Actually, yes I do. Do not forget, roughly 10% of civilians are Veterans. It does not take a great deal of people to make things very problematic for an invading army. I am not saying they would win, but they would make things very difficult for them. Think the French Resistance. Think the Polish Resistance. Think of the initial insurgents in Iraq. Thing the Mujahedeen in the first years of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Hell, think of the early Colonial forces here in the United States. Do you think they were all trained military people? If so, you are deluding yourself. Your problem is that for some reason you are resorting to the assumption that they would band together in an "army" and fight them conventionally. That is a very foolish thing to be thinking of, with all of the examples of guerrilla fighting available to you. And I did not say a word about providing hard figures on casualties, I said I could provide hard numbers on how long it would take the "US Military" to respond. It will take weeks at best. At most, of the entire US Marine Corps, you have 2 Battalions ready to move within 12 hours, 2 Regiments ready to move within 3 days. And the Army all combined could add maybe another 2 Regiments within the same 3 days. Leaving a force of roughly 1 Division. And that is only counting the Infantry and direct support personnel themselves, I am not including any kind of transportation that would be needed to get them to where they need to go (of the Marines, 1 Regiment would be near San Diego, the other in North Carolina). The nearest Army post which could provide maybe 2 Battalions is way up near Seattle. The next closest is probably about a Regiment combined from various posts in Texas. So yes, a force of "American Insurgents" could do quite a bit until the "regulars" show up.
It always amazes me how little people think they know of how not only the military works, but insurgencies. Especially when their only knowledge tends to come from bad movies. Let's start with past examples. Originally it was only about 100,000 strong, primarily composed of French Army veterans, a lot from the Great War. But this grew, as the veterans trained others, then they trained others. By June 1944 there were almost 1 million of them. Now by themselves, they were actually of very little help. But the help they did provide is without value. Rescuing air crews shot down over France and smuggling them back to England, providing intelligence, destroying bridges and railroad lines to complicate internal logistics for the Germans, raiding supply depots to take what they needed and destroying the rest. As a fighting force they actually provided very little. But the work they did caused the Germans to involve over 3 million men in trying to hunt them down. And there are other examples. The Polish Resistance, the Mujahedeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Viet Minh and Viet Cong forces in French Indochina then Vietnam, even the American Colonial Army were nothing but farm boys with rifles in the early days. Now let me take this a bit further. Roughly 10% of the American population are Veterans. And with a population of 2.5 million in the Portland metro area, that means around 250,000 veterans. Assume that 10% of those were in the "Combat Arms" and not simply cooks and mechanics, that means 25,000 have combat training. Not the bad start for an underground movement. Now let's go further, who are going to be the first forces sent in to try and take back Portland? Well, the same forces we have sent in since Vietnam, the members of the Special Warfare community. SEALs, Force Recon, and Green Berets. And figure of the combat veterans, at least 10% will be made up of former members of this group, 2,500 of the Special Warfare community. And hell, they already have their own loose organization in place. Specifically VFW and American Legion posts. Already existent cells to operate out of covertly, where the members are known to each other. Smuggle in a couple current operators to stay with an old buddy, and you have a 2 way operation sending in support and advice, smuggling out intelligence. And do not forget, the rest of the veterans can train others. People like me. 10 years Marine Infantry, Jungle Warfare School graduate (where we were trained in things like irregular operations), and former instructor at the Marine Corps Security Force School. Does anybody doubt that I could train say 10 individuals? Or that they could train 10 more? Jester's problem is that he is thinking that they would band together to form an army and try to fight the invader on the street. That is now how it would happen. Like most civilians, they would hide and try to get through the invasion alive. But afterwards you will see them start to organize and resist. Reaching out to old buddies who they served with then helping others come into the area. And most of us would probably be smart to try and hide in the aftermath of war. Myself, one of the first things I would do is find a body that looks enough like me to assume it's identity, casting my real identity away. They might be able to tie my real identity to my military and gun records, but if I am suddenly Kevin Jones, a 48 year old who never rose above pizza delivery and cart collector at WallMart, what danger am I? I am a nobody, hiding in a refugee crowd trying to get by as I look for my fictional daughter. Guerrilla warfare is a brutally Darwinian affair. However, it also has to be remembered that there is probably no nation on the planet with more Veterans living among the general population. And pick any potential invader, how many of them do you think have any kind of combat experience? Odds are the pool of veterans would actually have more experience then the invaders, juts not the supplies and organization. But they can prepare things for the real counter-attack.
