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Second Ammendment and the "Militia"

the wheeelman

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In the most extreme of scenerios, the government has become tyrannical and has imposed martial law, rounding up the innocent etc, ect...the current government must be removed from power by the people!

In that kind of scenerio how might militias form and the people unite, especially when that type of government might be looking out for that type of activity.

Certainly the internet may be a form of networking and uniting but it would also be a a likely place the tyrants would be monitoring. Would word of mouth be a more likely.

Everytime I read the 2nd I always think.."How might the militia unite or form?"

What are your thoughts?!?!
 

Michigander

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It's pretty simple in modern times with modern surveillance. A well connected Militia is a house of cards ripe for falling down. Only by shrouding local militia organization and training in secrecy will the rest of the militia be safe from the infiltration. Take an organization like the Michigan Militia. They have a rank structure, a lot of members, and they are well known. It's probably also safe to say the feds keep tabs on all of them. 3-6 people per local militia, each of whom has known the rest for years and trusts them, that is the largest I think an organized militia should be these days.

I know that might come off as paranoid, or downright idiotic, but given who is in DC now, organized militia activities need to be kept secret.

In the hopefully never to occur scenario where the militia has to "go active" the only way any success could be had is for actions to be kept independent and separate. Uniting would be the wrong approach because depending on the scenario it could either mean mass arrests or mass killing of the militia men. The only thing that would unite anyone would be the much needed push to spread information around about who the enemy was and why.
 

Michigander

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SFCRetired wrote:
Look at how they were organized and then look around you to see if there isn't already a framework in existence upon which to build.
That's good advice, and I will. School didn't teach me history well at all, so I'm always trying to fill in the gaps.

But none the less, I think the only guidance militia's need to stay unified in their actions is the constitution. Further rules than that are not needed to run a successful nation, or to guide the purpose of a guerrilla war.

By the way, I've never been part of an organized militia, and I've certainly never been in any wars, but I have studied the topic some, so I'm eager to hear opposing view points.
 

Dustin

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I think something to consider too is this.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming to think, what if the Government were to declare Martial Law. In reality though, do you really think our Military is a bunch of Mindless Zombies ? No way. So how many would seriously throw up the finger to the government, and embrace the consitution. I know as a Marine, I WOULD ! That whole bit aboutforeign and domestic is true, butseriously do youreally see the Military men and womenof today shooting civilians on US soil ? I don't. At that point you would have HUGE Military support. Now you got above average Joe's helping civilans learn how to fight. You got smallunit leaders in the crowd now.I defintely do not see it like the movie the Patriot where we will be running around the creeks fighting a huge ARMY of red coats severly outnumbered. I see washington being split down the middle. Repubs on one TV Station saying this, Democrats on another. I think the sides will be clearly defined, and people will know what to do and where to go. I don't think it will be mass confusion of people running around fighting in the streets.
 

Chaingun81

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Hm...hard question. I think that believing that several millons of gun owners will form an organized resistance to the tyranny supported by army+police+national guard AND win in a civil war kind of scenario is pretty silly. It's also silly to think that people will actuallyrise unless things went way too far. There are a lot of poeple who brag how they will rise if some major gun control law passes and i'm sure some will, but not nearly enough to make any impact. The only successful scenario is when government went so far that even it's organized armed forces (military, police, etc.) are so fed up and so miserable that they will disregard a direct order, and not at a private level, but at mid-level command at least. I saw it happen in USSR in 1991 when extreme totalitarian members of soviet government arressted Gorbachev and created their own unconstitutional "Emergency government". People being already fed up by 70+ years of soviet bullshit went out on Moscow streets protesting, they were not even armed. The new "government" moved army into the city to control the situation, there were tanks and armed soldiers crawling on the streets and...it didn't work. No shots been fired, officers refused to command their soldiers to kill innocent civilians. Members of the new"government" were arrested, Gorbachev was freed, Eltsin took over power in Russia and Soviet Union dissolved effectively leaving Gorbachev out of work. Total causalties number was...3 (three!!!) guys, who were trying to stop a tank from backing up and got run over by it. Thats it.

I think this is a much more relevant example of stopping the tyranny than something that happened 200 years ago, when the world was different.
 

