Roe and Guns

[Robert]

According to the Pentagon, about half of all US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were caused by IEDs, car bombs, and suicide bombers. The rest by RPGs, mortars and rockets, grenades, car crashes and other accidents, electrocutions, friendly fire, and yes, some by automatic weapons fire. Very few by the sorts of weapons that constitute the vast majority of those 400 million firearms scattered about the US, the majority of which are actually handguns. The majority of gun purchases these days are small handguns for concealed carry, not weapons that would be effective against an invading army.

If you were going to form up a militia with all the other gun owners in your town to fight against an invading army. What sort of ammunition should the US Army drop in to resupply? Most civilian rifles are not designed to fire NATO standard ammo even if the caliber is the same and most are not.

As for deterring the Federal government? Just what is it that you think all those civilian firearms are deterring the Federal government from doing?

No other country has the technology and weaponry of the US military and they gave up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of the challenges of a lesser force invading the US with a country full of rednecks. It would not be long until messages were sent to the invading force ... "Send more!"

[Ken]

According to the Pentagon, about half of all US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were caused by IEDs, car bombs, and suicide bombers. The rest by RPGs, mortars and rockets, grenades, car crashes and other accidents, electrocutions, friendly fire, and yes, some by automatic weapons fire. Very few by the sorts of weapons that constitute the vast majority of those 400 million firearms scattered about the US, the majority of which are actually handguns. The majority of gun purchases these days are small handguns for concealed carry, not weapons that would be effective against an invading army.

If you were going to form up a militia with all the other gun owners in your town to fight against an invading army. What sort of ammunition should the US Army drop in to resupply? Most civilian rifles are not designed to fire NATO standard ammo even if the caliber is the same and most are not.

As for deterring the Federal government? Just what is it that you think all those civilian firearms are deterring the Federal government from doing?

No other country has the technology and weaponry of the US military and they gave up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of the challenges of a lesser force invading the US with a country full of rednecks. It would not be long until messages were sent to the invading force ... "Send more!"

Who is going to invade the US and from where? Canada? Mexico? Amphibious landings in South Carolina or Oregon? How are they going to get close and maintain supply lines with the US Navy and Air Forces? No country other than the US has that sort of force projection capacity. That is an absurdly far-fetched scenario.

And if an invading army did manage to conquer and occupy a portion of US territory by defeating the combined forces of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, how are they going to go about occupation? Probably just like how Russia is doing it in places like Mariupol and Bucha. Close down every highway and intersection. Search every vehicle on the street. Send patrols door to door to search houses. Arrest any civilians suspected of any guerilla sympathies, or just shoot them on the spot. And if they encounter resistance, call in helicopters, air strikes, or tanks to just level the place to the ground. A bunch of rednecks with their Glocks and ARs is not going to slow that down. Whatever resistance does emerge will be under the command and supplied by the US military and will be supplied by things like anti-tank mines and anti-tank weapons not civilian assault rifles or handguns.

I'm not pushing back on the notion that the US would be a difficult place to conquer and occupy. It obviously would be and there is no military force on the planet that has remotely that sort of capacity and there hasn't been since the War of 1812. Even during the height of WW2, neither the Japanese nor the Germans had anything like the military capacity to attack and occupy the US homeland.

What I am pushing back on is the notion that the proliferation of civilian weapons in the US (400 million you said) serves any useful purpose to keep the US safer from attack. All they do is make our society less safe rather than more safe. They also make us more paranoid as a society rather than more confident. Gun enthusiasts are the most paranoid and afraid people that I know. And I am especially pushing back on the notion that a nation of rednecks armed with assorted civilian firearms is in any way a replacement for modern military forces in this age of modern warfare.

[nett]

Any military powerful enough to actually launch a successful amphibious invasion of the United States is also going to be powerful enough to reduce American cities to rubble. And they will have columns of armored vehicles and aircraft that will be invulnerable to small arms fire. The notion that a bunch of overweight militia wannabees with firearms they purchased at Cabela's will slow them down is laughable.

There might very well be guerilla groups cropping up in the wake of such a hypothetical invasion. But they won't be fighting with the weapons that gun collectors have in their garages. They will be fighting with actual military weapons supplied by the military. The Taliban and ISIS did not fight with civilian weapons and handguns either. They fought with military weapons.

Ken, you're making the classic liberal mistake of assuming cities are all that matters. The USA is a massive landmass stocked with small, but powerful arms. Reducing cities to rubble does not help your supply lines, or provide food.

[Robert]

What I am pushing back on is the notion that the proliferation of civilian weapons in the US (400 million you said) serves any useful purpose to keep the US safer from attack. All they do is make our society less safe rather than more safe. They also make us more paranoid as a society rather than more confident. Gun enthusiasts are the most paranoid and afraid people that I know. And I am especially pushing back on the notion that a nation of rednecks armed with assorted civilian firearms is in any way a replacement for modern military forces in this age of modern warfare.

Your opinion and you are welcome to have it. It is just an exercise in thought. We will fall from within, just as the Roman Empire did. I see it happening daily.

[wesleyb]

Fantasies of a united armed populace rising up against the corrupt central government, or of the honest hard-working rednecks rising up against the dirty rotten leftists seem pretty unlikely to me. A more likely scenario would be half a dozen factions with shifting loyalties, and foreign powers supporting the ones that seem most useful to them. In a situation like this, "we" would probably end up using those 400 million guns against each other rather than against some clearly identified enemy. (Putting the we in quotes because I don't intend to be pulling any triggers)

[Ken]

Any military powerful enough to actually launch a successful amphibious invasion of the United States is also going to be powerful enough to reduce American cities to rubble. And they will have columns of armored vehicles and aircraft that will be invulnerable to small arms fire. The notion that a bunch of overweight militia wannabees with firearms they purchased at Cabela's will slow them down is laughable.

