Recent large scale situations where armed citizenry either would have OR did help.

[wacki]

Trying to think of large scale situations that would of occurred within our lifetimes where armed citizenry would have or was a benefit:

1. LA Riots (Koreans protected stores)
2. Katrina (people were unfairly disarmed, much legal backlash)
3. Bosnia and Herzegovina (situation that could have limited the war crimes against civilians)
4. Mogadishu (not entirely sure on this one but I thought they were oppressed)
5. Iraq (didn't we give them AK47s and train them?... Citizens & police)
6. Darfur (genocide of 480,000 and 2.8 million people have been displaced )

I'm sure there are plenty of others.

EDIT:
My question is an either/or scenario. John Stewart keeps on talking about an "imaginary Hitler" and our paranoia. I'm under the impression that genocide and mass persecution is still a very real threat. Just trying to develop a counter argument to the anti's "you are arming against an imaginary threat".

 

[Onmilo]

Kosovo, Syria, Libya,,,

 

[Kiln]

Kosovo, Syria, Libya,,,

Yup. I was just going to list these and leave.

These countries have proven that superior technology does not beat mass numbers of armed and determined citizens.

 

[JustinJ]

Syria and Libya are/were not a bunch of citizens running around with private arms to overthrow their governments. Instead rebels have been fighting with military aid received from outside countries and from defected members of the military. Syria, for example, had very restrictive gun laws before the conflict started.

What evidence do you have that privately owned guns in Bosnia or Kosovo limited war crimes?

 

[mrnic3guy1989]

The Civil War is a good example a lot of people owned repeater rifles and put them into use. Has anyone heard the old rumour about private gun owners deterring the Japanese land invasion which they were not capable of and probably BS?

 

[wacki]

What evidence do you have that privately owned guns in Bosnia or Kosovo limited war crimes?

I don't. My question was an either/or. John Stewart keeps on talking about an "imaginary Hitler" and our paranoia. I'm under the impression that genocide and mass persecution is still a very real threat. Just trying to develop a counter argument.

 

[wacki]

Added a few more to my original list

 

[Isaac-1]

It is probably easier to show examples of where loss of gun rights preceded dictators coming to power.

 

[glennv]

You guys are ridiculous with this whole "tyrannical government" thing. The worst thing we've ever done is throw a bunch of Japanese Americans in internment camps less than 75 years ago.

Interesting thah liberals preach how we should never look down upon others but yet they think they're somehow better than the people who made decisions like the one above.

 

[michaelbsc]

You guys are ridiculous with this whole "tyrannical government" thing. The worst thing we've ever done is throw a bunch of Japanese Americans in internment camps less than 75 years ago.

Interesting thah liberals preach how we should never look down upon others but yet they think they're somehow better than the people who made decisions like the one above.

I don't know. The Wounded Knee massacre was pretty bad. The movie isn't really the facts.

In fact, there's evidence the Nazis saw our entire Native American sequestration as a model for themselves. They just went farther down the road.

So while I, for one, don't think Barak is going to bust in my door looking for my revolvers, I certainly don't think the government is "sealed benign" by God the way angles are supposed to be "sealed Holy" after Lucifer's rebellion.

The argument to offer the real liberals is that they should worry about some boogie man like Dick Cheney taking over. What would they do then?

MB

 

[pikid89]

How about the Battle of Athens

http://constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm

Three GIs - alerting passersby to danger - were fired on from the jail. Two GIs were wounded. Other GIs returned fire. Those inside the jail mainly used pistols; they also had a "tommy gun" (a .45 caliber Thompson sub-machine gun).

Firing subsided after 30 minutes: ammunition ran low and night had fallen. Thick brick walls shielded those inside the jail. Absent radios, the GIs' rifle fire was un-coordinated. "From the hillside, fire rose and fell in disorganized cascades. More than anything else, people were simply 'shooting at the jail'." (Byrum, p. 189).

