Hell, even Marx advocated widespread gun ownership as an implicit reminder for those in power that they had to be accountable for their actions.
How so?
So clearly, the rational thing is to fix the police first, come after the guns second, no?
The whole goal, if I would understand it correctly, would be to reduce the total amount of violence and death. In any case, recommending violence as a response to other violence only makes the situation worse.
Edit: This post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I had no idea it was such a hot-button issue.
Sure, going toe-to-toe with an attack helicopter with only a handgun is a losing proposition, but that's not the only way to do it.
There are stories from American soldiers where they were confiscating WW2 bolt-action firearms from the NLF right up until the late 1960s.
Algeria is another great example where they kicked the French out of Algeria but had very little backing from a major superpower.
The point is that simple firearms can inflict a lot of damage on a highly sophisticated army.
No, North Vietnam received military assistance from China and the Soviet Union not just "later on in the war" -- in fact, that assistance began with direct aid to the Viet Minh in the First Indochina War against france, and continued through uninterrupted (except that, "later in the war" China withdrew both its aid and direct involvement, after its own falling out with the USSR and Hanoi's refusal to break with the USSR and align with China) through -- and beyond -- the end of the war with the US.
> but the NLF had access to very little of that weaponry.
Which would be relevant if the NLF, on its own, pushed the US out of Vietnam.
Which would be relevant if the NLF, on its own, pushed the US out of Vietnam.
Considering most of the fighting was in the South against NLF units, I'd say they played a big part in pushing the US out of Vietnam. Think about what happened during the Tet Offensive. It wasn't the NVA carry most of the brunt.
And you'll still be wrong. The Viet Minh and later North Vietnam received substantial military assistance, both in terms of materiel and direct support, from China from 1950 through 1968, and from the Soviet Union from 1950 through the end of the war.
> Considering most of the fighting was in the South against NLF units
Most of the fighting prior to Tet was in the South against NLF units; this failed to push the US out. After Tet (which was a major joint NLF / PAVN offensive), the NLF was no longer, as I understand, effective independently, and most fighting in the south was against PAVN or combined PAVN/NLF forces.
> Think about what happened during the Tet Offensive. It wasn't the NVA carry most of the brunt.
Tet was notable, in part, because it did involve major PAVN involvement, and, in part, because the NLF was rendered largely ineffective as a separate force because of the heavy toll it took in that offensive and the immediate aftermath.
It demonstrates rather the opposite of your point.
The fact NLF units were using antiquated weapons even until the late 60's would suggest the assistance they were getting wasn't widely available.
The fact that the NLF almost disappeared entirely would suggest they did most of the fighting during the Tet offensive. Was the NVA involved? Sure.
There was considerable concern over whether and where to those systems might travel / be traded / be sold.
But it marked a turning point in the conflict.
You mean the ones that the US and Pakistan were arming, including with weapons optimized to counter the main heavy weapons used against them (particularly Stinger missiles to counter Russian attack helicopters)?
> and the North Vietnamese who kicked out the Americans.
The North Vietnamese were not only massively supplied by outside powers, but both China (before their falling out with the USSR) and the Soviet Union directly intervened in Vietnam -- as, to a lesser extent, did North Korea.
1. You only need guns good enough to take over an armory.
2. There are tens of millions of armed veterans in the U.S, and most (if not all) active solders would side with The People.
3. Every rebel group in history has had lesser weapons at first (see: Rome's Servile Wars, American revolution, Cuban revolution, Afghanistan, Iraq, ISIS, Syria, etc).
I don't understand why opponents of the 2nd Amendment never consider this a possibility, when in fact the military not splintering under those conditions is the fantasy.
I was just pointing out that opponents of the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment being a counterweight to an oppressive government almost always say, "you can't fight the army with rifles!"
That argument is coming up a lot in this thread.
4. Some portion of the military would join the civilians, and bring their military toys along for the fight.
Anyway, I think a revolution is a separate topic, but I could be wrong. There are many steps between government overreach & the people starting a revolution.
Edit: The quote by Patton comes to mind: "Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."
Yea, I guess we can keep lying to ourselves that we won the Vietnam 'conflict'.