None of the latter you mentioned are constitutional rights like firearms are, you're trying to equate firearms to a beer but they aren't the same thing. People in Ukraine are fighting Russia with firearms, civilians have taken up arms over there as if to prove the point and are successfully resisting an attempt to force a tyrannical government on them and remove their democratic rights.
Today's mass shooting in the US
- Thread starter Rroff
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None of the latter you mentioned are constitutional rights like firearms are, you're trying to equate firearms to a beer but they aren't the same thing. People in Ukraine are fighting Russia with firearms, civilians have taken up arms over there as if to prove the point and are successfully resisting an attempt to force a tyrannical government on them and remove their democratic rights.
They aren't fighting back with registered firearms that they legally own, they're fighting back with government-provided anti-tank missiles and other arms. This literally the opposite of the reasoning behind "a well-armed militia".
There are less than 900,000 registered guns in Ukraine, about a 2% ownership rate.
Caporegime
Nonsense. The number of civilians fighting in Ukraine is so small as to be statistically insignificant. All the real fighting is being done by trained, professional soldiers armed to the teeth with the latest military hardware.
So no, the Ukraine conflict does not prove the point at all. What it does prove is that if you want to resist a tyrannical government—whether foreign or domestic—you will need a professional army. A bunch of untrained civilians won't cut it.
It isn't just about funding but whole culture and approach to it. It certainly wouldn't solve the situation but there are things which could be done in that respect which would have a non-negligible impact on the frequency of firearms related incidents. Along with other measures it could bring incident frequency done significantly but again can't eliminate it.
While they are avoiding having untrained personnel in combat where possible in a lot of the smaller towns, etc. security forces (police for instance) mixed with armed civilians are holding the line. IIRC there is something like ~17K armed civilians* and 25 brigades (~3000 personnel each) of territorial forces deployed to combat roles as well as professional soldiers from the main armed forces and other entities like border patrol (somewhere in excess of 200K). That isn't including those in support roles or held in reserve.
EDIT: Also almost all the videos you see of combat from Ukraine's POV are territorial forces not regular soldiers - anyone wearing a yellow or blue armband is almost certainly volunteer/territorial forces and likely were working a normal job at the start of 2022.
* AFAIK most of these will be moved into the territorial forces where appropriate - they are being told to form units and choose a commander and put themselves under the command of the Territorial forces.
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In a scenario where Ukraine had no professional army, say 1-2 million armed civilians with little to no anti-tank or anti-air weapons, limited external support mostly black market style stuff of ad hoc shipments of 10s of thousands of rounds of ammo now and again then most of the population centres would have fallen, Kyiv would have turned into a larger scale version of Mariupol with around 3 months of brutal street fighting until supplies ran out, destroying most of the city, Russia would be solidifying their position in population centres and strategic positions and starting to push out their control over a wider part of the country. In a few months there would be little but sporadic insurgencies going on.
This is not the same situation for the US however, the Russian industrial and maintenance efforts would be out of reach of the Ukrainians, the US military would be starting from a position of integration with the population with bases and equipment widely spread out within the population and with far more mixed allegiances and so on.
This is not the same situation for the US however, the Russian industrial and maintenance efforts would be out of reach of the Ukrainians, the US military would be starting from a position of integration with the population with bases and equipment widely spread out within the population and with far more mixed allegiances and so on.
Caporegime
The armed civilians are equipped with military grade weapons, they are led by trained professionals, and they received basic military training in school. Their role consists of holding the line in small urban skirmishes, nothing more. They are not the reason Russia is losing. Credit for that goes to the Ukrainian army.
Meanwhile, here's some guy claiming that the AR-15 is not a military grade weapon, and that only a fool would take one into combat. Apparently nobody told him that the AR-15 was originally marketed to the US military as a replacement for the M-14. It was enthusiastically embraced by US forces during the Vietnam War, and formally adopted as an infantry weapon in 1963, when it was rebadged as the M16.
Do you have any evidence for that statement? Grunt work isn’t sexy like a NLAWS destroying a tank.
And I suppose the people of Afghanistan were trained soldiers too.
I lived in LA for a while, and honestly... I've never seen anything like it, it was like somebody had opened the doors to a mental asylum and let them roam around, it was just normal to have lunatics blathering and shambling around outside all day and all night long.*
The problem in the US isn't really the lack of funding, it's that if you're ill, need help / medication and don't have any money / a job, you get literally nothing... Nowhere to live, no support or medical treatment, you get literally nothing.
