Mass Public Shootings

[Hua Guofang]

PS - China doesn't have the logistical capacity to get the troops and material to Australia to even consider a full scale invasion.

 

So yes, Australia could stop China from doing whatever it wanted to.

[Mercer]

Nothing could possibly ever go wrong in the far, and especially near future, got it.

 

https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2155565/trade-wars-cause-world-wars-history-shows-will

[abrasivesaint]

28 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Nothing could possibly ever go wrong in the far, and especially near future, got it.

 

https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2155565/trade-wars-cause-world-wars-history-shows-will

He spelled Pearl Harbor “Pearl Harbour,” so i’m classifying this as fake news. 

[Hua Guofang]

@MercerIf all you've got is sarcasm and a propaganda piece written in a 'Beijing owned' rag, I'm not overly convinced by your argument.

 

War with China is most definitely a highly plausible outcome, I'm the last to say that's not going to happen. But China can't even unify an island of its own coast, how the fuck is it going to invade and occupy a continent in another hemisphere??!!

 

China can spend a few billion dollars buying up mines and gas deposits, infiltrate Australian politics and society and develop over-reliance on the Chinese export market or it can spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on military conquest that will see other vulnerable countries band together so they don't suffer a similar fate..., all with the risk that they won't succeed.

 

Update yourself with the way China does things with the reports/research/reading below:

 

 

Australia's reliance on Chinese markets:

 

http://chinamatters.org.au/policy-brief-/policy-brief-august-edition

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-15/china-economy-slowdown-will-affect-australia/10716240

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australias-booming-trade-with-china-will-shape-strategic-policy/

 

 

China's use of market access for political coercion:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/21/chinese-port-bans-imports-of-australian-coal-sending-dollar-tumbling

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-wine-shipments-held-up-at-chinese-ports-amid-political-tensions-report-20180615-p4zloj.html

https://www.cnbc.com/id/39318826

https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/chinas-use-of-coercive-economic-measures

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/072418_Blumenthal_Testimony.pdf

 

 

Chinese agents infiltrate political parties, media and social organisations in Australia and New Zealand in effort to support pro-China policies and sentiment (google the United Work Front Department):

 

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/dastyari-icac-and-the-chinese-agent-of-influence-20190829-p52m6e.html

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/political-donor-chau-chak-wing-behind-un-bribe-scandal-parliament-told-20180522-p4zgs5.html

https://www.afr.com/opinion/chinas-influence-in-australia-is-not-ordinary-soft-power-20170606-gwli1m

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/long-reach-Chinas-united-front-work

https://theconversation.com/inside-chinas-vast-influence-network-how-it-works-and-its-reach-in-australia-119174

https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/inside-the-enigmatic-world-of-chau-chak-wing-20180614-h11djw

Whole book written on the covert networks to influence Australia - https://theconversation.com/book-review-clive-hamiltons-silent-invasion-chinas-influence-in-australia-93650

 

Specific details of CCP and UWF members and affiliates infiltrating New Zealand parliament and politics (including former spy trainer for PLA university):

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/magic-weapons-chinas-political-influence-activities-under-xi-jinping

Person who did that research blocked from submitting to parliament by committee led by one of the accused:

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/03/08/477641/brady-blocked-from-appearing-before-justice-committee

 

Australia even created a new law to push back against Chinese infiltration:

https://www.ag.gov.au/Integrity/foreign-influence-transparency-scheme/Pages/default.aspx

 

 

 

I do this exact stuff for a job, man (as well as being an ex-soldier), I wrote my thesis on Chinese military and diplomatic strategy. Wars aren't won by an untrained populace armed with a couple of gats. In terms of China V Australia, at least, it's the stuff of fantasy.

 

 

 

.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Hua Guofang

[Hua Guofang]

1 hour ago, abrasivesaint said:

He spelled Pearl Harbor “Pearl Harbour,” so i’m classifying this as fake news. 

I also struggle to see how anything in that article relates to the idea of China invading and occupying Australia.

