Just ask the Taliban or the Vietcong
Posted by ChickenWingExtreme@reddit | Firearms | View on Reddit | 109 comments
Posted by ChickenWingExtreme@reddit | Firearms | View on Reddit | 109 comments
Mountain_Man_88@reddit
American civilians also had cannons and warships in the Era of the Revolutionary War. The Founding Fathers never intended for us to have a standing army, but for The People to own and maintain the implements of war, to be able to bring them into service when our country needs them, and to be compensated for their use/loss. We should have privately owned artillery, attack helicopters, and ships. The People should have tanks and drones.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
And chemical and biological weapons, right?
Thorebore@reddit
Those aren’t considered to be arms.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
They are offensive weapons used in war. Who get to decide they aren't arms and what are the criteria?
Benji035@reddit
The Geneva Protocol followed up by the '72 BWC. Splitting hairs that's not really the same thing as our country restricting them. That's an international agreement/ban be not to produce/use them which would be enforced by our government.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
Our government possesses them and continues to develop them. But I guess if an international agreement says citizens can't have them that's good enough for you.
How about nuclear weapons? Those are cool for unregulated private ownership, right?
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
The US government has not had anything to do with biological weapons for 50+ years and has not produced any chemical weapons for 30 years. The last of the stockpiles were disposed of in 2023.
Ok-Floor8609@reddit
The conversation about the government always happens the exact same way… people accuse them of doing something bad, they deny it until proof comes out and then say yeah we were doing that but not anymore and then decades later people find out they never stopped. I wish I trusted the government as much as you do to believe when they say no work is being done on chemical weapons
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
Oh you sweet summer child.
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
Nothing to explain your position? Ok.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
You mean like the BWC having no verification mechanism? And the US blocking attempts to add a verification mechanism, despite every other major arms treaty having one? Or projects like Clear Vision and Bacchus that claimed to be defensive but had clear offensive purpose?
It"s wild to be discussing the 2A with somebody who would trust the government and the military as much as you do on this topic despite their history.
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
What other things does the US let the UN in on? This is consistent with what the US does. Furthermore, if the UN said so, are they somehow trustworthy?
I'm gonna take it at face value until you give me evidence to the contrary instead of automatically assuming we do have such weapons and trying to sell that as fact.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
Pre-covid and the illegal war on Ukraine, Russia was permitted inspections for compliance with nuclear agreements. For nuclear, satellites and monitoring for explosions are still effective. There's zero equivalent for chemical and biological weapons. So very sorry I can't give you proof of top secret US weapons programs. You do you and keep believing whatever the government tells you to believe, like a good citizen.
CFishing@reddit
Yes
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
I wouldnt want to live in your world where unregulated private possession of nuclear material is acceptable, but I do give you props for logical consistency.
sllop@reddit
If you read The Federalist Papers, it’s pretty clear Madison probably would’ve wanted civilians to have nukes, chemical, biological, and every other imaginable sort of weapon the government had access to also
BroseppeVerdi@reddit
Well, obviously the gov-HEEEY, WAIT JUST A SECOND
Sand_Trout@reddit
I unironically believe that the 2nd ammendment needs to be ammended to exclude CBRN weapons.
RealMuthafknGerald@reddit
The US govt shouldn’t have those either, so what’s the point?
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
The point is there are arms like biological weapons, certain chemical weapons, and nuclear weapons that are too dangerous to allow private citizens to possess. There are other arms like high explosives that are safe enough but only when tightly regulated. And then there are most guns that don't need tight regulation. Regulation needs to be fitting to the risk, and blanket arguments that all regulations are infringement are just stupid.
BeenisHat@reddit
I think we can all agree that chemical and biological weapons pose a serious danger when stored incorrectly and that random citizens without said storage capabilities owning such things would pose a serious risk to other citizens.
My guns don't go off in storage and it doesn't really matter where I keep them. They're not a hazard to anyone else. Sarin gas absolutely is a hazard to everyone around, particularly with a guy like me that doesn't know the first thing about working around such a thing.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
You seem to be acknowledging that not all arms regulations are infringement, that what's agreeable depends on the specifics of the arms and the risks posed. I fully agree. Requiring license for a gun is not warranted based on the risk. Move to high explosives and the equation changes. Not that private citizens shouldn't have access, but that there will be some rules. So bottom line, regulations are not necessarily infringement.