You're essentially on the streets.
Granted, LA is a special case as it's warm all year round, so people can sleep outside and not freeze - so it does attract higher numbers of homeless and crazy people, but it's still a real eye opener
Latest military hardware is a bit of a stretch - your average armour brigade in Ukraine consists of T-64 tanks, BMP-2s accompanied by 1970s era self-propelled artillery, Grads, etc. and AK pattern rifles if they've not sourced their own gun.
I was more referring to the 'number of civilians fighting in Ukraine is so small as to be statistically insignificant' bit. Tanks etc are sexy; gruntwork is not, but it's vital. At some point you need boots on the ground.
Soldato
You think Afghans that have been in constant war and in fighting are at the same level as a Ukrainian citizen or some fat American with an AR? Good grief.
America needs to change. An 18 year can’t drink at a pup but can go and buy guns and ammo. What a backward messed up couldn’t.
Caporegime
Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons provided by the West, including but not limited to:
* Stingers
* Javelins
* Gepard anti-aircraft tanks
* howitzers
* Switchblade attack drones
* Phoenix Ghost tactical drones
* Puma unmanned aerial systems
* unmanned coastal defence vessels
* laser guided weapon systems
* M113 APCs
Sure, some of this stuff is over a decade old, but some of it is very recent.
What an utterly stupid and ignorant statement.
A mate was the MD of an American site of a British company somewhere around the year 2000. They were over the road from a school. Long story short, the school was so poorly funded they didn't have basic things like rulers or desks, let alone computers. Books were notably absent. Can you imagine a school that lacked rulers and books? Can you imagine how difficult it must have been to teach? He decided that his site needed a full refurb, with all the old stuff going to the school. Naturally this vastly improved the education of the pupils and their educational achievements skyrocketed.
Caporegime
I don't have a source for the total number of Ukrainian civilians who have become voluntary soldiers, but it seems to me that if this number was significant, it would not be difficult to find. If you have a solid figure, I'll be interested to see it.
Ukraine has compulsory military service, so every male civilian above the age of 18 has completed at least one year of military training, which means we're not talking about random numpties off the street who've never seen a rifle before. Moreover, news reports have noted that many of the Ukrainian civilians who've volunteered to fight are army veterans.
They were. In the first Afghan war, mujahideen were a well trained militia group consisting of local and foreign fighters, properly trained and well equipped by Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, the US, and the UK. They enjoyed the advantage of superior American military hardware (particularly the hand launched Stinger missiles, which were able to take down helicopters).
In the second Afghan war, the Taliban enjoyed direct financial and military support from Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Their forces were also bolstered by foreign militias and terrorist groups, including Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, the Islamic Jihad Union, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Turkistan Islamic Party Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Islam, and Al Qaeda.
The mythical civilian army consisting of untrained patriots who can just pick up their hunting rifle and start wiping out hordes of enemy soldiers, is exactly that: a myth.
America has 17 million veterans, probably the highest number of civilians with previous military experience in the world lol
You made the claim, so it's up to you to prove it.
No, they were not. The Afghans are warriors, not soldiers. There's a difference. As for 'well-trained', I've been told that the Afghan attitude to training, particularly discipline, was... interesting. That said, they succeeded.
Ukraine had compulsory military service. That ended nearly a decade ago. I expect they've reinstated it.
Permabanned
My wife, recently retired as a director of a medical company, is going through her "charitable and good works" stage, just when the horrors of having a menopausal woman around had passed.
She's now doing part time teaching assistant work in local schools and assures me that we too have swathes of ill educated, rude and feckless kids in the education system. Her first "school day" had some little sod asking her for a blow job... The most effective response of a belt round the ear is denied her, and other teachers said you just get inured to it.
She always thought my opinion of the lack of work ethics and political neutrality of modern teachers was OTT, but she seems to be coming around to my way of thinking
The bigger urban schools seem to have a lot of 11 year olds with the reading and writing skills of 7 year olds. The smaller to tiny country schools fare much better, especially those with 15 or less in a class. She reckons many of the 11 plus year olds in urban schools are dead wood already, educationally, and likely future unemployable outside of menial work that they seem in no desire to contemplate. Lack of discipline is one of the biggest issues, which for some reason seemed to surprise her.I suspect large areas of the US education system face similar issues. I would imagine a comparison with Japan would be saddening and embarrassing.