[HN Gopher] The Return of Industrial Warfare
___________________________________________________________________
The Return of Industrial Warfare
Author : paganel
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-06-23 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rusi.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (rusi.org)
| pm90 wrote:
| Maybe unpopular opinion: Its actually good that we may not have
| the industrial capacity to supply large scale conflicts for great
| lengths of time.
|
| There's a simple solution to prevent conflicts like the one in
| Ukraine: expand NATO membership. It has turned out to be a n
| effective tool at preventing land wars in Europe.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| If you put on your realist hat, there are two options.
|
| One is for NATO (or another European military alliance) to be
| so powerful and cohesive in their relations to Russia, that
| Russia have no choice but to deal with it. This was presumably
| the false assumption that lead to the current war. (I really,
| really hope it was a false assumption).
|
| The other option would have been to thaw relations, perhaps
| acquiescing to a few demands and showing more compromise. Say
| what you want about Russia - and there's a lot bad to say. But
| much worse actors have received much nicer treatment by the
| west. Think about everything that's been done to accommodate
| China since the end of the cold war, to say nothing of the
| likes of Saudi Arabia.
|
| Instead a middle path was picked, and now we have war.
| corrral wrote:
| - Expanding membership of a mutual-defense alliance is risky.
| If you let someone in who's good at picking fights, you can end
| up in a situation that you really didn't want to, and that may
| not have happened in the first place if they hadn't had the
| treaty to make them feel more secure with e.g. brinksmanship.
|
| - Shifts in political alignment of members can, similarly, do
| strange things and lead to bad situations. Take Hungary--right
| now they just look maybe just a _tad_ down the path toward
| authoritarianism, but what if that turned into a civil war?
| What if the government that you 're allied with gets into a bit
| of the good ol' genocide? Serb/albanian type situation, or
| maybe just your run of the mill widespread political purges? On
| the one hand there's some moral obligation to intervene, plus
| the legitimate interests of neighboring states in countering
| severe violence and instability in their vicinity; on the other
| hand now you and anyone else who's considering intervention, in
| the alliance or not, has a bit of a dilemma on their hands. It
| complicates an already complicated situation.
|
| - As an alliance grows stronger it invites reaction from
| opponents. This doesn't make those reactions "right" (I'm very
| aware that this is one argument for why Russia invaded) but
| it's a fact. The reaction needn't be war, but might be creation
| or expansion of opposing alliances. Larger alliances, more
| shared borders in more places... that's a recipe for world war.
|
| Every member you add is, in a sense, a long-term liability and
| threat to the stability of the alliance. These arrangements are
| _not_ purely beneficial, in practice, including for members.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _There's a simple solution to prevent conflicts like the one in
| Ukraine: expand NATO membership_
|
| I agree, but it is too late to do any good for Ukraine now. We
| need to industrially produce an end to the conflict, or give it
| over to Russia.
| negus wrote:
| Did this simple solution prevent a war between two NATO members
| (Greece and Turkey) in past?
| gambiting wrote:
| No, but it has prevented anyone attacking NATO countries from
| outside. It is not a solution for NATO countries fighting
| each other, however.
| [deleted]
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| But that would undermine Russia's security to invade
| neighbouring countries, install kleptocrats and subjugate the
| population! You can't just have a unified bloc of prosperous,
| (mostly) democratic countries right there; how scandalous! /s
| bell-cot wrote:
| Lowest-cost scenario: No capacity to fight a large-scale war;
| no need to fight a large-scale war.
|
| Lower-middle-cost scenario: Capacity to fight a large-scale
| war; no need to fight a large-scale war.
|
| Upper-middle-cost scenario: Capacity to fight a large-scale
| war; a need to fight a large-scale war.
|
| Highest-cost scenario: No capacity to fight a large-scale war;
| a need to fight a large-scale war.
|
| (It'd be nice if NATO memberships were magical anti-war
| talismans. The reality is far more complex.)
| pessimizer wrote:
| > expand NATO membership
|
| How could the cause of a conflict be the solution to preventing
| that conflict? Doing almost anything _except_ attempting to
| expand NATO membership would have prevented the conflict in
| Ukraine.
