to the streets because they are very likely to be directly affected by the rising prices on basic goods, particularly food. It has nothing to do with the failure of previous civil unrests--armed or not.
Perhaps if some people actually knew a bit of history instead of posturing based on an ideology we could have a real discussion here. Instead, we get the poor man's Sean Hannitty vs. retarded version of Al Franken--or is it the other way around?
Anyway, the argument for eliminating American citizens' right to bear arms goes like this: "I am scared of guns! They frighten me. The thought of anyone except Big Government having guns makes me want to take them away from every law abiding citizen in the country. Why? Because I'm afraid!!"
That's pretty much what their argument comes down to, isn't it?
John Wayne would be disgusted.
And how exactly do you propose to get the safe havens?
In fact, guns may exactly make the difference there in situations where staying to fight is impractical. If you chose your escape wisely, you may be able to force your way out.
On the other hand, such a situation maximizes the chance of a "few sane people left in the German High Command" or equivalent. Guns can also be used for assasinations.
"This fate is inescapable."
Check out the link at 5:19pm. The monks didn't take to the streets, as you claim. They were attacked, very savagely -- by the government. In the middle of the night.
From the 5:19pm link:
Under cover of a curfew, security forces raided monasteries and pagodas across the city. At about 2am, they descended on Ngwe Kya Yan, smashing windows, decapitating statues of Buddha, stealing jewellery and cash and thrashing monks with cudgels.
They also shot and killed two unarmed monks.
Despite your claim, this has everything to do with previous civil unrest in Burma, going back to WWII. The article discusses gun control - not the price of food, as you stated above.
To clarify, that was a Hitler quote that he made in the last days of the war, when he knew without any doubt that he was destroyed. Hitler found it easy to blame the German people for his personal blunders when he led them into a disastrous two-front war.
As AnonLawStudent told you above: The burden of proof isn't on those seeking to justify gun ownership.
Get it? Probably not.
But for the many other posters, AnonLawStudent is correct. The right to bear arms is already in the Constitution; the burden of proof for those who would presume to rescind that right out of personal fear is squarely in the lap of the nanny-staters - who have failed for 200+ years to gut the 2nd Amendment.
Conclusion: ...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
See?
Probably not.
I'd say to establish limits and reasons on what I was about to say next. I think our entire discussion today has been about what is necessary for the security of a free state, and consistently we have pointed to the military not defecting during a dictator's attempt to seize power. The national guard would also fit that bill. What you've done is simply assert that the predicate doesn't matter. You've offered no reason why they would write it if it didn't, you've given nothing to justify your claim at all. You've asserted a right based on a selective reading of a text and then attempted to shift the burden of proof since you've not reasoned any to support your side. Provide reasons for your position beyond bald faced assertions or stop parroting your fallacies attempting vainly to justify a position for which you've given no support beyond an apparent personal preference.
So, really, I don't see why you'd want to argue that possibility. That is, by the way, ignoring the issues with the concept itself -- the amendment recognizes a right of the people regardless of any situations that said right appears under and thus can not be unreasonable restricted without violating 18 USC 242 even if the amendment itself doesn't apply, the first statement doesn't undo the second unless our lack of a more perfect union undoes the rest of the Constitution, your interpretation of the Second Amendment would prevent any federal actions with the National Guard aka Organized Militia.
Furthermore, see id at 1166
Accord Wright, 117 F.3d at 1274 (“[T]he substantial segment of the population comprising the unorganized militia is not well regulated as that term was intended by the drafters of the Second Amendment.”)
That would be the basis for my claim that we, as a general population don't constitute a militia and don't fall under the provisions of the Second amendment. Your theory just doesn't fight with the precedent. 18 USC 242 doesn't apply if the central question isn't resolved in your favor.
The amendment posits no restrictions on a right because of a given reason. If the supporting claims fail then they don't support the conclusion. Thank you though for picking up the dropped ball on this portion of the debate. Your position is well reasoned and articulate.
Miller, the existing Supreme Court precedent (aka, the one that matters) remanded a case involving an individual who was not part of the organized militia, yet the case was remanded and remanded only because :
This seems a bit hard to hold at the same time as thinking of the Second Amendment as being non-binding due to Miller's lack of standing in an organized militia. You'd think they'd send that down for review, as well, particularly given that the court also noted that
If you'd prefer to stick with the plain text rather than the questionably legal court decisions, you'll find the legal questions raised by Hancy or Miller even more moot. The text specifically states that A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State -- a predicate clause that I have yet seen to be contested, and that every Supreme Court decision regarding the draft recognizes as the case. After all, the Dick Act itself regulates and defines the unorganized militia and organized militia, and any Constitutional law must be "necessary and proper" in order to exist, thus showing that the Militia remains necessary. The conclusion is only dependent on the Predicate clause, not limited to only said clause.
Same here, and I was planning to get some drunk-coding done. Oh well, at least it's an entertaining and complex discussion.
There's really no problem that can't be solved by judicious use of an appropriate amount of dynamite :)
My challenge stands unanswered.
Also if the conclusion is dependent on the predicate clause then it sinks or swims based on it. If the predicate fails then there's no support for the conclusion. I know you didn't mean, that so could you clarify for me>
As to the predicate-conclusion statement, I'm just thinking that very few people would argue against the predicate of the Second Amendment. While there are some individuals who believe that military and National Guard services are not necessary to the security of a free state, there is no judicial opinion which note such, and a good deal which argue for it. As there are no things limiting the conclusion to only situations involving the predicate -- the framers went out of their way to call it the "right of the people", rather than naming militia or the states or the federal government -- the default assumption here seems a little off to me.
Most laws contain a predicate clause when they're first enacted these days. HR 2640, for example, listed eight separate attributes which required the actions of the law. While you can challenge those predicates under a rational basis review (such as in Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center), you'd be laughed out of court if you argued that the laws and conclusions didn't apply to a specific case because it was outside the situations provided by said predicate.
You made it look easy - just like a WWF Smackdown! Kudos.
Our Constitutionally-challenged friend states:
"...I think the effect of an armed citizenry isn't a sufficient reason, by itself, to justify private gun ownership."
So, what reason would be sufficient? To those ruled by their fear, no reason is sufficient to justify private gun ownership by responsible, law abiding citizens. It's just too scary to contemplate! All guns in private hands must be confiscated [disregarding the guns in the hands of criminals, who will, of course, completely disregard any confiscation laws. They're criminals, see? By definition they flout the law].
There are worse things than dying. Placidly surrendering our Constitutional rights to become sheep with the illusion of safety is one of them.