Recent Events In Burma Demonstrate Why We Have (& Need) The 2nd Amendment

[Rage for Order]

Had the populace (the citizens, not the monks) been armed, the outcome of the most recent uprising would likely have been much different. People have asked what good it does to have a gun if the government has tanks and planes. To those people I would say the fact that the insurgents in Iraq don't have armored vehicles or an air force doesn't seem to be hindering their efforts. An unarmed populace has almost no chance. Just ask the citizens of Burma.

[pretty_lies]

1. That Must Be Why Saddam Ruled Iraq So Long!

Iraq was one of the most heavily armed nations on earth. Same with Yemen and most Arab states.

For that matter, being heavily armed didn't stop the American South getting pretty well beaten, occupied and subdued.

[Rage for Order]

5. Your point being?

If the populace is armed they at least have a chance to defend themselves. It won't guarantee anything, but it certainly improves the odds.

[pretty_lies]

15. Unlikely.

If the population's armed, the government will just go in with more force. Modern weapons systems are orders of magnitude more lethal than anything civilians are allowed to own anywhere.

Saddam used helicopter gunships, tanks and poison gas to subdue the armed Shiite rebellions in the 90's.

Burma would certainly do the same. Great, now instead of a few monks shipped off to prison camps, you've got 100,000 people in mass graves.

Learn to differentiate Hollywood fantasy from reality.

People can't compete with states for monopolies on force, pretty much by definition.

[Rage for Order]

25. A few monks shipped off to prison camps?

And what do you suppose will happen to them once they are out of the public eye?

Yes, the gov't will meet force with more force, but the problem with that approach is that the support for that gov't will disappear quickly once it's known that there is a wholesale slaughter of their fellow citizens occurring. It's not a scenario I would like to see become a reality, but I do know you don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Personally, I find it sickening that some insist on using peaceful monks...

... to further their gun agenda.

[Forkboy]

27. Gun people tend to use the deaths of anyone to further that agenda.

It's crass, tacky, heartless, and downright ugly.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Aww, jeez, another one. n/t

[Rage for Order]

9. Another what?

The only thread I saw related to this was the one about "the monks should've had uzis", or something to that effect.

[Guaranteed]

4. The 2nd Amendment is meant to protect the citizens of our country from infantry.

Not bombs or tanks. Planes and tanks do not constitute an effective occupying or pacifying force.

As far as your point, though, I have a difficult time imagining a monk wielding an M-16.

[Rage for Order]

28. LOL

"I have a difficult time imagining a monk wielding an M-16."

Only in the cheesiest of Kung Fu movies could that happen. I meant the general public though, not the monks

[Guaranteed]

31. LOL you're right, my bad. nt

[Cha]

6. There not going to get rid

of guns in this country(nra and all that) and that is starting to sound like it will work out in our favor. Who knew the Wild West was going to come around again?

[Frances]

7. Gandhi and King were pretty successful

with no guns.

As a native Southerner, there is no doubt in my mind that the reason King was successful is that he persuaded his followers not to use violence.

I think leaders who use nonviolence have to be much smarter and more charismatic than leaders who use weapons. They also have to be ready to lose their own lives, because Gandhi and King were both killed themselves. However, they did achieve their goals.

[Guaranteed]

11. That's true.

On the other hand, the US military was never ordered to take them (and their people) out, either.

[Frances]

24. As I recall, the British

did massacre a number of peaceful protestors.

I also recall that Gandhi said that his techniques could have succeeded against Hitler, but at the cost of millions of innocent lives.

That's why I said that a Gandhi or a King has to be both extraordinarily gifted at tactics and strategy as well as charismatic.

Giving up life without fighting is something most of us don't want to do. It takes lots of courage and lots of faith that the leader will not let you die in vain.

[WCGreen]

33. It was a set-up by Bush's ancestors....

[Rage for Order]

17. I agree Frances

However, the US gov't did not have a policy of massacring civil rights protesters. That's not to say that people weren't killed by gov't forces- of course they were. But more often than not they died as a result of a beating gone too far. I'm sure the dynamic would've changed quickly if the police or military started gunning down people by the hundreds during a civil rights march.

Non-violent protests should always be the first choice of all movements seeking change. However, the junta in charge of Burma has demonstrated their repeated willingness to massacre their citizens by the thousands in order to put down a peaceful uprising. In that situation I think the use of force by the opposition is justified, if for no other reason than self-preservation.

[ellisonz]

42. Gandhi and King were both murdered with a firearm.

Just sayin'...

[Mrs. Overall]

8. Maybe I am just ignorant on this topic, but are most Dems/Progressives gun owners?

My family is divided on gun ownership down party lines. The few of us who are Progressives do not own guns and the republicans in the family own several rifles and sleep with handguns in their nightstand drawers.

[Mojorabbit]

39. It is the opposite in my family

All the progressives are armed and the republicans are not. I guess it is a personal preference.