| wbl wrote:
| No it would not have. Ukrainian protest in 2014 was driven by
| wanting EU membership and trade ties. Russia responded with
| an invasion.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| Russia responded with an invasion because an EU state on
| their border would be like Mexico being an ally of China on
| the border of the US. Not saying Russian actions in the war
| haven't been despicable but if this happened to the US they
| would invade too.
|
| I think the most likely outcome of this war is Ukraine gets
| split into 2 buffer states, one as a client to Russia and
| the other as a client to the EU/US. US can't afford to
| spend the hundreds of billions it would take for Ukraine to
| win (1000's of tanks, artillery pieces, IFVs, etc) and
| Putin can't back down now or he'll lose face and be toppled
| from leadership.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I'm not sure if you've been paying attention to the
| current political situation in Mexico but AMLO has no
| problem strengthening ties to various countries that
| "threaten" US interests. And he's free to do so! Mexico
| is a sovereign country and is allowed to build diplomatic
| bridges to any nation it chooses. It would be completely
| inappropriate for the US try an annex Baja California or
| something in retaliation.
|
| Just imagine if the international community took a firmer
| line on the US during GWOT - half a million lives
| could've been saved.
|
| Edit: Was the US justified in fomenting death squads
| Latin America because those countries embraced socialism
| against the wishes of the United States? No? Then why is
| Russia entitled to a full-scale invasion over Ukraine's
| western aspirations?
| jonnybgood wrote:
| There are already EU and NATO member states that border
| Russia and haven't been an issue for Russia. Russia/Putin
| in all likelihood really invaded because they believe
| Ukraine is ran by Nazis.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| You don't really think Putin believes that? Pretty sure
| that's just Russian propaganda for their domestic
| audience to justify the invasion. The real reason is
| preventing a EU ally on their border and gaining access
| to the gas fields in the Black Sea.
| Animats wrote:
| _" You don't really think Putin believes that?"_
|
| He seems to. Putin's clear goal is "Make the Russian
| Empire Great Again". He's been grumbling since the fall
| of the USSR that, for the first time in centuries, Russia
| is a second-rate, "or even a third-rate" power. He wants
| to turn that around. His role model is Peter the Great.
| His model of world power is the 19th century, when the
| British Empire, the Imperial German Empire, the Austria-
| Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and France had
| multiple medium-sized wars over land.
|
| This is a guy who was personally hammered by the fall of
| the USSR. The USSR had huge national security
| organizations and most of them were laid off. Putin
| himself was driving a cab for a while around 1990.
| There's a mindset amongst the former national security
| tough guys that they are supposed to be in charge. Now
| they are again. The strong rule; the weak cower. Such is
| the way of the world.
|
| Post-USSR capitalism was a disaster for Russia. People
| starved. The population dropped. That produced demand for
| a "strong leader", a long-standing theme in Russia. Weak
| Russian leaders have been disasters. (Kerensky,
| Gorbachev, etc.) Now, Russia again has a strong leader
| who bows to no one. Putin is popular.
|
| He can't afford to lose a war, though. Russian leaders
| who lose wars do not live long. He wouldn't survive to
| retire to a golf course in a warm climate.
|
| This is hugely oversimplified, and someone who knows more
| Russian history could do much better.
| 13415 wrote:
| No, this is not about Nazis. Putin simply always
| considered Ukraine to be part of Russia's legitimate
| "sphere of influence" and tried to steer it into becoming
| a pro-Russian vassal state. It's part of his incorrect
| views as a hobby historian. As a psychopath, or at least
| sociopath, he calculated that the 2014 invasion would not
| meet any strong resistance and was right. So he
| calculated in 2022 that grabbing more territory would
| work, too, and was wrong.
|
| The problem with dictators like Putin is that they
| _always_ overestimate their own judgments and nobody
| tells them when they 're wrong. You could be the smartest
| guy of the world, if you run a whole country, are
| insanely rich, and constantly surround yourself with Yes-
| men, then your perception of reality will fail at some
| point. It's inevitable.
| verve_rat wrote:
| Bullshit.
