Jackbooted Federal agents?

common citizens killing government troops and officers then I think an argument could be made that those who fought The American Revolutionary War -- as it has come to be known -- had no reservations about the concept as a principle.

How many were freelancing as individuals?

You can't say they acted under the auspices of the USA because it didn't exist at the time. They were -- strictly legally speaking -- traitors bearing arms against their government. Any group dynamic was solely a matter of sharing a common objective.

And completely off the wall. The men in the militia answered to officers just like any other army. There were state governments and a Continental Congress. This was not an uprising of individuals but an organized state that declared independence from another state.

There was only one truly legal government -- the Crown. The rebels were, almost by definition, self-appointed; just as is the case in all rebellions, even ones in the modern world.

They were selected by their colonies mainly to represent the interests of the powerful in those colonies. Many of them had been representatives in British colonial government. They merely switched allegiance to a new government that emulated that British government--rich people representing the interests of rich people. They just didn't want to give a cut to the Crown

There were government structures that were virtually identical to the one they replaced. They even wanted to make George Washington the King of the USA. It was a squabble between the one percenters of the day.

We recognize some people are more adept at certain tasks than others and we voluntarily yield to their counsels and allow their talents to thrive; we just don't impose the force of government but we can organize.

The first shot fired were at Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775.

If you read the history of the Continental Congress https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/continental-congress

The first resistance was formed, not under the auspices of the Continental Congress but, by the People themselves.

The 2a was written for the 1700's

Against what kinds of enemies could these citizen-militias possibly win?
Can they stop a Pearl Harbour-style military surprise-attack?
Can they stop a North Korean land-invasion with tanks? ("Wolverines!&quot
Can they stop a terrorist attack by some random dude who doesn't care about dying?

No. Stopping these takes ships and planes and tanks and actual full-time intelligence-gathering by professionals.



Oh, you mean, the Founding-Fathers wanted to make sure an armed, hysterical mob has the power to start a revolution, just in case the government starts behaving tyrannical?

Well, tell me how many militia-men and how many rifles it would take to take down the FBI, the DHS and the US-military.
And the media that is keeping the population ignorant and complacent.
And Big Money, who pillages the wallets of ordinary people and keeps them from fulfilling their whole potential.

Asymetrical warfare, where men and women with rifles, IEDs and other small arms, seems to have been pretty effective in some cases in recent history.

Or maybe I just read my newspaper wrong?

The 2nd Amendment clearly refers to arms in correlation with militias. Milita as in "army". Because the US didn't have a professional army back then and had to make do with scrappy militias.

What are militias capable of that the military can't do?

And if you really think that militias are necessary on top of the military, shouldn't they have all the tools they need? Shouldn't these brave "freedom-fighters-biding-their-time-until-somebody-eventually-maybe-mounts-a-land-invasion-of-the-US" be equipped with explosives to build IEDs?
Wouldn't you like to live in a country where every yahoo can buy dynamite at Walmart?
A country where "The Anarchist's Cook-book" can be found in every library?
A country where the powerful "National Explosives Association" prevents politicians from doing anything that could stop the monthly school-bombing?

That the army=militia. They are two separate entities.

US Constitution Article I, Section 8 {Powers of Congress}

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Also the U.S. had a standing army. Following the Treaty of Paris 1783 the US disbanded the Continental Army, except for two regiments which became the U.S. Army. The Founders did not object to a standing army, as long as it was very small.

So ban or burn the Anarchist's Cookbook? It's out there.

While the militia part was added to enhance (boy did that go wrong) the reasoning of the individual right to bear arms, let's go ahead with your militia theme as the key part of the 2nd.

Heavier military type weapons are available and owned by private citizens, but it takes a butt-load of paperwork and money to do so. The 'well regulated' part of your own militia canard.

What could a militia do that the military can't do? Be in every little town and major crossroads. Be a thousand eyes and ears. Throw a monkey wrench into every unprotected gear or supply demo. Provide detailed local intel when the US military shows up to stop the bad guys. For some strange reason, the Allies in WW II went to great lengths to keep the various occupied militias (resistance) in existence during the course of the war.

Ever read any Alexander Solzhenitsyn?