Mushroom, Don't forget about Fort Bliss and Fort Sims in El Paso. That place is huge and is at the Western tip of the TX/NM/Mexico border. They could be half way across NM in 2 hours.
I could hardly forget Fort Bliss, it was my home for 5 years after all. However, this is a base for Air Defense and Armor, not Infantry. And no, they could not be "half way across NM in 2 hours". Trust me, I have done convoys from Fort Bliss to Yuma, Arizona. That is a long 2 day trek in military convoys. And none of the units there are kept on any kind of "alert status" like Infantry is, because tankers without their tanks are pretty worthless. To give an idea, prior to any of our convoys to Yuma, we spent 2 weeks or so preparing our vehicles and assembling the required supplies to make the trip (especially hiring civilian trucking companies to haul the trucks which failed on the way), fuel tankers, and the locations to refuel the fuel tankers. Military equipment requires a huge amount of fuel. But just because a base is "huge" does not mean it has a lot of personnel, or the right kind of personnel. Fort Bliss as I said is Air Defense, PATRIOT missiles are not going to be of much use in dislodging a force from the US. And it would take weeks to assemble the required rail stock and transport all of the tanks and equipment of the 1st AD to a location they could make an attack from. But please, what is "Fort Sims"? I know further East at Fort Sam Houston (San Antonio) you have a lot of support personnel that would be needed (engineers, medical personnel, MPs, etc). And at Fort Hood (Austin) you have the Cavalry and Artillery units that would be needed by the 4th ID (Fort Carson, CO).
Fort Sims is attached to Fort Bliss and Biggs Airfield. The DEA has a super secret compound there, It took me weeks to get the security clearance to get in there and I was in the Texas ANG and had just left AD Air Force at the time. That was 18 years ago.
Then it really does not count. You also have White Sands and McGregor Range complex, but no real units assigned to either one. And if it is DEA, then it is not military at all.
The simple version is that gun lovers in the US, refuse to love their republic as much as they claim to love their guns.
I'm English dear chap. That this forum allows your type of immaturity isn't dandy. On the bright side you do make a great poster child for the gun lobby. Everyone has their place!
and from the sound of it, yours is hiding behind some old woman's skirt.....IMOH, you might number among those who voted against independence
What's really naïve is for someone to think soldiers are so mindless that they would massacre a bunch of brothers, sisters, grandpas, grannies, sons and daughters. That is illogical thinking at it's worst. The government and wanna be dictators are different than the military bub!
Mrs. Reiver: I am terribly horny, would you make love to me? Mr. Reiver: My dear, if you can find an empirical study that proves I should, I would be glad to oblige.
If we completely brush aside the inherent natural rights of the individual, what rights are there? Whatever those in the government decide to give?
A question based on a nonsense question? Grow up! Gun control has always existed and talking about natural rights when gun ownership leads to crime victims is just inane
When a dictator comes to power, one of the things they do is start weeding out those in authority, so that only psychopaths who would unquestionably carry out any order are left. Then they form special squads to carry out the dirty work, if anyone expresses any reservations about what they are being ordered to do, they are simply reassigned somewhere else to routine tasks. These people's entire careers and livelihoods, not to mention retirement benefits, hang in the balance. If they don't do their job, they could lose their house, will not be able to provide for their family.
Not always. You seem to believe the government is within it's moral rights to pass whatever laws it is felt may be beneficial for society. Not everyone agrees with that. Gun ownership does not itself lead to crime. It still takes a bad person to do something bad.
That can not be stressed enough. I have owned a weapon for decades, as has my father, my mother, all 3 of my uncles, 1 of my children, and more cousins then I can recount. And not one of us has ever used our weapons in an illegal manner. In fact, I have never been threatened with a firearm either (outside of military experience - not relevant), nor have I been hurt with one. But I have been seriously injured and hospitalized on multiple occasions by people driving automobiles.
And if "criminals" have guns, is that so bad? Most of these criminals really commit rather low-level non-violent crimes, it's not like they are out there looking to shoot innocent people. Many of them just have a gun for their own protection. When someone is involved in an underground black market, there's all sorts of people one can run into...
individualism? really? You accuse me of being from a herd mentality, you (socialist:/collectivist) are preaching to me about my Rights? define individualism.............you're going to have to exclude yourself. You don't count OR matter in our concerns.
That you'd question the term is revealing. This is progress. Bit like an alcoholic admitting that his vodka jellies aren't a valid third course mind you
We are allowed to make our own individual choices on how we protect our family. Some of us choose to use guns and some of us don't. You are the people who followed the herd to eliminate that option for your people. Follow your shepherd rulers.
