🚀 go-pugleaf

[note dc.general removed]

A couple of things:
perez@mgr.hjf.org (Charles Perez) writes:
>So, having or not having guns has nothing to do with fighting tyranny?
>What do you fight with? Bare hands? Even if you have an army of Bruce Lee-
>types, it still won't help. Remember the Boxer Rebellion?

	The Boxer Rebellion, or more accurately, the TaiPing Rebellion,
was fought by massive armies on both sides, largely consisting of regulars. 
It was the bloodiest civil war in history, exceeded only by WWII for the
casualties it caused. Over 14 years, between 20 and 30 million lives
were lost. Its leader, Hung Hsiu-chuan, was possessed of a divinely
inspired vision that he should overthrow the Manchus. His divine
vision also seems to have encompassed keeping a massive harem of women
to impregnate. They began as guerillas and, with mass defections from
Christian leaders in the Manchu military, grew rapidly into a force
approximately matching the Manchu army. When Nanking (a large city)
was taken, in 1853, they controlled over 1/3 of China. Most of the
citizens of Nanking, along with 30,000 Manchu troops, were slaughtered
in the taking of the city - over 300,000 dead in 3 days.

	The point of all this: we're not talking Bruce Lee here. ;)

	The "boxer" part of the rebellion was merely descriptive. The
rebellion was mostly fought with small arms and later full military
weaponry. Small arms were provided by good European Christians, who
wanted the nominally Christian rebellion to succeed, in hopes on
Christianizing China.

	In the context of my discussion of rebellion and guerilla
warfare, the important facts to note are, once again, that:
	a) guns were provided by outside agencies
	b) guns were provided by mass defections from the military

ahgrabow@apgea.army.mil (Alexander H. Grabowski <ahgrabow>) writes:
>If you think you have to fight tyranny with arms, don't forget to shoot
>yourself too. YOU are responsible, because YOU let it happen!

	Amen. From what I've managed to figure out, it seems that a
lot of human evil is accomplished because rather than fight it, people
are perfectly willing to keep their heads down while their neighbors
are led off, and just keep hoping the knock on the door isn't for
them.

	The folks who argue that we need guns to resist tyranny at
home don't get it. If they need weaponry, it's easy to come by, and
it always has been. If you need guns to fight crime and tryanny,
why are you sitting at that terminal reading news? Why aren't you
out stalking drug dealers?

mjr.