| JanSolo wrote:
| I think you're being facetious here. NATO expansion was
| Russias stated cause of the Ukrainian Conflict. However,
| Putin's statements since then have made it clear that the
| real objective is more of an ideological one. He wants to
| expand and build into a sort of neo-russian empire. Ukraine
| was considered the easiest target because of the ongoing
| Donbass conflict. However it could easily have been Georgia,
| Khazakstan, Azerbaijan or others.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| If Ukraine had been in NATO, Russia wouldn't have invaded.
|
| They did because Ukraine was in the verge of joining, knowing
| that once it was done, they would not be able to attack
| anymore.
|
| Plus, NATO being historically a shield, not a sword, Russia
| stance was basically the equivalent of stating "to look for
| safety or we kick your ass".
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > was in the verge of joining
|
| Where did you get this incorrect information? Joining NATO
| non-negotiably requires checking a few boxes, one of which
| is having all your borders settled and under no dispute.
| Ukraine did not fit this requirement and thus could not
| have been on the verge of any such thing.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| NATOs operations have frequently involved air campaigns
| against states that pose no direct threat to any of its
| members. Quite a bizarre shield.
|
| You can tell me the operations were justified. I'm yet to
| be convinced that the Russian regime should not feel
| threatened by them.
| soperj wrote:
| What caused Russia to invade Georgia in 2008 then?
| dmpk2k wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/01/nato.georgia
|
| Five months later the Georgia war happened.
| corrral wrote:
| There's... a bit more background than that. Russian
| activity to fracture the country and outright threats of
| resolving the situation with military force, date back
| years before Georgia sought NATO membership, and indeed,
| before the '03 pro-western shift in their government.
| Which, gee, I wonder why they might have decided they
| want allies opposed to Russia.
| [deleted]
| omginternets wrote:
| It's only a good thing if nobody develops these capabilities
| unilaterally.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > Its actually good that we may not have the industrial
| capacity to supply large scale conflicts for great lengths of
| time.
|
| If WW1 Germany and France had the industrial capacity then any
| modern developed country does. The dislocation will just be
| more wrenching. Dislocation can include losing the war.
| aftbit wrote:
| History shows that peacetime nations frequently underestimate the
| cost of war. If you haven't seen them yet, Perun on YouTube has
| done a number of good videos on the economics of war & the Russo-
| Ukranian conflict in particular.
|
| Here's one in particular that deals a bit with ammo shortages:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ptG1IxZ08
| skmurphy wrote:
| The Perun video series is well researched and well presented.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Id love to see a full accounting of the War on Terror.
| Trillions of dollars spent, millions of lives impacted, and for
| what.
| gumby wrote:
| > Trillions of dollars spent, millions of lives impacted, and
| for what
|
| 1 - trillions of dollars funneled to friends in the defense
| industry
|
| 2 - fear induced in gullible sections of the populace to make
| them easier to gull.
|
| Mission accomplished!
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I'm not convinced. This is a weird war. Russia has an enormous
| supply of really shitty vehicles, indifference to losing tens of
| thousands of soldiers, and indifference to slaughtering civilians
| at will. Dumb artillery and cheap shells are a good solution for
| this. Will we ever see such a situation again? Russia is the only
| country that can do this as far as I can tell.
|
| This is a war in large part being fought with tech from 50 years
| ago. The new stuff is only just reaching the front. I'm not sure
| how relevant the lessons to be learned are.
|
| The javelins are a weird case. Yeah they probably did burn
| through javelins quickly. That'll happen if your enemy is
| careless with its troops and tanks. We can still make javelins a
| lot faster than Russia can make tanks, they just had a lot of
| tanks to begin with. We're now seeing russia roll out tanks from
| 60's. I'm inclined to believe that supply is rapidly running out.
| golemiprague wrote:
| topspin wrote:
| > I'm not convinced.
|
| Me either. Seems like this article characterized about the last
| month of the conflict. Things are about to change.
|
| Precision weapons are arriving, with trained crews and Western
| ammo supply. By the end of June being a Russian artillery crew
| anywhere near the front in Ukraine will be a _bad_ idea with
| HIMARS crews hunting you. Then UK M270s come online. German
| MARS GMLRS are apparently on the horizon as well. German PzH
| 2000 will be firing on Russians by about end of this week.
