I'm going to take this gun control argument - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

Ma'ake · 02-19-2008, 04:34 AM

My sense is a truly tyrannical government - or, conversely, a government determined to put down internal terrorists - would do whatever it takes to get the job done, using counter-insurgency methods to sqash the uprising.

I'm not a military expert, but it seems to me anti-insurgency operations require the kind of hardware proscribed for civilian use by current law that are devastatingly effective against insurgents who value life. (Don't anti-insurgency operations involve helicopter gunships & precise-strike fighter jets? The helicopters would potentially be at risk for a mass of hunters bringing them down, but what about F-16s and F-18s?)

In the case of a limited, illegitimate insurection (eg, aryan nations types in Idaho start an insurgency to topple the State government) it would be precisely the superiority in government firepower most of us would welcome to put down internal terrorists, I would think. Indeed, the disparity in firepower would certainly deter an uprising. I'd bet the majority of informed military experts would consider the notion that citizens could topple the US government to be a quaint & romatic idea from 230 years ago, not applicable today.

Then you have the inevitable grey areas created by complex conflict. One man's tyranny = another man's protector.

All of which makes the whole point of having the rights to sufficient individual firepower to topple a government moot, IMO.

02-19-2008, 04:34 AM	#11
Ma'ake Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: SLC Posts: 441	My sense is a truly tyrannical government - or, conversely, a government determined to put down internal terrorists - would do whatever it takes to get the job done, using counter-insurgency methods to sqash the uprising. I'm not a military expert, but it seems to me anti-insurgency operations require the kind of hardware proscribed for civilian use by current law that are devastatingly effective against insurgents who value life. (Don't anti-insurgency operations involve helicopter gunships & precise-strike fighter jets? The helicopters would potentially be at risk for a mass of hunters bringing them down, but what about F-16s and F-18s?) In the case of a limited, illegitimate insurection (eg, aryan nations types in Idaho start an insurgency to topple the State government) it would be precisely the superiority in government firepower most of us would welcome to put down internal terrorists, I would think. Indeed, the disparity in firepower would certainly deter an uprising. I'd bet the majority of informed military experts would consider the notion that citizens could topple the US government to be a quaint & romatic idea from 230 years ago, not applicable today. Then you have the inevitable grey areas created by complex conflict. One man's tyranny = another man's protector. All of which makes the whole point of having the rights to sufficient individual firepower to topple a government moot, IMO.