First, let me say I love the idea of the 2nd amendment: that a responsible, community-minded citizenry could deter, by implicit threat of armed insurrection, the threat of federal tyranny. In 1790, when a few hundred civilians, armed with single-shot, hand-loaded muskets, could plausibly face off against a portion of a (similarly equipped) national army, that idea was actually valid. Except for horse-drawn cannons, the forces would be militarily even.
Today, any mass insurrection would face helicopter gunships that can kill, day or night, from a mile away. The US military has night vision/heat sensing eyewear, rocket-propelled grenades, tanks, ground-attack aircraft, bombers, and comprehensive communication. Aerial drones provide real-time information and can fire missiles. No small arms, not even automatic rifles, would make open, direct conflict survivable.
More viable tactics for a modern anti-federal resistance would be those used in Iraq against the US: sniping from a distance and remote-triggered explosives--tactics intended to pin down and hamper an invading force. Large-caliber, bolt-action scoped hunting rifles are the useful weapons in such a scenario, since they allow accurate attack from well-hidden positions.
But there are no gun control advocates calling for a ban of bolt-action hunting rifles. Conversely, even the NRA doesn't advocate legalization of C-4, Stinger missiles, or RPGs for civilian use. So the modern pro-gun "patriot" obsession with semi-automatic rifles and handguns is based purely on fears of imaginary threats, and on heroic but unrealistic paramilitary fantasies. Those fantasies are encouraged by the NRA. But make no mistake, the NRA is a gun manufacturer's lobby. Their purpose is to sell guns, not protect liberty.
In 1790, a major threat to personal freedom was indeed tyrannical federal government. In 2013, the major threats to your personal freedom are your employer (who can fire you at will), your bank (witness the recent BoA settlement over fraudulent foreclosures), a health insurance system that leaves many just a back injury away from financial ruin, and an economy biased toward massive corporations who write their own laws. The threats to your personal safety are an industrial food production and marketing system that leads to heart attacks; environmental hazards that cause cancer; and your fellow citizens driving while drunk or chatting on their cell phones.
Interestingly, these real problems can only be addressed politically, by collective activism; none are solvable by armed confrontation. I wish the world were still that simple, but it isn't.
John Hover
East Setauket
January 21, 2013
Letter to the editor of the Village Times Herald, Stony Brook NY