|
| Added up this should blunt the one meaningful advantage the
| Russian's still have; massed cold war artillery. Take that away
| and what's left besides nukes? A horde of undersupplied Russian
| contract soldiers and whatever remains of their stock of PGMs.
| That's not sufficient to defeat Ukraine.
| mrelectric wrote:
| I would guess they're simply clearing the stock
| fock wrote:
| well, if you look at GDP, russias industry is about the same
| size as the one of Germany. Germany has a lot less workers (and
| gas ;)) for that amount of $ and they produce millions of cars.
| I guess Russia (which I don't know for any consumable
| industrial output) might be able to produce quite a few tanks
| (also look at numbers e.g. for BMP-3, which were all produced
| after 1990).
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Russian manufacturers rely on foreign imports to make both
| tanks and cars
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/us-official-says-export-
| cur...
|
| Which seems to be supported by russian car sales falling off
| a cliff, though not anything 1:1 as those cars would have
| included imported cars too
|
| https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-car-sales-drop-84-in-
| po...
|
| Things like artillery shells are probably fine for them to
| continue to produce in large quantities unfortunately. It's
| hard to estimate how many working vehicles russia has because
| a lot of them are poorly maintained, or missing parts or
| whatever. A lot of early analysis suggested many russian
| tanks were either lacking a gunner or the main gun just
| didn't work.
|
| Wikipedia suggests russia should have comissioned 700 BMP-3
| units for itself. Open source intel has confirmed losses of
| 109 of them. I would tend to tack on about 30%. How many of
| the remaining 560 are out there? A good question.
|
| A more useful answer might be what do we actually see russia
| using in the field to get a better clue.
| gumby wrote:
| > well, if you look at GDP, russias industry is about the
| same size as the one of Germany.
|
| On a nominal basis Russia's economy is less than half
| Germany's and not much larger than Australia's. On PPP basis
| it's closer to Germany, but the industries of all three
| countries depend on foreign imports (Russia's especially) so
| PPP is less useful when considering industrial production.
| nemo wrote:
| Germany's GDP: 3.8 trillion USD Russia's GDP: 1.4 trillion
| USD
|
| they're not that close in size...
| baybal2 wrote:
| An excellent article when it comes to throwing a dry fact into
| the face.
|
| An even greater commentary been provided by this tweet:
| https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1539623100144295936
|
| How did America pump out liberty ships faster than even China can
| build ships today during the WW2?
|
| US military production was a byproduct of its great civilian
| heavy industry. US tanks, ships, airplanes, bomber, guns were
| mostly made by factories repurposed from making civilian goods.
| So when the demand for them waned, so did the raw military
| potential. This was in contract to USSR, where civilian
| manufacturing was a byproduct of weapon production.
|
| American military planners knew that all well during the late
| cold war, and its pursuit of "smart weapons" was an attempt to
| substitute quality for quantity, and capitalise on American
| leadership in electronics. This paid out extremely well. Even
| first generation smart munitions were many times more efficient.
|
| After the Cold War, US peacetime military planning started to
| stagnate, and finally disappeared due to obsession with "special
| operations" during the War on Terror, and military procurement
| becoming a business like operation. By only allowing expensive
| toys winning procurement competitions, the military pigeonholed
| itself into extremely uncompetitive purchasing position.
|
| While USA has no rivals in arms exports for things like fighter
| jets, nearly no brand new weapon systems developed after year
| 2000 are bought by US allies. As you see even now, most bought US
| hardware today is still from the Cold War era, which is a proof
| of the above. Look at the super expensive titanium M777 howitzer:
| they wanted to restart its production recently, but... surprise!
| They have to buy its titanium from Russia. F35's titanium
| bulkheads are now turning into a similar issue.
|
| US electronics is no longer an edge for its military industry,
| and more likely a liability. What however the West can deny
| China, and Russia are high grade machine tools, and other
| implements for the heavy industry: modern Chinese steel industry
| was built by Dutch, car industry by Germans and Italians,
| materials by Japan, electronics assembly by Taiwanese, and heavy
| machinery by Koreans.