Chaingun81

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SFCRetired wrote:
Chaingun81 wrote:
Hm...hard question. I think that believing that several millons of gun owners will form an organized resistance to the tyranny supported by army+police+national guard AND win in a civil war kind of scenario is pretty silly. It's also silly to think that people will actuallyrise unless things went way too far. There are a lot of poeple who brag how they will rise if some major gun control law passes and i'm sure some will, but not nearly enough to make any impact. The only successful scenario is when government went so far that even it's organized armed forces (military, police, etc.) are so fed up and so miserable that they will disregard a direct order, and not at a private level, but at mid-level command at least. I saw it happen in USSR in 1991 when extreme totalitarian members of soviet government arressted Gorbachev and created their own unconstitutional "Emergency government". People being already fed up by 70+ years of soviet bull@#$% went out on Moscow streets protesting, they were not even armed. The new "government" moved army into the city to control the situation, there were tanks and armed soldiers crawling on the streets and...it didn't work. No shots been fired, officers refused to command their soldiers to kill innocent civilians. Members of the new"government" were arrested, Gorbachev was freed, Eltsin took over power in Russia and Soviet Union dissolved effectively leaving Gorbachev out of work. Total causalties number was...3 (three!!!) guys, who were trying to stop a tank from backing up and got run over by it. Thats it.

I think this is a much more relevant example of stopping the tyranny than something that happened 200 years ago, when the world was different.
You have some good points. But it would not be wise to ignore those lessons that were learned 200 years ago either. Yes, the world was different, but men and women fighting for what they believe in has never really changed. Nor have the rules for conducting a successful guerrilla war.

I firmly believe that there are those at all levels in the military who will blindly follow the orders of those above them. Are they in the minority or the majority? I don't know as it has been too many years since I retired. I do know that lightly armed civilians will not stand the chance of a gas can in Hades if they try to directly confront more heavily armed soldiers.

This is where the lessons of 200 years ago and other, more recent, lessons come into play. A substantial portion of the population would have to be convinced to support and protect the guerrillas. Without them, the guerrillas would stand no chance at all.

That is 200% true. It has to be a majority of the population who at least morally support the guerillas in order for it to work.

But i would disagree that people fighting for their beliefswill bethe same. 3 main reasons:

1) World is A LOT smaller now than even 50 years ago and technology is so much more advanced.Russian partisans hiding in endless woods of rural Russia in the midst of -40 F russian winter had A LOT more success that anyone would have in the modern world. Plus, they had 99% support of local population and enemy army was speaking different language, didn't have proper maps and any local support whatsoever.

2) People are used to comfort and not used to real hardships anymore.Up until there is no warm safe home and family to come back to, most of people will not give up what they have to risk their lives and live in the woods fighting. Some will, but majority won't.That's why it happened in Iraq and Vietnam and Afghanistan, but will not happen in US - life is still too comfortable.

3) Ability for media to access everyone quickly in every remote place (see the "small world" comment #1) made it very easy to quickly brainwash the population into pretty much anything, and as we just saw, very successfully. And the brainwashing machine will be under full control of the tyrants, be sure.

I just really hope it never comes to it and we'll never find out how this scenario plays out, and i hope thatthe system of checks and balances will keep any tyrannical moves at bay...
 

Dutch Uncle

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Chaingun81 wrote:
I saw it happen in USSR in 1991 when extreme totalitarian members of soviet government arressted Gorbachev and created their own unconstitutional "Emergency government". People being already fed up by 70+ years of soviet bull@#$% went out on Moscow streets protesting, they were not even armed. The new "government" moved army into the city to control the situation, there were tanks and armed soldiers crawling on the streets and...it didn't work. No shots been fired, officers refused to command their soldiers to kill innocent civilians. Members of the new"government" were arrested, Gorbachev was freed, Eltsin took over power in Russia and Soviet Union dissolved effectively leaving Gorbachev out of work. Total causalties number was...3 (three!!!) guys, who were trying to stop a tank from backing up and got run over by it. Thats it.

I think this is a much more relevant example of stopping the tyranny than something that happened 200 years ago, when the world was different.
Chaingun,
Interesting that you should bring up the "Emergency Government" in USSR. Weren't they called the "Gang of Five" or something? In any event, I was following the news when that happened, and I recall that one of the FIRST EDICTS from this group was to demand that ALL citizens turn in their guns and ammo to the local police. There were of course some privately owned rifles and shotguns, registered to hunters in the small villages and towns, but evidently the thought of ANY guns in private circulation was horrifying to these despots. As I recall, almost nobody turned in their hunting guns, and waited for the scheme to collapse of its own dead weight, which it did. Still, I think it is telling that tyrants have an overwhelming fear and hatred of guns, any guns, owned privately.

There must be a lesson in there somewhere, especially for today's Democrat leaders.... Patriots all, of course.

//s
 
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