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Comment by diab0lic | Hacker News Reader

You seem to be implying that owning whatever guns and ammo it is you own will enable you, or the populace to resist the modern American military? I'm not sure as your answer was vague and abstract.

The weapons shop was written in 1942, that statement may have been true back then. I'm also not sure the Vietnam war was fought with civilian purchased firearms and munitions... there may have been a state actor on the other side of that one.

Is this genuinely something you believe to be a benefit of owning and purchasing firearms in modern day America? I'm not trying to change your mind, I just want to know if that's really what you believe.

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>You seem to be implying that owning whatever guns and ammo it is you own will enable you, or the populace to resist the modern American military?

Last I checked the US military is in the process of concluding a 20yr war by negotiating a peace deal with a bunch of poor subsistence farmers who's insurrection is basically self funded and who have no ability to harm the supply lines or funding sources of the military. The fathers and grandfathers of these farmers had the same experience with the USSR.

Unless you are willing to destroy everything and kill everyone (an option armies and police forces operating domestically do not have) you cannot win against an enemy who's goal is simply to not be subjugated and who has more local support than you (they don't need much, just more than you).

> poor subsistence farmers who's insurrection is basically self funded

This is some wild revisionism. There have been all kinds of state actors backing the Afghan insurgencies, in the US occupation as well as the Soviet occupation.

I guess it was an exaggeration but compared to what even a low level proxy war looks like they are practically self funded. Nobody is rushing to give them AGTMs like is the case in Sryia. Yes they have gotten a fair share of hardware from places like Iran but they haven't gotten anything "good" in any quantity sufficient to matter. The Taliban are really hardware poor compared to damn near every other group in the region in the last 20yr. They basically just fight with rifles, mortars, IED supplies and the occasional RPG. The time they fought the Russians they had plenty of state backing though.

> I guess it was an exaggeration but compared to what even a low level proxy war looks like they are practically self funded

A low level proxy war is exactly what it is, though. The Taliban are funded by Pakistan, who doesn't want an assertive, nationalist neighbor, Saudi Arabia[1], who wants to enflame sunni/shia strife to harass Iran, and Russia, who wants to poke a finger in the eye of the US. They can't give more than light arms to the insurgents without it being a naked attack on the US, so rifles, mortars, IED supplies and the occasional RPG are what they get.

To get back to the overarching point though, armed revolt driven by light arms in the US would not be some glorious revolution that would result in more freedom for everyone. It'd likely be a lot of proxy warfare and nonstop terrorism on our soil.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/world/asia/saudi-arabia-a...

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