| yborg wrote:
| This points out the fact that ceding your technical manufacturing
| base to other countries, especially your possible enemies, is
| good way to lose geopolitical relevance in a hurry. The implicit
| assumption has always been that nuclear weapons trump everything,
| but realistically this only is useful if an enemy believes you
| are willing to invoke Armageddon to resolve a conflict. Is the US
| going to risk annihilation over Taiwan? If the answer is 'no',
| then relative conventional combat strength will determine the
| victor, and when your opponent owns your industrial base, you
| have already lost.
| [deleted]
| mormegil wrote:
| Yeah, this is basically the stability/instability paradox.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability%E2%80%93instability_...
| bell-cot wrote:
| For all the article's talk about military supply businesses
| closing down when the government isn't regularly buying enough,
| it fails to mention the long history of government-owned,
| government-operated armories and arsenals. Most major nations
| developed, maintained, and operated those, for _centuries_.
| Because staying ready to produce arms and ammunition - at scale,
| when needed - was always a poor fit for private industry.
|
| EDIT: Add one simple example - "The Springfield Armory, more
| formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at
| Springfield located in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts,
| was the primary center for the manufacture of United States
| military firearms from 1777 until its closing in 1968. It was the
| first federal armory and one of the first factories in the United
| States dedicated to the manufacture of weapons." (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_Armory )
| otikik wrote:
| > Luckily for the US, its gun culture ensured that small arms
| ammunition industry has a civilian component in the US. This is
| not the case with other types of ammunition, as shown earlier
| with Javelin and Stinger missiles
|
| I am trying to keep an open mind and see where this person is
| coming from, but I don't think "Luckily" is the right word to
| use. If I was feeling particularly charitable I would call it a
| "Mixed bag".
|
| It's a bit ridiculous, but imagine for a second if Javelin and
| Stinger missiles did have a civilian component.
|
| > If competition between autocracies and democracies has really
| entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must
| radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in
| wartime
|
| That is _one_ option, there are others. We could, for example,
| decide to take preventive economical measures against
| autocracies, and thus preventing them from capital they could use
| to build their own arsenal. Everyone having smaller arsenals is
| good for everyone (except the Military Industrial complex, of
| course).
| musingsole wrote:
| > imagine for a second if Javelin and Stinger missiles did have
| a civilian component.
|
| You mean if rocket clubs were free to pursue their interests to
| a much further extent than the toys they're restricted to now?
| Rockets don't always have to be weapons.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Not to mention fireworks show it can be a perfectly safe
| endeavor with the proper legal framework. Even kids can use
| them.
|
| No, I'm way more worried about the fact a terrorist could
| come at my door with a tank at any moment and I have no way
| to defend myself. And what if it's not a terrorist ? What if
| I have to defend myself against the state itself ?
|
| At least we should be able to equip the schools to protect
| our children, if not directly our homes.
| Arubis wrote:
| Maybe those rocket clubs would benefit (in the narrow,
| ignoring undesired side effects sense) by classifying their
| toys as munitions and seeking support from the NRA. I know
| there's folks that've wondered the same about protecting
| encryption via that path rather than by trying to classify it
| as protected speech.
|
| I can't say I love the priorities and values our current
| systems in the states represent.
| palmetieri2000 wrote:
| RE missiles and civilians (Non-US person here with a few
| questions):
|
| I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't
| allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd
| Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why
| aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so? How
| are the laws that allow the US gov to exclude citizens from
| owning these not 'un-constitutional'? I imagine the answer
| probably lies somewhere in the "too much risk for accidents or
| deliberate hostile use" territory.
|
| I hope this isn't inflammatory, not my intention, given what we
| continue to see re mass shootings, and the gun control
| proposals that happen afterwards it seems a bit like you have
| the worst of both worlds.
|
| Put differently, there are enough citizen firearms with enough
| firepower to facilitate individuals attacking soft targets with
| horrendous effect but not enough firearms or firepower for
| civilians to actually have any remotely likely potential of
| defeating a tyrannical US military (or even police force).
| lovich wrote:
| Contrary to much of modern political US discourse the
| founding fathers did not intend for the Constitution to be an
| immortal document treated as sacrosanct and inviolable.
