" 10 MINUTES! "
You see your stick leader mouth the words and hold up all ten fingers. No need to get antsy yet. Plenty of time left. As the bird speeds along its course towards the target, you have nothing to do but listen to the high-pitched whine from the rotors and think...
Are they actually armed?
Will they be waiting for us?
How trained are they?
How willing to fight are they?
You can gather intelligence from people and aerial photos all you'd like, but once you get on the ground, the picture is almost always different than what you expect. When your intelligence sources separately confirm 'these guys are known to carry firearms at all times and have fought before', your ears perk up.
You know you're not simply dealing with a local looking for ways to make some money to feed his family. There are true believers on your designated target. The plan just got far more complex.
Back in your head, you notice the word goes out to the stick leader listening over headphones patched into the pilot communication channel: ONE MINUTE
The anxiety rises slightly as your limbs loosen. Time slows a bit. Cycle the plan in your head. Pray they're not armed and wanting to fight... THIRTY SECONDS
Everyone is vibrating subtly with a nervous energy, waiting for wheels to touch and move quickly out of the back of the bird.
You never quite know what to expect when you finally get your boots on the ground. All you can do is hope and pray that if anyone greets you below, they're not interested in a fight.
Argument: Wide-scale, anonymous, private ownership of firearms makes open warfare less likely.
A maxim all privates in the American infantry learn is the "3 to 1 rule". What this means is, if you don't have 3-to-1 odds in a fight, don't attack. Save your strength and fight another day. Sun Tzu advised to not start a fight unless you know you've already won.
Criminals tend to do this naturally, because it is natural. The thought of getting in a fight is scary for anyone with a pulse, but made less scary if you have friends. Particularly if your friends are bigger, more numerous, and/or better trained than your prey.
For anyone with a shred of tactical and strategic experience, it should be apparent that introducing 'hot bits metal zipping around at high-velocity' can, and often does, change the dynamics of any environment. Interestingly, they make factors like 'size and strength' of opposition less important.
Postulate: Firearms are an equalizer.
With firearms in the mix, any entity capable of creating a plan that involves forcibly threatening or imposing themselves on another person, must take into consideration the possibility of private ownership of firearm(s). Why? Because getting shot fucking hurts, of course. And it can make you dead, which renders planning after that point irrelevant or more challenging.
Might, in its traditional sense of physical strength, is made 'less right'. What matters now is if you're bringing a knife or words to a gun fight.
For evidence, I submit to you Exhibit A:
Fun 80s cinema references aside, firearms and shrapnel-based explosive devices have been around for over a millennium and have, unsurprisingly, changed the dynamics of warfare rapidly. Firearms are not 'new', but they are 'game-changing'... a paradigm shift... whatever other generic synonyms like that you can think of.
Postulate: From the perspective of an enemy planner, the presence of firearms changes tactical and logistical considerations.
Now add in some components of the American 2nd Amendment, and you have some more interesting dynamics that develop:
- relative anonymous ownership makes search and seizure that much more complex and planning for operations that much more unknown
- embedded, highly trained and armed former professional military and law enforcement personnel scattered throughout the country who speak the native language and are held with relatively high levels of respect from the average population
- wide-reaching existing industry of firearm production and logistics established within country make interdiction of the supply chain more complex
- relatively high levels of firearm and ammunition production and maintenance knowledge among population
What all of this adds up to, from the perspective of an aspiring enemy, makes for a strategic fucking nightmare. Trying to come at an armed population like Americas from any conventional sense is absolutely idiotic and would only lead to a bloody stalemate at best. More likely, it would be like kicking a hornets nest while trying to get a piggy-back ride from a silver-back gorilla.
Makes the asymmetric, unconventional approaches far more appealing, eh? Asymmetric like shootings in public places. Unconventional like shootings in 'gun-free zones'.
But that's another topic for another time.
I know gun control is a hot topic, and a lot of emotions are running high, but my friend asked me a question today and it made me think a lot about gun laws.