There might very well be guerilla groups cropping up in the wake of such a hypothetical invasion. But they won't be fighting with the weapons that gun collectors have in their garages. They will be fighting with actual military weapons supplied by the military. The Taliban and ISIS did not fight with civilian weapons and handguns either. They fought with military weapons.

Ken, you're making the classic liberal mistake of assuming cities are all that matters. The USA is a massive landmass stocked with small, but powerful arms. Reducing cities to rubble does not help your supply lines, or provide food.

These are the sorts of trucks that the US military uses to maintain supply lines. This is standard military truck from a Marine convoy in Afghanistan. Is your band of rural rednecks armed with handguns and rifles going to slow down one of these? Much less a convoy of 200 trucks protected by armored infantry and helicopters? They won't even scratch the paint using the sorts of civilian weapons available at your local Cabela's. And the guy in the turret with the .50 cal heavy machine gun will turn them into compost without slowing down.

In that far-fetched scenario of an invasion of the US, maybe you do eventually start attacking supply lines. But it will be like the Ukrainians are doing it. With mines, precision-guided missiles, and artillery. Not civilian small arms that rural rednecks bought at the local gun show.

You don't think modern militaries are prepared to deal with rednecks carrying civilian small arms?

[Josh]

Afghanistan was “rednecks” with small arms who defeated both the Soviet Union and the USA.

[Ken]

Afghanistan was “rednecks” with small arms who defeated both the Soviet Union and the USA.

And now they are starving and retreating back to the Bronze Age.

In any event, they didn't defeat the US militarily. And certainly not with small arms. They overthrew the corrupt, unpopular, and inept Afghan government that the US tried to install and prop up. And they did it mostly without firing a shot. The idea that the US could impose US-friendly regimes in both Iraq and Afghanistan was the hubris of the Bush Administration that it took subsequent administrations 15+ years to unravel.

2012 was the last year in which the US had more than 100 troops killed in Afghanistan. The total was 4 in 2020 and 13 in 2021. That is not a military being defeated on the battlefield. That is a correct political decision to withdraw and leave the Afghans to their own fate.

[Soloist]

That armored vehicle is vulnerable to losing its tires. They do have a feature allowing them to not run flat but it can only compensate for a few holes before its useless. Even if it doesn't stop, 1 hole results in wear and tear and drains more money.
The US government supplied a Tomahawk missile to an unnamed country which used it to shoot a 100$ amazon drone down... Who won that economic war?

Why not post pictures of the fuel haulers? they have even more exposure to small arms fire from farther away.
Maybe you don't know our troops in the first invasion in Iraq actually came within a day of running out of food and bullets due to logistics issues... I think you are a prime example of an arm chair warrior. I never went to combat but I've spoken with the vets of the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, and the Afghan war. I was trained by combat experienced troops in marine tactics and what the Taliban did to counter us.
Obviously my primary focus was medical but knowing how to rescue an attacked and disabled convoy without getting killed yourself was fairly important.
We are very capable of up armoring any target and escorting it with enough force to respond to almost any attack... but those things come with serious price tags and guerilla warfare is not fought over who has better weapons but rather who can endure hardness and economic loss longer.

[Ken]

That armored vehicle is vulnerable to losing its tires. They do have a feature allowing them to not run flat but it can only compensate for a few holes before its useless. Even if it doesn't stop, 1 hole results in wear and tear and drains more money.
The US government supplied a Tomahawk missile to an unnamed country which used it to shoot a 100$ amazon drone down... Who won that economic war?

Why not post pictures of the fuel haulers? they have even more exposure to small arms fire from farther away.
Maybe you don't know our troops in the first invasion in Iraq actually came within a day of running out of food and bullets due to logistics issues... I think you are a prime example of an arm chair warrior. I never went to combat but I've spoken with the vets of the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, and the Afghan war. I was trained by combat experienced troops in marine tactics and what the Taliban did to counter us.
Obviously my primary focus was medical but knowing how to rescue an attacked and disabled convoy without getting killed yourself was fairly important.
We are very capable of up armoring any target and escorting it with enough force to respond to almost any attack... but those things come with serious price tags and guerilla warfare is not fought over who has better weapons but rather who can endure hardness and economic loss longer.

During the first (and second) invasions of Iraq the American military was fighting the Iraqi military, not civilian militias carrying civilian small arms. That all came much later. And these sorts of militias in Iraq and Afghanistan were armed with an endless supply of military weapons by Iran and Pakistan. As well as from looted military armories in Iraq. Not civilian weapons from the local gun store.

As for truck tires? My understanding is that most military trucks and wheeled armored vehicles have various forms of heavy run-flat tires that are more or less impervious to ordinary small-arms fire. Am I wrong about that? When you look at pictures of US convoys that were disrupted in Iraq or Afghanistan it was by enormous IEDs and weapons like RPG or suicide car bombs, not some guy on the side of the road with an AK shooting at the tires.

I am not arguing that guerilla warfare doesn't exist or isn't effective. I am arguing against the notion that unlimited civilian gun ownership in the US means that the US population is prepared to oppose an invading army. Or that the proliferation of civilian weapons in the US serves any public purpose at all.

Put another way, it isn't the fact that there is a gun shop on every street corner and a 9 mm under every pillow that deters China or Russia or some other state from planning an invasion of the US mainland. It is the US Navy, Army and Air Force.