|
| Thomas Jefferson[1] wanted the Constitution to be rewritten
| every 19 years as he did not believe future generations
| should be constrained by the limited understanding of the
| past. Given that past history, the government and it's
| various bodies didn't have a problem with banning weapons
| more powerful than the founders could have imagined from
| being in the hands of every civilian.
|
| What is probably confusing you is there is a long simmering
| but recently rapidly growing religion in the US[2] that does
| believe that the Constitution is sacred and cannot be
| altered, and have gained enough political and social power to
| treat it as such. If I recall correctly the United States is
| currently in the longest stretch between Constitutional
| amendments in its history, as a result of this
| political/religious movement
|
| [1] one of the more famous founding fathers and a major
| contributor to the writing of the Constitution
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion
| for the simmering portion and Q as the rapidly growing
| portion
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| You're ignoring the agreement made between the Federalist
| and Anti-Federalists, the latter led by none other hand
| Patrick Henry. The Bill of Rights was their price for
| accepting the Constitution, and nullifications of the
| former renders the whole compact null and void.
|
| Given that a case can be made for even the Third Amendment,
| no quartering of soldiers in people's dwellings being
| abrogated by the surveillance state....
|
| And is sure sounds like you think religion is a four letter
| word....
| sgjohnson wrote:
| They are allowed. It's just extremely difficult to acquire
| them. NFA is a bitch.
|
| And even if you could overcome the obstacle that the NFA is,
| you're unlikely to find a seller.
|
| The most a civilian can reasonably acquire is a 40mm grenade
| launcher & grenades for it. The caveat is that each
| individual grenade (and the launcher itself) would be an NFA
| item, so a $200 tax stamp.
|
| But yes, all of this should be unconstitutional.
| peyton wrote:
| What? You can own missiles. Fill out ATF 5320.4 and pay the
| tax stamp.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| If you're willing to go through the paperwork and pay for the
| appropriate permits it's possible to legally own a lot of
| highly dangerous equipment. I think the only weapons that
| cannot be legally owned by civilians through any means are
| things such as nukes and chemical weapons.
|
| Guns are probably a sufficient deterrent against tyranny. A
| hypothetical tyranical army is unlikely to just start bombing
| major cities and blindly killing civilians. Guns don't have
| to enable the citizens to win, they just have to raise the
| cost of victory high enough to not be worth attacking.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't
| allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd
| Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why
| aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so?
| How are the laws that allow the US gov to exclude citizens
| from owning these not 'un-constitutional'? I imagine the
| answer probably lies somewhere in the "too much risk for
| accidents or deliberate hostile use" territory.
|
| Because for much of the 20th century, the prevailing
| interpretation of the 2nd amendment differed from that. Even
| today, that interpretation is disputed.
|
| 1934 was when the first significant federal restriction on
| owning any sorts of weapons was introduced, and included
| restrictions on "destructive devices" which is what e.g. a
| javelin would be considered. These are _technically_ not
| banned federally, they must merely be registered (and you
| need a license to manufacture one). Many state laws have
| various rules about private ownership of explosives that
| would ban them though. For anything developed for the
| military, there are also state-secret rules that may prohibit
| some of these from being made generally available to the
| public as well (even when we know that the items are already
| in adversary 's hands).
|
| As far as being a check on the police, the Black Panther
| Party would (legally at the time) open carry shotguns while
| "observing" arrests made as a check on police brutality, and
| it's largely agreed that the banning of open-carry in
| California was a response to this. That being said, if it
| came down to "cops vs. non-cops" in most areas the non-cops
| are likely to win just due to sheer numbers.
|
| Sale of (new) fully-automatic weapons to civilians was not
| federally banned until 1986 (in what was an otherwise fairly
| pro-gun law).
| leetcrew wrote:
| not a constitutional scholar, so I can't answer that aspect
| of your question. I can at least give a "reasonable person"
| explanation though.
|
| it's not hard to teach someone to safely handle small arms. a
| responsible twelve year old can be trusted with them, as long
| as they have been taught four simple rules:
|
| 1. don't point gun at stuff you don't intend to shoot.