[jaksavage]

10. where were you

and y6our guns when elections were stolen, habeaus was trampled and innocents were jailed. Oh yeah they haven't knocked on your door ...yet
signed armed and defenceless

[Guaranteed]

14. It was up to Gore.

He made his decision, and his supporters respected it.

He could have done otherwise.

[jaksavage]

It is up to us. n/t

[Guaranteed]

21. He was the "general." He made his decision. nt

[Rage for Order]

22. Where are the massacres of Americans? n/t

[bperci108]

26. That's a good point....

The same RKBA crowd that have the "...pry it from my cold dead hand." bumper-stickers are the same people that willfully handed this country to the neo-cons and Federalist Society goons and who now vociferously defend their actions in the face of all the evidence, and even go so far as to call it "patriotism".

Hey, at least they kept their guns (for now).

Jeebus....I am really beginning to think were are well and permanently fucked.

[Guaranteed]

30. Without Gore's endorsement of such violence, would you

have been there with them, or let them die alone?

[bperci108]

32. Did I miss something?

:wtf:

What the hell are you talking about?

[Guaranteed]

35. Sorry, with the context of the

post you were responding to, I thought you were asking why posters such as the person above allowed the 2000 election debacle to happen.

[Rage for Order]

37. Do what?

"The same RKBA crowd...vociferously defend their (the neo-cons and Federalist Society goons) actions"

So if one supports the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms they're now a neo-con?

[Cerridwen]

12. Yes, because history has shown us time and time again that meeting

violence with violence creates peace and that's why our planet is the most peaceful in the known galaxy.

[Guaranteed]

19. Our country was founded on bloodshed.

Ours isn't the only one, either.

You forget your Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

[Cerridwen]

23. I remember the Declaration fine, thanks.

Kinda my point.

We began in bloodshed. How will it end?

"Those who live by the sword..." you know the rest.

If it's true that meeting violence with violence creates peace, shouldn't we be one of the most peaceful countries on the planet? Shouldn't our planet now be completely at peace given its millennia of violence?

[Frances]

29. Does anyone remember the line

"the shot heard round the world"? The poem with that line is on a monument in Concord, Massachusetts.

I am a loyal American, and I think our Constitution is one of the best documents written by humans.

However, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the colonies had not rebelled. If we had remained connected to Britain the way Canada did, what would have happened in the South when Britain abolished slavery? Or would the Southern colonies have had so much influence in England that England would not have abolished slavery? Anyone with opinions on this topic?

[babylonsister]

13. You are missing the point. Mahatma Ghani's birthday is tomorrow. nt

[KitchenWitch]

16. ...

[bperci108]

18. I'm a bit of a "gun nut" I suppose, but I would disagree...

The purpose was to eliminate the need for a standing army; something politically and economically dangerous to a democracy.

From what I've read of the Founders, they couldn't have imagined that the American people would ever let it get that far that we would need to clean out our own government by force of arms.

They had faith that we would remain educated, involved, engaged and vigilant. So much so, that that would never be necessary.

How far we have fallen.... :(

[whoneedstickets]

34. oops wrong spot

removed

[Mojorabbit]

38. As a female gun nut

I agree. If you had told me ten years ago we would have a mercenary army fighting with our regular troops I would have laughed in your face. I am reevaluating the concept of a voluntary fighting force lately. I wonder if everyone in the country knew that war could hit everyone's household if declared... if we would not be so quick to go there.

[gratuitous]

20. If your rights are only guaranteed at the point of a gun

Then you have your rights only as long as you have bullets.

[whoneedstickets]

36. Nonsense, no matter how good your guns are, theirs will be better..

..to resist our army we'd need IEDs.

[backscatter712]

40. Building IEDs isn't exactly rocket science.

As for IEDs, that's French for "pipe bomb" - people can make them in their garage.

The irony about RKBA issues is that if America did break out in a violent civil war, there would be guns everywhere - arms dealers would be crawling out of the woodwork, and if you had the cash, you could buy assault rifles, claymore mines, IEDs, enough weapons to arm Bolivia.

[whoneedstickets]

41. Yeah but my point is that Iraq is instructive....

..with regard to resisting a powerful, well-trained and technically advanced army. You don't spend much time searching out firefights with your AR-15 or your SKS against trained soldiers unless you want to die quickly. Few US casualties have resulted from gunfire. The insurgents in Iraq long ago figured out that they would always loose to superior tactics and firepower. Their advantage is in being able to move among the population freely, unnoticed or abetted and to lay traps.

If the US military did crack down domestically as in the junta has in Burma, the fire-arms dealers would either a) be the first to go or b) be on the side of the army.

The premise of RKBA as you state is is that with the weapons we possess, we could resist our own tyrannical government. Unless we all go out and by .50cals and night vision goggles, this is unlikely.

[derby378]

43. Well, maybe we should...

Unless you have a serious problem with .50-caliber rifles and NVGs, we should keep those options on the table. Anything to make the government think twice about ever oppressing us again.