74 points

Article I Section 8 Clause 15 Calling Militias

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

I have no idea how the Constitution, which is so clear about the use of militia, has morphed into this fucked up 2A gunfucker bullshit.

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61 points

Read “insurrections” as slave revolts and you can get a real sense of what the 2a was for.

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3 points

That gives a certain poetic irony given the put down of the south.

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26 points
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I actually know this one. Federalist no 46 by James Madison. Not arguing against or for it, I just probably know what your fucked up 2a gunfuckers are referring to. either that or John Locke.

“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

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4 points

So, not just to defend ourselves against government powers, but also corporate powers? Someone should update their hitlists.

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48 points

Yes, because the middle east never happened.

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29 points

Or Vietnam, post war Japan/Germany, the Philippines, the civil war & Wild West, any native American tribe etc.

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12 points

The issue is about endurance. Are you okay with losing the majority of battles and having x10 the casualties? Not to mention all the left over bombs and chemicals causing deformations long after. A philosopher once said everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.

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6 points

First time I heard anyone call Mike a philosopher.

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3 points

Are you okay with losing the majority of battles and having x10 the casualties?

The thing is that having 10x the casualties tends to create more fighters.

This is why Israel needs to commit total genocide in order to “win” in Gaza and the West Bank. Every time they kill a legitimate Palestinian fighter–versus an uninvolved civilian–they’re killing someone that had a family, and friends, people that knew the person, people that loved the person, had probably heard about the injustices (real or perceived; mostly real in the case of Palestinians) from them, and knew why they were taking up arms. These people don’t end up being cowed by the violence. Then you add in the people who have their whole families killed by indiscriminate bombing, and no longer feel like they have anything to lose except their shackles.

We know this already. We’ve known this since WWII. The Axis and Allies both through that bombing civilian population centers–London for the Axis, Dresden for the Allies–would break the will of the people, but instead it hardened them. The concept of total war and mass casualties simply Does. Not. Work.

You can’t win wars like this through military force alone, unless you’re willing to commit total genocide.

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7 points

Now, try a swarm of armed drones.

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18 points

Because if Ukraine has taught us anything, it’s that drones are definitely only limited to large and advanced military powers. There’s no way a civilian would ever be able to make something like that

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1 point

I’m not sure what you are trying to argue with these examples. Half prove your point, the other half disprove it.

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20 points

I honestly don’t know how well the US military would actually defend against a civil war. If it’s guerilla then they can’t just bomb the enemy.

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0 points

Lmao. “Can’t just bomb the enemy”. Someone hasn’t been paying attention.

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7 points

The guy who lives next door might be that enemy…you would be collateral damage.

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-1 points

They got drones.

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11 points

That’s an imperial war where local knowledge is extremely limited and your relying on sympathetic locals to let you know the terrain and who the enemy are. If that sympathetic population is low like in Afghanistan or Vietnam then you’ll walk into every ambush and never root out the enemy. In this environment guerilla war with small arms can work

If tyrrany comes to the u.s. though it’ll come with at least 30% support if not more, ironically most likely by the 2a nuts. They’ll happily point out every enemy of the state on there block and warn you about every ambush, hell they’ll probably shoot them for you.

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6 points

What you just described makes it easier to control a country…they don’t look like us, they didn’t sound like us, and they didn’t dress like us…now try that shit with people who do. A civil war in the US would not end well for anyone.

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3 points

No, no, see it was the right of private gun ownership in Afghanistan. Just the guns nothing else necessary. And, by the way, “we could be like Afghanistan “ is actually a very good argument and not at all an admission.

\s

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3 points

and your relying on sympathetic locals

This would also be true of a guerilla civil war in the US though. You’d be relying on locals–people that had probably had friends and families killed by gov’t military operations and indiscriminate bombing–to help you root out insurrectionists.

Would a large number of 2A supporters be in favor of tyranny as long at it had an ® next to it? Sure. Certainly not all of us though.

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34 points

This shows ignorance in history but also understanding of warfare. There are too many examples of this: Vietnam as a historical example and Afghanistan as a recent one. Let’s not forget what’s going on in Israel rn vs all the proxies. It’s not necessary to have advanced weaponry to fight a war.

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17 points

Vietnam had field artillery and Soviet fighter jets. They were a real army.

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6 points

Sure, but a large portion of their fighting against the French and Americans was through guerilla warfare and tactics.

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2 points

Yeah, and the only reason they won is because it was a logistical nightmare for the country on the other side of the world.

That wouldn’t be the case for a civil war. They have all their army equipment right there.

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13 points

Vietnam as a historical example and Afghanistan as a recent one.

The biggest asset these countries had in their favor was distance from the American industrial core. First Nations people employed many of the same techniques used in Vietnam and Afghanistan but were ruthlessly slaughtered. Guerrilla movements in Latin America - the FARK in Columbia and socialists in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador got massacred by American military power. These countries are wholly within the US sphere of influence now.