|
| 2. always treat gun as if it is loaded.
|
| 3. finger off trigger until ready to shoot.
|
| 4. know target and what's behind it.
|
| with small arms, understanding and following those rules
| diligently is enough to prevent virtually all _unintentional_
| injuries. they 're not hard to follow, but some people can be
| spectacularly irresponsible. I'll leave it as a debate for
| another time whether/when it is acceptable to _intentionally_
| injure other people.
|
| the same principles apply to "bigger" weapons, but become a
| lot harder for your average person to implement. what's a
| safe direction to point an anti-tank missile in? how do you
| ensure the safety of people downrange of your artillery piece
| that can hit targets 70 miles away? you obviously can't use
| any of these things in self-defense unless you're prepared to
| also delete your entire house.
|
| tl;dr: it's mostly fine for people to have small arms because
| it's easy to use them safely. it's not easy to teach someone
| how to safely use missiles, mortars, etc.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't
| allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd
| Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why
| aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so?
|
| That's because it isn't actually the fundamental purpose. It
| was written at a time where the country didn't have a
| permanent standing army. That's why the amendment starts with
| "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of
| a free State..."
| willcipriano wrote:
| ", the right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear Arms, shall not
| be infringed."
|
| You don't have to take my word for it, here is the latest
| from the supreme court:
|
| > "Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of
| communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern
| forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie,
| to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even
| those that were not in existence at the time of the
| founding."
|
| > "law-abiding citizen's right to armed self-defense."
|
| > "As we stated in Heller and repeated in McDonald,
| "individual self-defense is 'the central component' of the
| Second Amendment right.""
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's a different argument entirely.
|
| I'm not arguing against Heller. I'm saying the amendment
| exists because an armed populace was needed for national
| security, not overthrowing the government.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > security of a free State
|
| The arms are required to not only secure the State, but
| also keep it free.
| lovich wrote:
| You can't drop half the sentence and have the same
| meaning. The GP is right that the amendment started with
| a " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
| security of a free State..."
|
| You can drop that Supreme Court link but the Supreme
| Court is currently at one if it's lowest trust levels by
| the public on record and is assumed corrupt by a large
| portion of the populace due to the fuckery around seating
| the current Justices and the openly political manner in
| which their nomination was decided.
|
| The poster farther up the chain was asking about how we
| are in the current situation re missiles and that
| judgement had absolutely zero to do with it
|
| Edit: additionally even the section you linked from the
| amendment refers to the entity "The People" and not
| "citizens" or "people". There is the implicit assumption
| by the judicial system that the legislature meant what
| they put down and so the different terms refer to
| different entities. Something for "The People" is not
| automatically agreed by everyone to mean that each
| individual has the right
| willcipriano wrote:
| > You can't drop half the sentence and have the same
| meaning.
|
| My point entirely.
| lovich wrote:
| If it was you'd include the entirety of it. How does it
| being for "The People" work with "Necessary for a well
| regulated milita" in your mind? Does the word regulated
| not exist?
|
| Edit: as neither of us have put the full text, putting it
| here. In the course of getting the exact text I also
| learned that there are multiple versions of the bill of
| rights with different punctuation and capitalization(i.e.
| "The People" vs "the people") which adds even more
| confusion to the intent. It was not an amendment written
| clearly enough to convey the specific intent 250+ years
| in the future and there going to be disagreements about
| it.
|
| " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
| security of a free State, the right of the people to keep
| and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
| willcipriano wrote:
| The first part explains the reason for the second part.
| It's not prescriptive or actionable. Its like saying
| "When it is hot out, food spoils quickly, in our house we
| keep the milk in the fridge.", that doesn't mean it's ok
| to leave the milk out in the winter.
|
| The constitution is designed to be understood by the
| citizens who are subject to it. If you start to engage in
| word play you are almost certainly on the wrong track.
| Same goes for "charging a item with a crime and not a
| person", justifications for mass surveillance or
| limitations on press freedom or speech.
| lovich wrote:
| That is not the interpretation I or many others over
| literal hundreds hundreds of years of documented history
| believe.
