lol the great part is people stating we need close air support... In the event of a nationwide rebellion the military wouldn't have CAS in most areas... and beyond that there are thousands of cessna's pipers and aerobatic planes, and thousands of people who know how to make rockets who says the rebels won't have CAS? Look up the technical war, tamil tigers, and some of the other brushfire conflicts online. You'll see that CAS can be built in OVERWHELMING numbers on a budget if you have people with the technical expertise to carry it out. Your only concern then becomes avgas ... oh wait! thousands of regional and private airstrips nationwide? the 82nd and the rangers can only secure so many of them.
Beyond that the US military's airframe count and maintenance requirements would give them very limited cover. This isn't even covering the psychological impact on pilots sortying as fast as they can rearm and fuel that are having to kill their countrymen.

On to the next point the vaunted artillery,

1. err anyone who thinks the lower ranks of the military is solidly behind the regime at this point doesn't know anyone in the military. Blackwater and their ilk on the other hand... that's another story.

2. the US military has THOUSANDS of artillery pieces sitting in basically undefendable depots around the US. You think no one would think to pull a smash and grab?

3. the minute an MLRS or 155 with toe poppers loaded fires on the citizenry and the crew sees it's results you'll have basically neutrallized the arty by default because the crews won't want to fire.

I'm not saying that armed revolt wouldn't be without Massive casualties and a factionallization the US probably would never recover from, but the question that needs to be asked is "Is what we have that good?" In the land of the free there certainly are alot of laws governing that freedom. And there is a basic stricture our founding fathers let us know they believed in strongly "people should not fear their governments, governments should fear their people." Personally I think it's time to remind some people of that.

Now beyond that... the second ammendment is NOT anachronistic nor is private gun ownership a cause of a significant portion of "violent crime" look up what all is included in violent crime numbers sometime... Then do some thinking and talk to a brit and ask them if when a fight breaks out everyone even peripherally involved goes to jail. People in power have very sophisticated techniques to make the US look like the wild west but honestly it really isn't.



[edit on 20-9-2008 by roguetechie]

An assault weapon is anything they pick that week that could concievably give a civilian parity of equipment with their military counterparts. the catergorization is based almost entirelly off of "aesthetics" if it can be spun as scary looking it's on the list.

edit to add: Oh and FYI the m1 carbine makes the list because of one of the most disastrous missions in LA swat's history. The so called symbionese liberation army got cornered and shot it out with the swat team until the houses they were in burned down on top of them. The SLA used quite a few readilly available m1 carbines and a variant known as the Liberator pistol which shortened the m1 into what was basically a submachine gun / machine pistol.

[edit on 26-9-2008 by roguetechie]

I doubt so many people would want to lose their ability to protect themselves from criminals who will still have guns no matter what kind of laws are passed.

Interesting comments, seems that everyone in here is scared to death of their government. JUst by reading all these comments it becomes obvious America is not the freeist country in the world by any means. Who the hell would want to live in a country where you need guns to defend yourselves from the government. It isn't the gun ban which would be the problem, it is the fear and paranoia of people in this thread.

70%? Um.. I don't think so. Wherever he pulled that statistic from, I think it likely the sun doesn't shine there... and he should put it back before what's left of his brains fall out on the floor.

As the saying goes.... Lies.... Damn lies.... and statistics.



[edit on 19-11-2008 by Resinveins]

I think it's pretty fair to say that 70% think an assault weapon is a belt fed machine gun. If they knew an AR-15 is more like their Grandpa's hunting rifle they might get a little pissed someone wants to steal that right away!

Popular support is a fickle thing.

The same people that use 70% of people support a ban on semi-automatic weapons as a reason to ban them will do a complete 180 and ignore the fact that 30 out of 30 states voted down gay marriage. Then they will do another 180 and say that since Obama won the popular vote America has spoken.

Bottom line is popular support only matters when it supports your point of view.