What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

ok

But maybe they don't need nukes and aircraft carriers. maybe they just need so many people with common arms readily available that it isn't even worth attempting to overtake the people.

Like Switzerland. They don't have nukes and aircraft carriers but even the Nazis didn't feel like messing with them because it would have been an asymmetrical nightmare.

That's why they have way less gun-violence even though the number of guns is almost as high as in the US: They have a totally different gun-culture.

I wish the Controllers could demonstrate as much restraint, as well.

as the b-52's bombed the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam. It sounded like kettle drums and looked like the neon light from some red light district.
The big belly buffs carried 84 500lb bombs
Some small arms

They had the small arms and they won.

That's kind of the point of Asymmetrical warfare.

I bet the cost of doing so -- monetarily, logistically and morally -- are so astronomically high that you wouldn't even dare trying. Which, actually, is exactly why grabbers who rant and rave about grabbing are just ranting and raving -- the mere thought of the provocation they would unleash leaves them retreating to spluttering forum posts.

I'm guessing you don't belong to any of those let alone in any meaningful capacity.

It's not only how many people COULD rise up in arms.
How many people WOULD rise up in arms to topple the regime.
How many people WOULD rise up in arms to defend the regime.

Can you even imagine a scenario where 80 million people share an opinion? And they share it so vehemently that they are willing to pay the monetary, logistical and moral costs of actually killing people over it?
The only scenario that comes even close was the US Civil War, and that war was orchestrated by one government to fight another government.




Let's say, a really big terror-attack happens (way bigger than 9/11) and Obama postpones the 2016 election by a year while cranking the police-state up to 11.
Even though he was baselessly demonized as a tyrant before and even though he would come awfully close to being a real tyrant now, how many Tea Partiers and Republicans would actually be willing to grab their M16s and start shooting cops and US-soldiers in the streets?



“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
The 2nd Amendment is useless, because you can't fight that kind of tyranny with a gun.

My question is -- if a president did postpone the elections and institute a police state why do you want to leave that unopposed?

It's not about grabbing your 2nd-Amendment-guaranteed rifle and gunning down Nazis in the streets. First you have to come to the conclusion and the decision that armed insurrection is the right thing to do.

Cook up some propaganda, wrap it in the flag, give a shout-out to Jesus, sprinkle with some nationalistic jingoism and almost everybody will eat it up. And those few who don't will be outsiders, rebels and terrorists.

As a very last consequence, people want security. Maybe they want a security of the individual that is achieved by the assurance that they will be left alone. ("Freedom (TM)&quot Maybe they want a security of the community that is achieved by the assurance that a big entity will take care of the problem. ("God (TM)&quot
If propaganda can promise the people what they want and tell them what they want to hear ("We'll get back back at the Jews for bankrupting Germany!&quot then they will welcome tyranny-in-disguise.

to disarm everyone else? Sorry, I'm just not seeing that. So far your every argument has been "it's too tough to oppose tyranny so just disarm yourselves right now." Near as I can tell that makes you the very sort of person you complain failed to oppose tyranny.

Which means, it boils down to weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the presence of weapons.

How likely is a tyranny to break out?
In the event of tyranny, how likely is it that it's a tyranny that can be prevented with guns?
Until that kind of tyranny breaks out, what are the side-effects of having guns?
How should the present side-effects of guns be weighted against the future effects of a specific kind of tyranny?


For example:
The US is by a myriad of regulations and laws locked in a Two-Party-system that perpetually enshrines that either of those two political parties rules, while those two political parties are at the same time beholden to Big Money due to circumstances created by regulations and laws, making democratic change next to impossible even if the majority of the population were to demand it.

How do you fight that kind of tyranny with a gun, short of "Kill everybody, let God sort 'em out?"

Judging from many of the Controllers who post here that regularly express willingness to see gun owners assaulted, brutalized and even killed en masse by the government coupled with the Controllers' repeated contempt for freedom of speech, freedom of association, private property rights, due process, etc.

And don't try to pretend it ain't happening because we can show you the violent ideations of the Controllers.

The only thing keeping the Controllers relegated to their internet rants is the fact they appear unwilling to engage in the violence required to disarm the populace. In other words, an armed populace seems to be as much a deterrent as they are a guarantee but God forbid there ever come a day when the Controllers feel sufficiently emboldened to roll the dice.