Several who ventured into "no man's land", the street in front of the jail, were wounded. One man inside the jail was badly hurt; he recovered. Most sheriff's deputies wanted to hunker down and await rescue. Governor McCord mobilized the State Guard, perhaps to scare the GIs into withdrawing. The State Guard never went to Athens. McCord may have feared that Guard units filled with ex-GIs might not fire on other ex-GIs.

At about 2 a.m. on 2 August, the GIs forced the issue. Men from Meigs county threw dynamite sticks and damaged the jail's porch. The panicked deputies surrendered. GIs quickly secured the building. Paul Cantrell faded into the night, almost having been shot by a GI who knew him, but whose .45 pistol had jammed. Mansfield's deputies were kept overnight in jail for their own safety. Calm soon returned: the GIs posted guards. The rifles borrowed from the armory were cleaned and returned before sun-up.

 

[Solo]

You guys are ridiculous with this whole "tyrannical government" thing. The worst thing we've ever done is throw a bunch of Japanese Americans in internment camps less than 75 years ago.

Odd thing to post on MLK day.

 

[OptimusPrime]

Rwanda. A few armed people could have made a huge difference. Haiti too, on a smaller scale in 1999 or so.

 

[michaelbsc]

The Civil War is a good example a lot of people owned repeater rifles and put them into use.

I don't think anyone used repeaters in the civil war.

Has anyone heard the old rumour about private gun owners deterring the Japanese land invasion which they were not capable of and probably BS?

Can't recall where this is from. Apparently the "rifle behind every blade of grass" is a euphemism. I stole it from another post.

"In 1960, Robert Menard was a commander aboard the USS Constellation when he was part of a meeting between United States Navy personnel and their counterparts in the Japanese Defense Forces.


Fifteen years had passed since VJ Day, most of those at the meeting were WWII veterans, and men who had fought each other to the death at sea were now comrades in battle who could confide in each other.

Someone at the table asked a Japanese admiral why, with the Pacific Fleet devastated at Pearl Harbor and the mainland U.S. forces in what Japan had to know was a pathetic state of unreadiness, Japan had not simply invaded the West Coast.


Commander Menard would never forget the crafty look on the Japanese commander's face as he frankly answered the question.


'You are right,' he told the Americans. 'We did indeed know much about your preparedness. We knew that probably every second home in your country contained firearms. We knew that your country actually had state championships for private citizens shooting military rifles. We were not fools to set foot in such quicksand.'"

Now, why the devil is the CMP so ignored by the government, and since the AR-15 is essentially a 50 year old design (is it C&R eligible for an original?) why aren't they selling them to us at CMP?

 

[OptimusPrime]

Spencer repeating rifles were used extensively by the Union cavalry units during their invasion of these Confederate states.
The Yamamoto quote about "armed Americans behind every blade of grass" was taught to me back in the day before Internets although it appears to be unsubstantiated these days. I'm searching madly through some old textbooks and will provide if I can find a cited source.
Even if he didn't say it, he should have dammmmit.

 

[michaelbsc]

Spencer repeating rifles were used extensively by the Union cavalry units during their invasion of these Confederate states.

Well, so they were apparently. Patented in 1860, and had to be ordered go use by Lincoln personally no less.

The Yamamoto quote about "armed Americans behind every blade of grass" was taught to me back in the day before Internets although it appears to be unsubstantiated these days. I'm searching madly through some old textbooks and will provide if I can find a cited source.
Even if he didn't say it, he should have dammmmit.

I also learned the "every blade of grass" quote as legitimate. But now I question it.

 

[mrnic3guy1989]

The original Henry rifle was a .44 caliber rimfire, lever-action, breech-loading rifle designed by Benjamin Tyler Henry in 1860. The Henry was an improved version of the earlier Volcanic Repeating rifle. The Henry used copper (later brass) rimfire cartridges with a 216 grain (14 g) bullet over 25 grains (1.6 g) of gunpowder. Nine hundred were manufactured between summer and October 1862; by 1864, production had peaked at 290 per month. By the time production ended in 1866, approximately 14,000 units had been manufactured.

The war started 1861 and ended in 1865.