BeenisHat@reddit
I don't think you'd be able to convince anyone that a simple regulatory scheme for the ownership, possession and private usage of biological weapons is adequate to guarantee the public's safety.
The very existence of weaponized biotoxins like Ricin poses a risk to safety. A rifle in a safe does not. There is a pretty clear difference.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
There is a wide range of arms between guns and biotoxins. I specifically mentioned high explosives as an example. Hopefully you'll agree that there is a regulatory scheme for the private ownership of high explosives that is adequate to protect public safety.
Pappa_Crim@reddit
DIY MANPADS when
Jits_Guy@reddit
I call the roof mounted CIWS
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
I agree that we should have privately owned attack helicopters. Those are arms, after all. What do we think about government regulations that require training and licenses, put restrictions on where and when they may be operated, and even require the aircraft to be certified? You know, FAA regulations. Are those all infringements in the same way that all gun laws are infringements? If not why?
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
They shouldn't regulate the ability to own one or any of the armnaments available on such a platform. That is outside FAA jurisdiction.
There is not a constitutional right to owning an aircraft. There is a constitutional right to bear arms.
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
An aircraft is an armament. And I sure as hell do have a constitutional right to own one.
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
An aircraft is not an armnament. The weapons on one are an armnament and are protected. Neither should be regulated.
HonorableAssassins@reddit
He does have a point tho, if a warship was covered then a helicopter is covered. Its definitely a difficult line to walk though.
Informal_Guitar_2649@reddit
Good thing we had access to French cannons and battle ships
cipher315@reddit
But see that spoils the narrative. Just like talking about how the people that won the vietnam war were the NVA who had T55s and SA2 SAMs.
GayRedditUser69420@reddit
I don't get it. Are you people against the 2nd amendment? Or are you advocating for US civilians owning tanks and other military equipment? Honestly, I'm all for that. I would fucking love a tank. Anyway, I don't see what "narrative" is being spoiled, seeing how both the Taliban and the north Vietnamese mainly used guerilla tactics to cause heavy casualties to the US troops deployed there.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the insurgents would typically dress like every other civilian. And gunfire wasn't a clear indicator either, since it's part of some middle-eastern tradition to shoot guns into the air as a form of celebration.
This is not dissimilar to the US, where of course most of us don't see shooting guns in the air as a logical form of celebration, since most of us who own guns understand gun safety. However, most law-abiding citizens who carry guns carry them in ways many people wouldn't notice. Concealed. That's the point. And sure, most are handguns, but then there are several people with "truck guns" which are often SBRs of some kind.
Again, you'd never be able to guess, because they're just normal people who happen to exercise their 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms, arms being an all-encompassing definition for armaments.
On a final note, defenders have home field advantage. You likely know your town better than anybody else. If there were a hypothetical civil war, those in the military who did follow orders would most definitely not all be sent to places they know. The Vietnamese lived in the jungle, we did not. The taliban lived in the desert, we did not.
Mayes041@reddit
They invoke the VC and Taliban but like to omit the hideous sacrifices they made. Beating the U.S. was not heroic young men volunteering for a better world. It was a horrific struggle. Hardships that would break the people posting this shit, were luxury to the VC grunt. The U.S. can be beaten, but not by the soft bitches posting on reddit. Myself included before anyone.
Insurgency53@reddit
I'd argue it further that they never really beat the U.S. they both sustained much heavier casualties than we did. We basically just massacred them until we decided to leave.
Modern American revolutionaries wouldn't have that same luxury because the government can't just pull out of it's own country like we eventually pulled out of those countries.
On the other hand it wouldn't be just citizens v.s. military, undoubtedly the military would be fractured in such a scenario like the last Civil War except with the caveat that it would be more similar to the war in Syria than to our last Civil War.
