this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 74 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Article I Section 8 Clause 15 Calling Militias

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

I have no idea how the Constitution, which is so clear about the use of militia, has morphed into this fucked up 2A gunfucker bullshit.

[–] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 61 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Read "insurrections" as slave revolts and you can get a real sense of what the 2a was for.

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[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I actually know this one. Federalist no 46 by James Madison. Not arguing against or for it, I just probably know what your fucked up 2a gunfuckers are referring to. either that or John Locke.

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

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[–] Kaboom@reddthat.com 48 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Yes, because the middle east never happened.

[–] giantofthenorth@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Or Vietnam, post war Japan/Germany, the Philippines, the civil war & Wild West, any native American tribe etc.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (6 children)

The issue is about endurance. Are you okay with losing the majority of battles and having x10 the casualties? Not to mention all the left over bombs and chemicals causing deformations long after. A philosopher once said everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.

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[–] takeda@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Now, try a swarm of armed drones.

[–] skyspydude1@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Because if Ukraine has taught us anything, it's that drones are definitely only limited to large and advanced military powers. There's no way a civilian would ever be able to make something like that

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ukraine isn't fighting the bulk of their war with drones, so it isn't really an appropriate comparison. One of the main reasons they're still in the fight is the plethora of highly advanced munitions that have been provided to them by NATO members. Lastly, drone warfare has become less and less effective over the last year against Russia. There are lots of countermeasures that can be implemented to take out drones. Hell, if you jam radio signals (which is easy to do), remote controlled drones become virtually useless outside of preprogrammed kamikaze tactics.

Just to clarify, I don't say that to discredit them being a viable and deadly weapon in guerilla warfare. They're very effective in certain situations and quite dangerous. Just pointing out they're not the end-all-be-all of modern warfare.

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[–] tkk13909@sopuli.xyz 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I honestly don't know how well the US military would actually defend against a civil war. If it's guerilla then they can't just bomb the enemy.

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[–] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 11 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That's an imperial war where local knowledge is extremely limited and your relying on sympathetic locals to let you know the terrain and who the enemy are. If that sympathetic population is low like in Afghanistan or Vietnam then you'll walk into every ambush and never root out the enemy. In this environment guerilla war with small arms can work

If tyrrany comes to the u.s. though it'll come with at least 30% support if not more, ironically most likely by the 2a nuts. They'll happily point out every enemy of the state on there block and warn you about every ambush, hell they'll probably shoot them for you.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

What you just described makes it easier to control a country...they don't look like us, they didn't sound like us, and they didn't dress like us....now try that shit with people who do. A civil war in the US would not end well for anyone.

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[–] NoLifeGaming@lemmy.world 34 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This shows ignorance in history but also understanding of warfare. There are too many examples of this: Vietnam as a historical example and Afghanistan as a recent one. Let's not forget what's going on in Israel rn vs all the proxies. It's not necessary to have advanced weaponry to fight a war.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Vietnam had field artillery and Soviet fighter jets. They were a real army.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

Vietnam as a historical example and Afghanistan as a recent one.

The biggest asset these countries had in their favor was distance from the American industrial core. First Nations people employed many of the same techniques used in Vietnam and Afghanistan but were ruthlessly slaughtered. Guerrilla movements in Latin America - the FARK in Columbia and socialists in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador got massacred by American military power. These countries are wholly within the US sphere of influence now.

Let’s not forget what’s going on in Israel rn vs all the proxies.

Israel is a textbook case of advanced weaponry tilting the playing field. Air superiority, naval support from the US, and a high tech anti-missile/anti-personal system along with one of the most advanced spy networks in the world all allow this relatively tiny nation to punch far outside its weight class. By contrast, less developed countries like Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan routinely serve as punching bags for more advanced states.

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Yeah this is similar to what I always tell these idiots. "You all know the government has tanks right. How many tanks y'all got? Three Broncos, an F-1f0, and a tractor? I'm sure those will hold up just fine to 120 mm cannon.

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 47 points 2 months ago (3 children)

To play devil's advocate, the US is enormous with over 330 million people. The current military strength is roughly a few million, including civilians and contractors. Additionally, there are roughly about 4,000 main battle tanks in service. There's maybe a couple thousand fighter jets and bombers combined. Keep in mind, a lot of the US military is abroad, especially our combat ready equipment.

Now, try to spread all of that out over roughly 4 million square miles. Hell, LA itself is around 470 square miles with almost 10 million people. The military would be idiotic to just blindly carpet bomb everything, since y'know, soldiers have families living all over the US, too. Not great for morale. Not to mention, the economy is pretty essential to keeping the machines of war going. Also food. And fuel. And infrastructure for logistics. And medicine. Etc, etc.

