Control Group
Member
I know there's a pretty high concentration of current- or ex-military folks on THR, so I'm hoping you can help me answer a question that came up a while back between a friend of mine and myself. When we were talking about it, the conversation was limited to the Interstate system, but it's essentially the same question as gun confiscation. Anyway, here it is.
Say the government were to declare an emergency, and seize control of the Interstate system for exclusive military use. Say you're stationed as a guard on an onramp, with orders to fire on any civilian or civilian vehicle that approaches within some distance, say a couple hundred feet. These orders are legal, insofar as they have appropriately come down the chain of command. A civilian vehicle comes within the defined range, despite appropriate warnings. Would you fire on the vehicle? In your opinion, would your fellow soldiers?
Similarly, say the government were to declare a certain weapon or class of weapons illegal to possess, and demand immediate confiscation from those who own them. You're part of a house-to-house effort to seize all of them, under orders to use whatever means necessary to accomplish your mission. Again, assume these orders are legal, insofar as they have appropriately come down the chain of command. A civilian, known to be in possession of a weapon to be confiscated, barricades himself in his house well enough that it will require significant, possibly lethal, force to get into the building, though he is not an overt threat (he's not actually pointing a rifle at you). Would you use whatever force necessary to get into the house, potentially killing the civilian? In your opinion, would your fellow soldiers?
As I mentioned we were only specifically discussing the former question, but, for the record, I maintained that your average soldier would, in fact, fire on the vehicle, assuming only that the orders were legal as stated. My friend insisted that they wouldn't. Neither of us, though, has ever been in the military, so our opinions aren't really what you might call "qualified." Now that I've got the opportunity to ask several people with qualified opinions, I'm very curious to hear them.
Say the government were to declare an emergency, and seize control of the Interstate system for exclusive military use. Say you're stationed as a guard on an onramp, with orders to fire on any civilian or civilian vehicle that approaches within some distance, say a couple hundred feet. These orders are legal, insofar as they have appropriately come down the chain of command. A civilian vehicle comes within the defined range, despite appropriate warnings. Would you fire on the vehicle? In your opinion, would your fellow soldiers?
Similarly, say the government were to declare a certain weapon or class of weapons illegal to possess, and demand immediate confiscation from those who own them. You're part of a house-to-house effort to seize all of them, under orders to use whatever means necessary to accomplish your mission. Again, assume these orders are legal, insofar as they have appropriately come down the chain of command. A civilian, known to be in possession of a weapon to be confiscated, barricades himself in his house well enough that it will require significant, possibly lethal, force to get into the building, though he is not an overt threat (he's not actually pointing a rifle at you). Would you use whatever force necessary to get into the house, potentially killing the civilian? In your opinion, would your fellow soldiers?
As I mentioned we were only specifically discussing the former question, but, for the record, I maintained that your average soldier would, in fact, fire on the vehicle, assuming only that the orders were legal as stated. My friend insisted that they wouldn't. Neither of us, though, has ever been in the military, so our opinions aren't really what you might call "qualified." Now that I've got the opportunity to ask several people with qualified opinions, I'm very curious to hear them.