Frasier_fanatic@reddit
I th8nk the best counter point I've heard is the example of Afghanistan in general.
https://youtu.be/Jg_OJQSpZoI?si=CervgkKQlWu9U-u-
This is also some interesting insight.
adelie42@reddit
Democrats never argued for gun control till you took their slaves away and gave them legal rights of citizens. Like owning guns.
Armed minorities are harder to oppress.
Torch99999@reddit
On the flip side Republicans banned carrying handguns during reconstruction, and in Texas that ban lasted well over a hundred years.
adelie42@reddit
https://youtu.be/RXnM1uHhsOI?si=nvrbSPVSWt3PzRo8
DeltaSEALArmyRanger@reddit
Drones are game changer. Ukraine war made it perfectly clear. Learn how to modify and use drones. Learn how to build drones. You don't need expensive tanks and helicopters if you have enough cheap fpv drones.
englisi_baladid@reddit
Ah yes the Vietcong who got absolutely crushed by the US military.
Agreeable_Dust4363@reddit
And yet we still lost that one
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
They won two years after we left.
Cornswoleo@reddit
“They won two years after we retreated” alright man
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
Learn some history?
Cornswoleo@reddit
Go to therapy
BroseppeVerdi@reddit
Well, how can that be? I was told that they were "absolutely crushed".
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
Uh, yeah they were? We killed like 1.1 million of them. They controlled like 7% of Vietnam when we left. They had to balloon conscription to 20% of the population to make those numbers up, that's why it took them two years to be able to launch an attack on South Vietnam.
BroseppeVerdi@reddit
1.1 million is the number of total military casualties across all North Vietnamese forces from 1955 to 1975. By the most generous of estimates, the VC never numbered more than 200,000.
It wasn't the VC's goal to control any territory at all. They were an insurgent group who had pockets all over South Vietnam that was designed to harass American and ARVN troops and proliferate weapons and munitions throughout South Vietnam.
Also, North Vietnam more broadly always controlled all the area north of the 17th Parallel, which is like half of modern day Vietnam. The only significant combat operation that even took place in North Vietnam was Operation Rolling Thunder, which was a bombing campaign. I would buy that North Vietnam controlled "like 7%" of South Vietnam, but that's a very different claim. If we were at war with Mexico and they were still in control of "only like 7%" of US territory after 8 years of fighting, I wouldn't call that a victory on our part.
20% of their population would have been close to 5 million people. That's more than the total peak strength of all combined North Vietnamese forces (which, by the way, was in 1967) and the total number of war dead. That number makes absolutely no sense.
There were more than a dozen major battles fought between North and South Vietnam between the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January of 1973 and the end of 1974 (many of which were won by the north). 1975 wasn't when North Vietnam launched their first offensive, it's just when the South Vietnamese army collapsed in the wake of their decisive defeat at the Battle of Phuoc Long.
Blueberry_Coat7371@reddit
well, if a boxer quits the match, the other guy wins by default.
BeenisHat@reddit
War is not a boxing match.
Blueberry_Coat7371@reddit
but Vietnam is a country communist country
BeenisHat@reddit
Yes it is, because South Vietnam lost the war.
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
Maybe, but South Vietnam won by getting to exist, then got stomped two years later.
Blueberry_Coat7371@reddit
Getting to exist... on paper. In practice, they never controlled much outside of Saigon
Sad-Ad1780@reddit
Gee, I wonder why we left.
BeenisHat@reddit
Because the South Vietnamese government was a shitshow and the US didn't want to continue fighting.
DrBadGuy1073@reddit
There are a lot of dead and expatriated Vietnamese that wish we stayed.
BroseppeVerdi@reddit
That's why Vietnam never went communist and they're run by a right wing pro-America government out of Saigon.
cipher315@reddit
Yes you're exactly right. No not sarcasm the Vietcong lost the war, and were effectively annihilated. The south Vietnamese were were defeated by the regular North Vietnamese army. They guys with T55s, Mig21s, 152mm artillery, and SA-2 SAMs. These were also the forces that killed the majority of US personal and got America to withdraw.
The whole oh were fighting insurgents thing, was a false narrative that the US made up because the public would not support a full blown war against another sovereign state and it's military.