How much gun violence am I willing to accept (as in accepting car deaths, booze deaths, parachuting deaths) against not only the low odds of a gun based revolution working out successfully for the nation, but then how much value do I put on this one facet of the RKBA?

You have to have radicalized a good chunk of citizens to prompt a serious revolution. As the revolt matures, usually more and more radical groups take over. It's a roll of the dice and you can come up with a Pol Pot Cambodia, instead of a George Washington America. The Civil War was by far the most devastating event in the history of the US and we are as a nation still seeing many ill effects from it.

There are far more guns and far more CC than ever in the US and yet gun violence is declining. I'm confident that there are achievable measures that can ensure the continued decline without more draconian gun laws. Most of these measures have nothing to do with gun legislation and will advance other democratic values. Paradoxically, reducing gun violence while focusing on non-gun related legislation backed by more RKBA democratic and independent voters.

For citizens of the occupied countries, it was a much easier choice, especially if they were Jewish:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007563

1. A tyrant doesn't get the title until a force that history remembers opposes him.
2. A fine leader is determined by his ability to win over his political opponents while maintaining the loyalty of his allies.

My answers to your questions:
>> How many people WOULD rise up in arms to topple the regime?
Enough to topple the tyrant or by my definition, above, he's not a tyrant.

>> How many people WOULD rise up in arms to defend the regime?
Not enough, according to that same definition.

>> How many people COULD rise up in arms?
Today in the US, according to Heraclitus, at least 800,000.

>> Can you even imagine a scenario where 80 million people share an opinion?
No but prohibition of arms, at worst, only decides who gets to "voice" their dissent.

"Your actions are only high treason if you fail." (R)me

It's difficult to envision any plausible scenario of widespread* insurrection in this country that included an intact US military. Any cause that provoked the uprising of even a significant minority of Americans would do the same for our military. The military would fragment, and some would be fighting with the insurrectionists. There are countless examples of such in relatively recent history.

Civilian weapons are far from irrelevant in such scenarios, especially when you factor in the difficulties a fragmented military would have in keeping complex weapons and communications systems intact in such circumstances.

*As opposed to a few yahoos taking to the hills with their rifles...

The FBI and DHS, on the other hand, have 35,000 and 188,000 employees, respectively. The DHS also employs about 200,000 contractors. Only a fraction of these employees are actually armed agents, a rather small fraction in the case of DHS. In a widespread insurrection, those are utterly trivial numbers. You can add in the c. 700,000 armed LEOs to that total...and still not have a comparatively large force (and they'd be spread out all across the country, obviously).

Of course, where we agree is here:



Yep...we're kept fat, happy, and complacent. A whole bunch of factors would have to go south real bad, real fast for Americans to contemplate rebellion. It's not in corporate best interests, y'see...

What makes you think that any of those would be the primary or even secondary targets chosen by insurgents, in your hypothetical?

You think that the government-agencies would automatically be on the side of the "good guys" (because they are effectively run by people just like you) and all the rebels would have to kill would be a few dozen politicians and bankers at the top.

That's not how revolutions work.

Your revolution won't go from zero to 99% of the population in an instant. It takes time to grow. And in this time while your revolution grows, you are the enemies of what people want. You could sway the population to your side, of course, but until you have done that, you are the enemy, you are the criminal, you are the terrorist, you are the murderer.

I'm dreaming? Its YOUR hypothetical. Cute tactic, but old and ineffective.



I never said I thought anything of the sort.

Are you capable of debate without attributing to your opponent, something they did not say, sentiment they did not express, or views they do not hold?

The evidence, thus far, is not in your favor.

But what the heck, lets give you another chance to do it again:

What makes you think that any of those would be the primary or even secondary targets chosen by insurgents, in your hypothetical?

(bold so you don't forget whos 'dream' this is in the first place)

To quote you: "What makes you think that any of those would be the primary or even secondary targets chosen by insurgents, in your hypothetical?"

Easy:
If people grab their guns and rise up against the authorities, FBI, DHS, military and so on would stop them. If the Second Amendment were a safeguard to give ordinary citizens the means to defend themselves against government-tyranny, it would only make sense if those means actually were capable of defeating the tyranny.

