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In article <1314@ottawa.opl.com.opl.com> greg@labrador.uucp writes:
>
>There is good reason to propose gun control.  Firearms and major
>population centers don't mix terribly well.  Deaths from shootings
>have reached alarming proportions.

I can agree that there need to be rules that govern the 
availability and use of firearms; the question is really one
o trust between the pro and anti gun sides, and coming to an
agreement that won't be broken by either side.

It could be possible to state that certain places (like bars, 
concerts, other private meetings) can limit arms from entry, 
or that a city like DC could put limitations on weapons in 
public, but certainly there are problems when a place like DC
or NY just says "you can't own these in your own home".

>
>Nonetheless, I think the founding fathers did want an armed populace.
>"A well regulated militia" calls to mind the fears of the standing army
>which the American colonialists had just defeated.  The declaration
>of independence even mentions the historical inevitability of
>governmental oppression and malevolence (ie: Jim Crow laws in U.S., early
>this century.)  Nazi Germany did much of its evil to Ukranians and Jews
>under the cover of laws passed by that regime.

Indeed.  Their intent seems to be pretty obvious, and people who 
refuse to learn from history (even history that has taken place 
since the constitution was written) are doomed to repeat it.  The
removal of arms from the populace is important in a leaders 
strategy to suppress the people.  It always makes me wonder why
the generation which used "power to the people" as its slogan
want's to take the guns away from the people...

>
>>Anyone who thinks that the public will be able to defend themselves against
>>the government with ~9mm semi-auto handguns is definitely a few cards short
>>of a deck.
>
>Of course lightly armed civilians are no match for highly trained
>soldiers with naval and air support.  Still, even the poorly
>armed Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were able to make a valient
>resistance.

More to the point, these people make the automatic assumption that 
they are going to have to go against the US Military.  In most 
countries, and in the US particularly, this is not a good assumption.

Any situation that comes down to civilian use of armed force against
the "legally constituted authority" will be a situation that is hard
to imagine right now.  It will clearly be one where the populace 
(or at least a large part of it) has given up any hope of a political
solution, and has decided that the government must be overthrown.

The US Military is not the whipping dog of the civilian government.
It always has, and hopefully always will, have a very strong policy 
of non-interference in civil affairs.  There are good reasons for this:

1) Nearly all military units recruit heavily from the states and 
communities in which they are based.  In times of conflict between
"the military" and "the public" that would be between "Fayetville
NC" and "the 82nd airborn in Fayetville".  Problem is, the guys in
the 82nd live in that town, the civilians that are there are the 
relatives and friends of the military people.  It makes it VERY 
uncertain on whose side the various military people would fight.

If you want to look for a government that is positioning its military
to be used against civilians, then look at the  soviet or chinese
armies.  The soviets nearly always made sure that in area A, where 
ethnic type A predominates, their forces were comprised of mainly ethnic
group B or C.  This is to be sure that if asked to move against the 
citizens, the military would not be moving against "their own people"
and would be more likely to have their loyalty remain with the government.
The chinese routinely do the same with their provencial army units.

US Military units are in fact very well rooted in their communities.
This makes it a much riskier thing for the government to order a unit
into action against its own people.

2) The Military history of the US does not in any way support the
use of this kind of force against the people.  Unless you have been 
there, or studied it, you may have trouble understanding exactly how
much the military is guided by tradition and its concept of "honor"
in making critical decisions.  US Military leaders have never been 
taught to blindly obey orders, and in fact to do so is considered 
dishonorable.  This is in marked contract to the "elite" forces of
Nazi Germany, where it was considered honorable to obey blindly.
Japanese forces of WWII also considered it a mark of their honor
to obey blindly.  Even in the darkest hours of WWII, this was 
not an element of US forces self-image or honor.

There are whole books and papers on the subject, so I won't repeat
it all here, but suffice it to say that US Military leaders, and 
not just the top one or two people but the whole of the officers
ranks, would have serious problems ordering a suppression of the 
people of the country.  I am not saying that it wouldn't happen, but
never make the mistake of thinking that it is something that is 
automatic.

3) If the Military leaders would really rather sit this one out, and
it gets really bad, the traditional military response is a Coup,
where the military takes on the Government (a very easily defined 
target) rather than the people.  

Even in nations where the military is tightly controlled by the 
civilian government (not the case in the US, where there is loose
control) the military still is more likely to turn on the government
itself in a really bad situation than it is to turn wholesale on the 
people.  Third world nations where Coups are fairly common, have 
this happen all the time, and while in a many cases it is lead by
a strong military leader with visions of power, it is often the fact
that the initial military leadership replaces something much more 
repressive. 

None of this is a good situation to be in, but frankly if you get to
the point where the people are so pissed at the government that they
are willing to risk death to get them out of power, the odds are good
that the military, or more correctly the individuals in the military,
and also of the same point of view.

Doug
-- 
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