A civil war would not be cut and dry, regardless of how well armed and trained the formal military is. It's why China tries to keep an iron tight grip on its mass surveillance program to squash uprisings before/as soon as they start (and they periodically have them, think there's been one or two in the last decade). That's what the US is also trying to do. They call it antiterrorism precautions and other bullshit, but it's to keep all of us underfoot so no one is able to start an effective movement against the State.

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Considering the observed behaviour of the self designated militias in the US, the army would only need to say that there's a gathering of whatever group the militia opposes on main street and then gun down anyone that shows up in tactical gear. Even without the hyperbole, 2A people are too damaged by their desire to be in their personal action movie to be effective in any kind of war.

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's pretty funny, and it'd probably work the first few times, if not more lol. I agree with the last part for most of them. But, in a real civil war, it'd include people that aren't completely idiotic. Like I said, there hasn't been a quick, clean civil war ever fought in history. Those lessons are useful to take heed of.

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[–] MouseKeyboard@ttrpg.network 29 points 2 months ago

Governments are overthrown when the police and military refuse orders, not when they're outgunned.

[–] Rin@lemm.ee 26 points 2 months ago

Asymetric war is a thing.

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 months ago (11 children)

Every time this fucking meme is made I'm reminded that the US military is currently being embarrassed in the red sea by a non-state actor with zero air superiority, which began itself with a thousand-or-so civilians with AK47s.

That or how Israel is currently struggling to achieve any kind of military victory against two groups of lightly-armed militias which rely on scavenged and hand-made explosives to defeat state-of-the-art tanks.

Let's not even remind ourselves about the Taliban.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 21 points 2 months ago

In fairness Israel isn't struggling to beat Hamas. They could quite handily just carpet bomb the place to oblivion and kill 2 million people. It's not really any bigger than Grozny, and we saw what even the Russians managed to do to that.

But that doesn't tend to sit well with anyone, not even the US. Better to commit genocide by making the survivors leave and stealing their land, rather than going full holocaust on them.

Still, they've killed 2% of Gaza in a year. Give them 50 more and there won't be a Gaza Strip.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm 16 points 2 months ago

And all those you named are suffering heavy losses. Good luck bro, I ain't fighting the US government.

[–] Ferrous@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

People who drop these kinds of memes still think warfare is carried out and progresses like it did in the Napoleonic era: two orderly opposed fronts clashing head-to-head in theaters with well-defined boundaries - where the adversary with more guns/people/resources win. Because more guns/people directly equates to military power, right?

These folks would do well to spend even the slightest amount of time learning about fourth generational, guerilla war.

Let's take this meme back a couple hundred years and cast OP as a counter revolutonary American at the onset of the revolutonary war.

/*Wants to have muskets to fend off british empire

/*british empire:

Starts to seem silly when you realize even our founding fathers were doing guerilla warfare not long ago.

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[–] hakase@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago (4 children)
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[–] frezik@midwest.social 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Pretty much. The US military can take on any other nation state (China is trying to change this, but it's not there yet). The initial fight against the organized militaries of both Afghanistan and Iraq didn't last long, and was as much of a one sided curb stomp as you'll ever see in history. It was the insurgency later on that was the problem.

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[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Because there had never been a coup with a country that has an air force

[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

What was the Arab Spring?

Tunisa has 150+ aircraft
Libya 100+
Egypt 1000+
Yemen 175+

All 4 countries deposed their rulers

edit: it appears I have been whooshed

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[–] Breve@pawb.social 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Military spending in 2023 (in billions of US dollars):

United States: 916
China: 296
Russia: 109
India: 83.6
People who own a "don't tread on me" flag: 0*

(* Rounded to nearest significant figure)

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

Eh, Americans spend something like $10-20B per year on guns and ammo. That's nowhere near the military budget, but it's still a lot of guns and ammo, so the US would put up a pretty good guerrilla resistance.

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[–] three@lemm.ee 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

From left to right:

  • AIM-120 AMRAAM

  • AIM-9X Sidewinder

  • 2x GBU-54s

  • Fuel tank

  • Sniper pod (for targeting)

  • Another fuel tank

  • Not sure about that little thing, probably more targeting

  • Fuel tank

  • 4x GBU-39 Small diameter bombs

  • AIM-9X

  • AIM-120

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Sniper pod (for targeting)

I'm just imagining a sniper lying in there, trying to stay on target while flying with mach-fuckton in a tiny metal pod

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Are those conformal fuel tanks?

*Googling, looks like it.

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[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net 12 points 2 months ago

Planes cant hold land

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago

Or more commonly adopted nowadays, drones that will hit you while you're driving, or having a party

Take a wild guess why Taliban and Hamas love caves and underground networks

[–] mtpender@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

A-10 go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT

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