Actually that's pretty unlikely, using nuclear weapons in a civil war. It makes large parts of the country uninhabitable. Syria is another example where a lightly armed militia is rising up against their oppressive government. Time has shown again and again that a determined and armed population is extremely effective against a traditional army. It is what it is, it might not make sense to us, but it's their reality. I really doubt if this leads to any real change in the US, and I'm certain a bunch of Aussies discussing it certainly won't have any influence. M
Pistol Act appeared in 1927 so there was a time that handguns weren't regulated. You need a permit to carry in the states so I don't see how we were that much different. Yes but the Milperra incident started it all.
we're not trying to influence them, just asking questions Some are just showing the colour of their necks
Any government or head of state that leads a civil war against its people could hardly be described as rational... and I wouldn't put it a past an insane dictator to drop a nuke on his own people if he had access to such weaponry. Arguably, if Gadafi had nukes, would his regime in Libya still have fallen? There's a school of thought that Iran doesn't want a nuclear bomb in order to destroy Israel... it wants nuclear bombs to keep its own people in line. I wonder how the "lightly armed militia" of Syria would fair against an al-Assad regime with nukes? Isn't the Syrian military already suspected of having used chemical warfare? The only thing stopping it from going all out is the prospect of foreign intervention, I suspect, not the effectiveness of the rebels. All that aside, the US view that guns = freedom simply does not apply to a republic with a constitition that enshrines freedom of speech, and the separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. It is THESE mechanisms that ensure freedom in the US, not having a cabinet full of guns to one day use against the US Army "just in case". That just leads to mass murders by crazy people. Of course it's their reality, and ultimately, their children's blood being (unnecessarily) spilt.
Syria is a good example of a well armed militia (they are supplied by other Sunni arab countries who want to remove the minority Alawite govt) being unable to make headway because of a lack of air power. Whereas the revolution succeeded in Libya for example because of Nato air strikes. The Taliban (trained and armed by Pakistan) are unable to retake major cities, again air power is the key. Vietnam was different, they had dense jungle which rendered aircraft ineffective. A US militia would be able to carry on a nuisance guerrilla war but could not defeat the regular army without air power. The 2nd amendment did not contemplate air warfare...
The Swiss are very conservative but also very, very law abiding. Males up to age 40 do annual national service. They have a very active democracy, where most govt decisions go to referendum. They also have maximum terms for politicians, to prevent "career" politicians which blight most democracies. It's a great system, just a tad boring. Bit like Canberra really....
Tell that to the "Wolverines" from the movie "Red Dawn' at least the first one, LOL. As far as airpower for the Red Necks, this is it. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNPJMk2fgJU[/ame]
Mike asked me to give you a severe talking to at xmas You know they put Canberra halfway between Syd and Mel because neither of them wanted it near them
I actually disagree because I think it would majorly splinter the armed forces. Most of the members you would find would be right wing and supporters of the 2nd amendment, possibly greatly reducing the standing army. And a likely outcome would be the soldiers who refused to follow order would be then supplementing the numbers of the freedom fighters. So my point, now edited for clarity, I do believe that having an armed populace can keep the government from taking such action, as it would never be as simple as "Armed Forces Vs Civilian population", and therefore the battle would not be as simple as RMV posits.
All rhetoric and deflection once again I ask one of our gun lobby brothers to simply answer this question..... This has nothing to do with freedom or any other tactic the gun lobby use to hijack these events every time ...it has EVERYTHING to do with why does someone need military style semi automatic high powered weapons which are designed with the single purpose of maximum carnage in the shortest period of time? All the kids where killed by .223 calibre that is a fact - shooting can be fun and a great sport to teach discipline and responsibility but I would love too hear why military style assault weapons are needed in the home in this day and age......
Yep, but none of this really explains why they don't seem to have the firearm problems that the USA seem plagued with. Eg becoming familiar with firearms and having an assault rifle in most homes would tend to imply that a nutter could get hold of a gun pretty easily and know how to use it, so we should expect some pretty major problems in Switzerland, yet the opposite seems to be the case. I think one needs to look further than just saying the Swiss are law abiding and consider the reasons why they are law abiding. I would suggest that the fundamental reasons are due to their high education standards, low unemployment, little poverty and sound democratic system which all combine to ensure that most people are content enough to stay inside the law and not to murder their fellow citizens. M
They would use chemical weapons, not nukes, for many reasons in a civil war. Cheaper, easier to produce and deliver, less collateral damage, less chance of detection . Its what Saddam did. Never heard that, sounds pretty far fetched. I could believe the Israel bit, but then again Iran doesn't have nukes ( and no intention either, according to them ) M
Any one know on average how many gun related deaths there are in Aust each day? According to google there are 22 million Aussies and 311 million Americans. Thats 14.1 Americans for each Aussie. According to the article linked at the bottom there are 80 gun deaths every day in the US, men, women and children. To have the same ratio, we would need an average of 5.6 gun related deaths per day in Aust. I suspect we would need to talk deaths per week to get something that wasn't a behind a decimal point in Aust. I cant understand the American way of thinking about this, no matter how hard I try. IMHO its completely defies any logic. http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/gun-glamour-americas-appetite-for-anarchy-20121217-2bj8a.html Sorry, i dont know how to do the clever linky stuff on this site, perhaps an admin can shorten it.
Here are the global stats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate I note the problem is 10 times worse in El Salvador, no one seems too concerned about that. M
Irrelevant for the discussion here. Don't you just expect the Americans to keep better company than the many sorry parts of the world in that list? Everyone seems to drag out whatever statistics to support their stance.. or play the whole avoiding thing talking about cancer, car deaths or find even worse events but that doesn't change the fact of the regular slaughter in an otherwise civilised country which disturbs plenty of people.
that's a strange table, listing particular years when they hit those highs Seems most of the countries higher than the US are 3rd world drug riddled countries