The Vietcong wining the Vietnam war is like saying that the french resistance won WWII with you know only some minor logistical help from the US and UK
BroseppeVerdi@reddit
I'm right that Vietnam is not communist and Saigon never fell? I mean, that's literally the only thing I said, so that must be what you mean.
Which makes it all the more impressive that they were still active until 1977 and participated in military operations up to and including the Fall of Saigon.
I mean... you do get that one of the major purposes of the VC was proliferating weapons and ammunition throughout South Vietnam, right? The purpose of the VC was not to win huge WWII style set piece battles against a conventional military.
Can you cite a source regarding how many were killed by VC as opposed to PAVN? As far as I'm aware, historians have never really been able to accurately estimate who killed whom and I've always seen them counted as a single number.
The American public didn't support the Vietnam War anyway. Also, those are not mutually exclusive concepts - the war in Afghanistan was largely a counterinsurgency war, but is still largely seen as a "full blown war against another sovereign state".
It's more like saying that "The French Resistance lost WWII"... or like saying "The Mujahideen lost the Soviet-Afghan War".
Gews@reddit
Every revolution or insurgency across the world has managed to get things done without the 2nd Amendment, so the idea it is necessary to prevent tyranny doesn't really hold any water, especially when many armed people may actually be on the side of a tyrannical government.
HeloRising@reddit
I think part of the problem is that people's definition of "tyranny" is a little artificially narrow.
For me, the biggest concern isn't government troops goose stepping down the streets. While I don't think that's an impossible scenario, I think it's much less likely to happen given a number of considerations.
What makes me more nervous is if the state's control lapses in a particular area and someone else rises to fill that void.
What that might look like is the federal government decides it doesn't care enough about small, local areas (like the one where I live) or is busy dealing with disturbances in other areas or maybe a protracted conflict overseas. State law enforcement is spread too thin to do much and local law enforcement has no meaningful loyalty to "the state" as a whole. This opens the door for local people who are armed to assert control over an area and decide they're in charge.
If they work alongside local law enforcement (who may or may not have the resources to actually do something about that) they can form a pretty cozy set up where they're large enough to bully local people around but not large enough to warrant attention from state or federal law enforcement.
This allows for the creation of small warlord fiefdoms in places where the state is unable or unwilling to reassert control.
This is the process that happens across a wide variety of places where state control falters. We see this in places like the Middle East where population centers are controlled by a nominal government but that government lacks the ability to actually assert full state control in rural areas.
At that point, that's where an armed citizenry comes in.
Part of what enables individuals to seize local control is that they're armed (often because of connections to radical groups, organized crime, law enforcement, or outside third party support) and the local people are not, or at least not very well.
When you have a civilian population that is well armed, you put a check in place to that potential scenario. It's harder to boss people around when they can shoot back.
You also help arrest the development of local mobs of people who decide they don't like a particular person/group of people in the community and there's no one there to stop them. We saw this happen a lot during the Jim Crow and Antebellum era in the US and there are a number of instances where black families were able to protect themselves by being armed.
I'm a queer person with neighbors who've openly talked about "getting rid of the homos." You bet your ass I have a rifle.
BandedLutz@reddit
You fundamentally misunderstand what armed defense against tyranny/a tyrannical government entails.
It all comes down to being able to defend one's life and the lives of loved ones should the need arise under a tyrannical government (whether that's from government thugs, emboldened bigots, or anyone else looking to do you hurt) and making every step a tyrannical government takes to oppress its citizens all the more difficult.
Defense against tyranny isn't about escalating the situation by trying to start a head-on war with the government. It's about defense of life should the alternative become death. Taking up arms is a last resort and we haven't been pushed to that yet. If worse comes to worst, it would be guerrilla warfare and the US military has a very poor track record over the last 60 years when it comes to fighting against that (let alone a situation where they'd be fighting against their own citizens within their own country).
As long as the populace remains armed, a tyrannical government cannot exert complete control over it (at least not without destroying the very thing it seeks to rule over). Any attempts at rounding up or disposing of dissenters, minorities, etc. en masse becomes all the more difficult (and difficult to hide/ignore) as the tyrannical government must expect armed resistance at every turn.
