Counter Point
The Anti’s often find it unimaginable that a “bunch of rednecks” would be able to stand up to a goverment if that government became tyrannical as they sometimes do. While perusing the History Channel poll discussions on the most important Right (2nd Amendment at 65%) I found this quote that says a lot about capabilities that should make some people take note:
Now lets do some math. Our current military is comprised of what, 1-2 million? Most of which are deployed somewhere around the world. There are currently around 40 – 60 million KNOWN gun owners in the country which own around 250 million firearms. And I won’t even count the title 3 weapons. Now, if there were to be a confrontation, how many of the 1-2 million military personel are going to go to war on their own people, 50% maybe? For the sake of argument I’ll give you 80%. That’s only 800,000 to 1.6 million, and not all of them are combat troops remember. Now if only 20% of the general population took up arms we’re talking 50 million people and there are more than enough weapons available to arm all of them. And remember, every time a soldier is taken down he may loose his weapon adding state of the art weapons to the people. So, do you think a military force of 1.6 million would have a problem against even an untrained force of 50 million motivated people that are armed? Any military commander with combat experience will tell you that it wouldn’t have a chance without resorting to the use of WMD.
(See entire thread)
It is also worth noting that one of the most feared combatants on the battlefield is the sniper. A 30-06 hunting rifle can reach its target at twice the effective range of the current issue infantry rifle of most countries.