Let’s not forget what’s going on in Israel rn vs all the proxies.

Israel is a textbook case of advanced weaponry tilting the playing field. Air superiority, naval support from the US, and a high tech anti-missile/anti-personal system along with one of the most advanced spy networks in the world all allow this relatively tiny nation to punch far outside its weight class. By contrast, less developed countries like Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan routinely serve as punching bags for more advanced states.

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32 points

Yeah this is similar to what I always tell these idiots. "You all know the government has tanks right. How many tanks y’all got? Three Broncos, an F-1f0, and a tractor? I’m sure those will hold up just fine to 120 mm cannon.

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47 points

To play devil’s advocate, the US is enormous with over 330 million people. The current military strength is roughly a few million, including civilians and contractors. Additionally, there are roughly about 4,000 main battle tanks in service. There’s maybe a couple thousand fighter jets and bombers combined. Keep in mind, a lot of the US military is abroad, especially our combat ready equipment.

Now, try to spread all of that out over roughly 4 million square miles. Hell, LA itself is around 470 square miles with almost 10 million people. The military would be idiotic to just blindly carpet bomb everything, since y’know, soldiers have families living all over the US, too. Not great for morale. Not to mention, the economy is pretty essential to keeping the machines of war going. Also food. And fuel. And infrastructure for logistics. And medicine. Etc, etc.

A civil war would not be cut and dry, regardless of how well armed and trained the formal military is. It’s why China tries to keep an iron tight grip on its mass surveillance program to squash uprisings before/as soon as they start (and they periodically have them, think there’s been one or two in the last decade). That’s what the US is also trying to do. They call it antiterrorism precautions and other bullshit, but it’s to keep all of us underfoot so no one is able to start an effective movement against the State.

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9 points

Considering the observed behaviour of the self designated militias in the US, the army would only need to say that there’s a gathering of whatever group the militia opposes on main street and then gun down anyone that shows up in tactical gear. Even without the hyperbole, 2A people are too damaged by their desire to be in their personal action movie to be effective in any kind of war.

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9 points

That’s pretty funny, and it’d probably work the first few times, if not more lol. I agree with the last part for most of them. But, in a real civil war, it’d include people that aren’t completely idiotic. Like I said, there hasn’t been a quick, clean civil war ever fought in history. Those lessons are useful to take heed of.

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3 points

What number of those people are of military age, though, fit, able, willing to upend their lives and would support whatever cause? A lot less than 330 million, I’d guess.

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8 points

They don’t have to be fighters for it to be a headache. During a civil war you have to deal with feeding, securing, housing, etc. all of those people when areas inevitably collapse or are taken over for military operations and people evacuate (i.e. refugees).

Then there are people who do support whichever side and do small acts of sabotage, espionage, etc.

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6 points
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Try running tanks or planes without fuel, parts or ammo production. Covid was a little inconvenience compared to the supply chain nightmare a war could bring. It takes a TON of upkeep to keep a military rolling.

And to be fair the taliban never had conventional air support either. And Ukraine has proven that commercial drones can be just as lethal.

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-1 points

Try running tanks or planes without fuel, parts or ammo production. Covid was a little inconvenience compared to the supply chain nightmare a war could bring. It takes a TON of upkeep to keep a military rolling.

What does this even mean? That a private citizen is going to have better access to fuel, parts and ammo than the government?!?

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2 points
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No, but the US military has never had their homeland logistics fucked with in recent history. Sure you can’t easily destroy a Bradley APC, but it needs fuel that happens to be stored and transported in ways that are not as resistant to attack. And when the fuel runs out many vehicles are no longer useful in combat.

Or spare parts. Germany got their industries bombed like crazy in WW2. Even though their stuff was better on paper they didn’t have the parts to keep combat effective. Ask any veteran how reliable military vehicles are without constant maintenance.

This is hypothetical and all, but it’s not that big of a stretch of the imagination to see any American insurgency becoming a real pain in the ass for the military over months and years. And unlike Afghanistan they can’t simply withdraw when they’ve had enough.

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5 points

So MAGA is not the side I would take in a civil war, even if I were an American, however: “Experience has shown that attacks against tanks with close combat weapons by a sufficiently determined man will basically always succeed.”

Look at the early stages of the Ukraine war Russia had in many heavy equipment categories a 5:1 superiority, Ukraine had comparitively few Tanks/AFVs/Aircrafts/Artillery/etc… yet still held it’s own in no small part due to trenchlines of conventional boot-on-floor infantry men, mines, cheap drones, shoulder launched atgms and good motivation/organisation.

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4 points

You’re right, but bubba the gravy seal is not a sufficiently determined enemy. They tend to either bunker down and go out fighting or just get caught.

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29 points

Governments are overthrown when the police and military refuse orders, not when they’re outgunned.

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