"The Promised Land"

[Diogenes]

40% of US households have guns...well north of 200 million firearms privately owned. There is no historical precident for that many armed citizens, so the historical parallels sighted by some posters above might not apply to us. 40% of 320 million is 120 million armed people, many times larger than the US military if not as well trained/disciplined. We would greatly outnumber them(the federal government) I don't think we would roll over that easily to a would be dictator. As some of the earlier posters indicated think we would probably break up along State lines. Most of the state have state militias under the governor's control, & their own constitutions etc., I think they are considered the national guard but since most of the people in them are from their home state, I would bet thats where there loyalty would be push come to shove. In a shooting match who do you think the Texas national guard(or for that matter Fort Hood?) would side with the President or the Governor of Texas?

I have pondered this notion since ~ 1994. At one time I would have believed the numbers of guns in Americans hands would have made it impossible for any army to subjugate the populace at large, but since I have watched very closely the events which transpired in Iraq, specifically the Army's response to insurgents and IEDs, I am no longer so certain.

A professional army now has a serious technical edge in addition to their concentrated manpower and fire power edge. The force multiplication effect this has on their abilities to deal with an insurgency like revolt I suspect more than make up for the numbers of citizens with arms.

The only characteristic which might make them weaker here in America than they are in Iraq is the fact that their logistical supplies and weapons come from here, and are therefore subject to a level of disruption that is entirely impossible in Iraq.

At this point, the most effective check we have on the Military being used to oppress the citizenry is the fact that the people serving in it are of the finest quality in terms of their love of country and their sense of right and wrong, and they will not be easily gulled into supporting the oppression of their fellow citizens.

But I fear even that is being eroded.

[jmc]

Well there's the oathkeepers

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/

who are military personel that have sworn not to betray the constitution and disarm U.S. citizens.

But other than that I agree with Diogenes, people are expected to accept the authority of the police and the military. If new legislation banning certain firearms is passed how many of those law-biding U.S. citizens would really be willing to shoot a policemen in the face in the event that he politely knocked on their door and authoritively requested to search said citizen's house for illegal firearms?

I would say less than one in 10,000.

I've even seen videos of interviews of Americans who had their guns taken away, they were certainly agrieved, some called their lawyers, but all of them peacefully gave up their weapons. You can see the videos here:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/u-s-troops- ... icans.html

No a couple (or even 120 million) isolated civilians won't stand up to the military. The only way they could stand a chance of resisting is if membership of the militias swelled to unprecedented levels, everyone supported each other and trained night and day to prepare for resistance.

[williatw]

ee

[kunkmiester]

A professional army now has a serious technical edge in addition to their concentrated manpower and fire power edge.

In America, that edge is much less--we are much better equipped by our education and our market than Iraqis are.

Not to mention that at this point in time a significant part of the military would end up on the opposite side of the current administration. A lot would take various parts of their work "home" with them, and this shifts those brains and technical edge to the other side.

[Diogenes]

A professional army now has a serious technical edge in addition to their concentrated manpower and fire power edge.

In America, that edge is much less--we are much better equipped by our education and our market than Iraqis are.

Not to mention that at this point in time a significant part of the military would end up on the opposite side of the current administration. A lot would take various parts of their work "home" with them, and this shifts those brains and technical edge to the other side.

Do not underestimate the power of lies to steer good people wrongly.

During the Tiananmen Square incident in China, the Local military disobeyed orders to crush the protesters. The Authorities in China sent word to a distant force of the Chinese military and told them that Beijing was experiencing an "insurrection" and "revolt" and ordered them to come to Beijing and crush the resistance. Believing what they were told, they did exactly that.

I think a similar technique might work here in America.

[krenshala]

A professional army now has a serious technical edge in addition to their concentrated manpower and fire power edge.

In America, that edge is much less--we are much better equipped by our education and our market than Iraqis are.

Not to mention that at this point in time a significant part of the military would end up on the opposite side of the current administration. A lot would take various parts of their work "home" with them, and this shifts those brains and technical edge to the other side.

Do not underestimate the power of lies to steer good people wrongly.

During the Tiananmen Square incident in China, the Local military disobeyed orders to crush the protesters. The Authorities in China sent word to a distant force of the Chinese military and told them that Beijing was experiencing an "insurrection" and "revolt" and ordered them to come to Beijing and crush the resistance. Believing what they were told, they did exactly that.

I think a similar technique might work here in America.

While it might work, I think the Internet and cell-phone cameras would make it much more difficult. Though ... that same tech could also be used to assist in those efforts, so it might end up not making that much of a difference.

I've noticed an increasing trend over the last decade (mainly because it bordered on my my job for a while to watch for things like this) for the "normal" media to get info on what is current news from the Internet ... something happens, people post about it/share video of it, and the media catches wind and sends reporters (sometimes days afterward). The fact that CNN does actually news reports about Twitter posts is one example (that happens to annoy the crap out of me, but that is for another topic ).