|
| This is all besides the point though, I'm not here to
| argue about the specifics of the 2nd amendment and
| interpretations of each clause. The original poster asked
| how the US got in the situation with missiles not being
| in civilian hands based on what they currently knew of
| the US.
|
| The historical reasons behind that are the same whether
| or not they were made incorrectly
|
| > The constitution is designed to be understood by the
| citizens who are subject to it.
|
| Even if I were to accept this as truth, that went out the
| window when the slaves were freed and I do not accept
| this as true as you needed to be a white land owning
| male[1] in the original founding to even vote.
|
| There was zero expectation by the founders that everyone
| subject to the Constitution would be capable of
| interpreting it correctly. I would need to see some
| historical evidence before I could have my mind changed
| on that point
|
| [1] Some exceptions, they were all changed to remove the
| women's vote at some point up until women's suffrage was
| passed
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| "You can't drop half the sentence and have the same
| meaning."
|
| In a very technical sense, but if you understand what a
| subordinate clause means you'll know what can be dropped
| with changing the restriction on _everyone_ of the main
| clause.
|
| The technical sense comes from what the subordinate was
| politically achieving at that time, the Anti-Federalists
| were properly suspicious of standing armies and regulars,
| but the guys who actually got a reputation for the
| successful prosecution of the Revolutionary War starting
| with the indispensable man Washington knew the nation's
| defense could not entirely be left to militias.
| vt85 wrote:
| lovich wrote:
| Replying to vt85 who got flagged almost instantly.
|
| lol at the "socialist wait I mean democrat" comment.
|
| "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be
| surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be
| frustrated, by force if necessary"
|
| You should look up that quote and find the socialists
| view on arms. I have zero problems with weaponry and have
| shot since I was a child. The instant infantile reaction
| to the idea that not everyone has the same interpretation
| of an ambiguous sentence is honestly kind of a tiring
| knee jerk reaction to discussing the second amendment at
| all.
|
| If you are so concerned about weaponry go learn how to do
| some basic metal working and chemistry and you can
| manufacture all the weapons you want with hand tools even
| and the government won't be able to take the knowledge
| from you
| chillingeffect wrote:
| The only government it was ever concerned about was the
| British. The militia also maintained the slave state, which
| one reads between the lines is the eminent goal.
| [deleted]
| shemtay wrote:
| If memory serves correctly, after the famous mafia hit "St
| Valentine's Day Massacre" in Chicago with an at the time
| shocking body count of 7, civilian access to then state of
| the art machine guns was restricted, thus setting a
| precedent.
|
| EDIT: I don't think that really answers your question. The
| real answer is that, to a certain extent the words as written
| don't matter so long as enough voters and decision makers
| decide that they don't.
|
| Moreover it is considered a very right wing viewpoint here to
| say that the constitution should be enforced strictly as
| written or originally intended.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| And as a result our first post-WWII new and first General
| Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG, TL;DR: barrels are in field
| quick change consumables) was the awful M60.
|
| Now replaced by a couple of Belgium Fabrique Nationale (FN)
| models, they're a generally very competent company. Last
| time I checked they had the contract to make machine gun
| barrels and ran three hammer forges for this and other
| guns.
| 20after4 wrote:
| > not enough firearms or firepower for civilians to actually
| have any remotely likely potential of defeating a tyrannical
| US military (or even police force).
|
| This is exactly right. Government is not interested in
| protecting the rights of it's citizens, especially a right to
| that would be in direct conflict with the government's own
| interests.
|
| Individuals with guns pose little threat to the power of a
| government heavily armed with powerful military weapons and
| armored vehicles. Of course, the second amendment was written
| in a time when none of that existed yet.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Sorry 2nd amendment-hating missle-grabbers: the only way to
| stop a bad guy with a T72 is a good guy with a Javelin*
|
| * or NLAW, Stugna, AT4, Carl Gustaf, general air superiority,
| etc.
|
| /s
| lazide wrote:
| Man, can you imagine range days with a Carl Gustaf recoilless
| rifle?
|
| I can feel the noise ordinances from here!
| kornhole wrote:
| A for profit weapons industry and a for profit health care
| industry create other problems such as more war and more sick
| and indebted citizens.
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