The people rise up in arms against the tyranny and FBI/DHS/military shoot them to scraps because from a legal point of view those freedom-fighters are criminals and terrorists. That's why the whole "violent-overthrow-of-the-tyranny-with-your-trusted-sidearm" scenario is a non-starter.

No problem. I appreciate you owning up to it. That puts you a step above many of your colleagues.




Let me repeat the question, with additional clarification:


What makes you think that any of those (military, DHS, FBI) would be the primary or even secondary targets chosen by insurgents, in your hypothetical? Do you think insurgents would let anyone else dictate the conditions of engagement, or that they would engage on any terms but their own?

How quickly and effectively did the DHS FBI and military eliminate the threat of the DC sniper with a glorified 22, for example. Change that to a hypothetical of a 5 person team, with larger long distance rifles, shooting from concealment 2500 feet or farther, and its a can of worms the likes of which we have never seen and I hope we never do see. I shudder to think what ten thousand of them would do in a real insurgency.

You're falling into the same trap in your thinking, as the british did when they marched in lines against future Americans sniping their leaders from within the trees. You can't effectively dictate terms of engagement to organized insurgents, and We have not in any conflict in the history of this nation within or without, to my knowledge.

1. The heart of the people is the key to change. For example: Let's say there is a group of 10,000 people fighting king Obummer I. They grab their assault- and sniper-rifles and start killing anybody who supports the regime. What will the other millions of people make of that? Will they side with the terrorists who murder from the shadows?
As long as the people aren't on the side of the rebels, the rebels don't have a legitimate cause. 10,000 rebels is nothing compared to the will of the population as a whole.

2. The US is a surveillance-state. They track your whereabouts via the GPS in your Smartphone, they track your electronic communications. The CIA even hacked computers of Congress and it did so without legal consequences. If you give it a clear target and you have the right programs and people, data-mining is an extremely powerful tool that can tell you next to anything about a specific person. (By tracing pathways of electronic communications, the CIA found a major communications-hub of Al-Qaida in Pakistan, right in the region where Osama Bin Laden had his house. But no analyst thought that it was remarkable and this info didn't enter the hunt for Bin Laden. The correlation was only re-discovered after he was dead.)
The big difficulty for the rebels would be to grow and spread without leaving electronic traces. (The italian Mafia uses a system of couriers and hand-written instructions.) The rebels would never live long enough to grow so big that they can claim to be a legitimate resistance and representatives of the true will of the people.





It's not guns that fight tyranny. It's the hearts and minds of the people. Without those, you are not a rebel but a terrorist.

The process for repeal or change is clear and well laid out.

Or are you one of those; "It's too hard to do, so lets just try and ignore it" types?

all ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights written for the 1700's?

although originally entities of the "common wealths" at first - the colonies already had militias/militia acts. They would continue to be state entities long after.

The Articles of Confederation codified them as being mandatory for the "new" states, as members of the Union, to provide, the Constitution followed suit (but provided for more federal control over them). Hence the Constitutional term "Militia of the Several States" (and the lack of a definition in the Constiiution - they were well understood entities at that time & for decades had predated the USC).

"Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of..
...but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide..."

USC
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States"

Since it was the State Militias that were designated the all important role of protecting OUR liberties/freedoms, even when called into federal service, the use of "free" makes sense.

"calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions"

I thank everyone who has participated because the sharing of ideas is means for learning and effecting progress. Most of all I want to thank you for posing the question in the OP.

IMHO, the Founders chose the language "free state" because they perceived the needs of the people to dictate that the government change and their recent history with mostly all they knew of government imbued upon them the right and absolute need of the people to retain the ability to fight back against tyranny.

The term "free state" comports most closely with a central idea expressed in the Declaration of Independence:

US Constitution

Section 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Which shows the notion of a free state, and the intended use of the Militias (in federal service) for securing those states - for securing our freedoms & liberties...

"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;"

Which of course coincides nicely with:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."


Montesquieu
"As, in a free state, every man, considered to have a free soul, should be governed by himself, the people as a body should have legislative power; but, as this is impossible in large states and is subject to many drawbacks in small ones, the people must have their representatives do all that they themselves cannot do."