When was the last mass shooting that happened in a Shooting Range, Gun Show or Gun Store?
Good point.
An armed society is a polite society!
Many years ago I was at a gun show, and actually witnessed (2) gentlemen with Aryan tattoo's on them talking to and even passing over a carbine to (3) gentlemen of African heritage wearing blue bandanna.... and to coin the adage from Pulp Fiction: They were all just like Fonzy!
Needless to say, that didn't make me feel real comfortable, so I meandered my way away from the table. But there were no signs of attitude from either party.
Hello @blakemiles84, very interesting post! You know what would be a slick idea; seeing as how Steemit has their quasi-censorship flagging tool.
What I think would be cool, if they refuse to outright get rid of it. Is turn it into an equal powered weapon, that can be used only once a day. Once a day, you could slay another persons post as it does now.
But if you do that, then you run the risk that they might do the exact same thing to your post. Like one of those wild wild west walk ten paces, turn and shoot deals.
Or like the stinger of a bumble bee, you can use it once, but then your done flagging, for the whole day.
It would be a good deterrent against abuse. I'm sure their are probably flaws with that idea too, but the whole idea would be an armed Steemit community, is a polite Steemit community.
Thanks again for your help!
Additional rules for that idea would be:
Others can sacrifice their bullet, to resurrect a post,
and value pegging should be removed entirely.
LOL, I should try to pass this idea along to the guy who keeps cracking me with his whack-a-mole bat.
Thanks again for your help, Steemit can get really disappointing when the soft-censorship trolls come out.
Well, this has been a challenge since the beginning. Balancing rewards and punishment is a tough one, given its subjective and emotional.
To be honest, what bothers me the most is why @sneak decided to flag your post. If he was a mod on Twitter, he would be shadowbanning political speech he disagrees with. Fortunately, he doesn't have the power to take it further, though he does have 100k+ SP delegated to him, which is concerning, particularly if its delegated from official Steem channels. Thats a major red flag that needs to be addressed.
Banning politically distasteful speech this early in the platform is a cancer and it needs to be cut the fuck out right now before this platform really sees some pressure being applied. We're still relatively under the radar given the numbers on Alexa. Only a matter of time before bigger players start making splashes that challenge the norms that are in place.
You're goddamn right! - Here's my little thought experiment, it's probably not a fool proof scheme, but it sure would be more fun, and less grimy than what's going on now.
Cyber Dueling in Lieu of Post Flagging?
"This is my boomstick! Shop smart, shop S-mart" I love that movie! Well thought out article, a good illustration of the important impact the 2nd amendment has had here in the USA, and why the future looks to be bumpy.
Love that indiana jones clip lol gets me every time!
Intresting...im will be waiting for ur nexr post. That would be probably the next part of this post. Good luck .
very intresting post.. thanks for your post sharing..
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This may be relevant 50 years ago but the average person with guns isn't going to do shit against cyber warfare, drones and long range missile attacks.
You can use cyber warfare, drones, and long range missiles all you want, but eventually any control requires physical presence of enforcers.
Regardless, did you read the part where I said the presence of firearms changes the calculus of strategic options? ie. the underlying point of what I wrote?
And yet @crispycoinboys the Vietnamese "did shit" against the might of the US....the Afghans "did shit" against the might of the Russians. Neither of those situations was in their own country.....as such, they had little compunction in using heavier weapon systems. It would take EXTREME situations for our government to use certain weapons systems within it's own borders.
As pointed out, at the end of the day you need bodies on the ground to hold said ground. It's Unconventional Warfare 101, or the newly popular term of Asymmetrical Warfare. ANY missiles aren't going to be flying....Cyber warfare isn't much of a consideration if the smaller force knows it's happening....drones are problematic but can be dealt with, and the average person can use them as well.
It's not as far fetched as people believe and the point was....firearms changed that dynamic, from small to large situations.
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