In addition, one of the biggest components of needing guns to protect against tyranny is protection from tyranny at a small, local scale.
If you read the book "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible" by Charles E. Cobb Jr. you'll see many instances of people using their 2nd Amendment rights to defend their lives from the tyranny of racists in local positions of power under Jim Crow.
Cornswoleo@reddit
Interesting, I didn’t know they invented a cannon in the 1700’s that could be manned from one point in the world with a Gameboy controller, and land precision strikes hundreds of miles away with the capability of destroying entire cities
Cause if they didn’t invent that this would be a really fucking stupid comparison, and would reflect really badly on the intelligence of this sub
windsyofwesleychapel@reddit
To be fair, the British never deployed any heavy cavalry to the US during the Revolution.
Torch99999@reddit
And the continental army had cannons.
The war actually started because of those cannons. The cannons were shipped from Europe via Boston before being moved to Concord. The British government was aware of it since they managed the port and had the customs paperwork. On April 19, the British army was ordered to march to Concord to destroy those cannons (which had been moved already) along with cannon carriages, stocks of powder, and bayonets...I grew up in MA and could go on and on about it...
warfaceisthebest@reddit
Government has millions of guns but only thousands of tanks. Tanks would be easily overloaded but never the guns.
CardboardAstronaught@reddit
The us government has 1/100th of the guns that the US civilians have. Just saying
SchrodingersGoodBar@reddit
You guys talk like the government is some separate entity from the people. You need to read an American civics book.
“A government of the people, by the people, for the people”
Going to war with the government just means fighting the other half of the people in the government you disagree with.
CardboardAstronaught@reddit
I say this every time this comes up. Then have to argue about it, today I decided to bite. Out of all the comments here it is quite weird you chose to say this to mine lol
Graffix77gr556@reddit
Drones with thermals arent the same as a horse.
IVSBMN@reddit
I hate hearing this in the 2A community. The Americans were losing until the French arrived to deal with the British Navy. The North Vietnamese was a conventional army supplied by the Chinese and Soviet, the Taliban had backing in Pakistan.
HonorableAssassins@reddit
Yeaaaah, people acquire allies. That doesnt invalidate anything. Was this meant to have a point?
Chomps-Lewis@reddit
To play devil's advocate though, I think we also need to acknowledge that the taliban and vietcong were taking very high casualties and were fighting prolonged for years and years.
HonorableAssassins@reddit
Youve juat described asymmetric warfare, congratulations. You fight and bleed and refuse to quit until the enemy's people lose the will to keep funding the war.
Washington wrote an entirely like pamphlet about this exact concept before crossing the delaware, where he expected to die, urging people to keep fighting without him. The individual military victories don't matter, continuing to fight and raise the enemy's taxes does. Kills and destruction of assets just accelerate that war cost.
tortillaturban@reddit
Forget guns I think we need a 2nd amendment of kamikaze drones now.
Darthaerith@reddit
The issue isn't the weapons. Its a lack of people willing to do it. Committing to that level of bloodshed justified or not and the willingness to die for the cause.
Its safe to say no one wants the boogaloo to happen. It would irrevocably change our nation forever and not in a good way.
tearjerkingpornoflic@reddit
It blew my mind when I learned that only like 10-12 percent of US citizens fought in the civil war. It makes sense though for all the reasons you say. Even stuff like an 8 hour workday took a lot of bloodshed. I think back then the fact that people were really living much closer on the margins and death was such fact of life that they were more willing to fight for stuff like that. It really would be devastating to us all but at the same time there are some things worth fighting for. Once ya give power to a dictatorship really hard to get it back.
MisterMarimba@reddit
The government has tanks and drones, but the squad on your doorstep doesn't even have hard plates and they only qualify once per year.
cobrakai15@reddit
Necessity is the mother of invention, Ukraine has figured that out.
centurion762@reddit
People will say this but never mention how the military still has guns too. Apparently are still relevant.
OttoVonAuto@reddit
Tbf it took buying weapons from other standing armies of the day and seizing these weapons from the British which lead to the Revolution being able to take shape in the War of Independence
FalloutLover7@reddit
Learn from the Iraqis. Let the tank pass and an hour later blow up the fuel truck coming up the road behind it because the Abrams is out of gas after four hours of operation.
BeenisHat@reddit
haha A10 go brrrrrrttt
TheYumaOnion@reddit
I see brrrrrttt, I upvote.
Kyia-Aikman@reddit
A person’s right to self defense isn’t based on their chance of success. Would it be better if we just gave in to whatever nefarious plans an evil government had or made some attempt to stop them?
A_Queer_Owl@reddit
militaries are also heavily hamstrung in domestic operations. a government bringing the full might of the military to bear against their constituencies results in a massive loss of legitimacy and just makes your rebellion problems worse. people tend to get really pissed when an MBT drives through their lawn.
Catlover-Fellow@reddit
Not a valid point
FaustestSobeck@reddit
Or Iran
Stack_Silver@reddit
One problem with attacking US citizens using the US military is the ease of finding out the names of specific people flying specific aircraft.
Another problem is this- "You're my neighbor. My house goes and so does your own."
TheRtHonLaqueesha@reddit
Vietcong got wiped out by the FWMF after Tet.
Taliban relied mostly on bribery and suicide bombings.
Sal-LeMandeur@reddit
It's not hard to make a tank drone now... Claude will do the heavy lifting.
Yeah, the govt. has tanks and drones and anyone with $3,000 can basically rock a ghetto-ass version of one of these with a built in anti-air component.
Metal_LinksV2@reddit
Explosive FPV drones are even easier to make
patatochip22@reddit
I’m sorry where can i buy the ghetto version of this? Will it come with a Draco instead of 240?
RoachZR@reddit
Johnny Knoxville showed us the way when he ambushed the jackass guys with a paintball drone.
Slight_Mammoth2109@reddit
parkerthegreatest@reddit
Spikes trap on a door add a low end spike trap open door trap falls no more babies
BeenisHat@reddit
The Taliban and the VC are probably the wrong people to ask considering the Taliban got chased out of their country while it was occupied for 20 years and the VC were almost annihilated during the Tet offensive and never mounted another major operation again. The VC that remained either folded into the NVA or just engaged in local insurgency tactics.
While they weren't ineffective, uh, no nevermind. They were ineffective. They got their asses beat and the body counts speak to that. The Taliban never defeated the USA, the USA left Afghanistan and the Taliban quickly overran the Afghan National Army. That's where all the pics of Taliban fighters with M4s and Humvees came from. We didn't lose our weapons to them. We funded and equipped the ANA with gear similar to ours and the ANA lost it when they got folded like faster than a a crackwhore who needs a hit.
I'm all for American citizens owning whatever guns they want for whatever purpose. The 2A is for everybody. But to think your little militia group is going to stand and fight with an actual army is just delusional. You need to use much more subtle, subversive tactics. You go walking around like a cool operator bro with your M4gery and various accoutrement M-LOK'd all over it, you're gonna stick out like a sore thumb and get popped.
Flat_chested_male@reddit
Finally something good on here
OkCarpenter5773@reddit
cool, and are y'all going to use them or sit on reddit lmao?
ModernT1mes@reddit
If the US gov ever wanted to eradicate a population, they could, but then there's no one to control at that point. You destroy any value that comes with taking over.
Tanks and drones can't control a street corner. You'll always need boots on the ground.
Boots on the ground and a need to not kill every single civilian will always be susceptible to an insurgency.
An insurgency can win against a modern army with ideas and basic firearms.
p0l4r1@reddit
People who always point at the UAVs or other advanced combat gear never seem to think about such novel things as their operators have homes too....
smokeytrue01@reddit
BroseppeVerdi@reddit
The NSA: "...And I took that personally"
ExecutiveDefense@reddit
Certified banger
Physical__War__@reddit
I don’t think guns are useless. I just think the “tyranny” crew are completely full of shit. Boy I sure hope to never have to find out either way, though.
nanneryeeter@reddit
TIL soldiers no longer need guns.