 

Secondly, SCMP is owned by mainland interests, which come under the legal jurisdiction of the Publicity Dept. of China (otherwise known as the propaganda Dept). That article is very clearly propaganda messaging that the US trade war is dangerous and could get out of control. Citing Chinese media as an authoritative source is pretty fucking gutsy, to say the least.

 

Lastly, this:

 

Trade wars stoke nationalism and hatred among people and finally trigger wars, as evidenced by the breakout of the second world war: the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, and the whole of China in 1937; the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, then the rest of Europe; and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941.

 

Fucking serious? The Second World War happened because a trade war spiraled out of control?! Do I really have to go into the level of fucking idiocy in that statement?

[misteraven]

9 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

I'm probably missing your point but you say it's impossible to compare but then you compare London to NYC.

Right and each time I say its not really a valid comparison. I put it out there because it inevitably gets compared, but reality is we can go back and forth endlessly doing this and never reach a conclusion most would agree to or we'd have done so already. I believe it's invalid for this reason and just another bit of low hanging fruit to avoid having to look at the deeper issues and circumstance that I believe sit at the heart of it. Ultimately I do not think there is a solution to the problem. I believe evil will always exist and it'll find new ways to manifest. I just hope that when it presents, I'm in a position to have a fighting chance.

 

9 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

@misteraven- this is the part that I have a problem with - All gun violence combined doesn't even make the top 10 of what preventable deaths in America

 

This approach suggests that it's all about numbers - more people die doing this than die doing that. I think that reduces the situation to its most simplest form and misses a big part of the picture. It's just like saying "guns are the whole of the problem", whilst ignoring cultural issues, economic problems, drugs, whatever.

 

As I mentioned above, there is a reason why society responds disproportionately to mass shootings and terror attacks. It's not because of how many people are killed, it's because they are a deliberate attack, often meant to harm society as a whole, not just the people that get hit with bullets. Crime is similar, because it's (theoretically) a break down of order and stability. But mass shootings/terror are different because they come with the propaganda of the deed, they are designed to disrupt society as a whole, the viewers of the act are as much of a target as the victims of the bullets. With that being the case, the body count doesn't tell the whole story.

I think you're completely incorrect here. Your statement seems to come from a position that all involved are altruistic and just wants what is best. Its my belief that both sides of the debate are agenda driven and that the key voices in the debate are looking out for for other interests well beyond just trying to save people. Society responds to whatever they're directed to respond to. Sometimes it's racism, either times its classism, we've also seen ebola, muslim extremism, domestic terrorism, russian interference, etc, etc. The gun debate, has been an ongoing talking point because its been positioned to be that, as pointed out above in one of those charts of MSM coverage. It's an absolute non-issue in the grand scheme of things. Literally less than a fraction of 1% of the population with the emphasis being on banning a weapon that is only a fraction of that. Everyone loves to bring up Democracy and if we're talking democracies, then its about doing what's best (or at least the perception of what's beneficial for the majority). Ultimately, our own government has strayed from its charter to continuously beat this point home, so if we're looking at what affects or what might be good for the majority, than you have to wonder why the gun debate even gets any play at all when you consider the issues that plague this country or kill off its citizens unnaturally. Anyone that doesn't see this has their head in the sand.

 

I get the point you're trying to make in the last paragraph quoted but I don't think it ranks. We saw Ebola dominate our news reels for weeks, despite it being limited to 3 cases with clear understanding of where they originated. That's simply one example of how something that is a non-issue is quickly built into a tool that whips the masses into a frenzy. As soon as one narrative has runs its course, suddenly the next narrative is spoon fed to the masses to keep them whipped into a frenzy. Most the time, its largely inconsequential in the grand scope of what there is to contend with and all I ever see it do is keep people divided and arguing and diverting attention from the many issues that do in fact greatly impact the lives of the vast majority of people.

[Hua Guofang]

I certainly don't disagree that media sensationalism and political interest play into the response but I think it's terribly simplistic to say that's all there is to the story.

 

Terrorism - the indiscriminate attacks or threats of attack against civilians with the goal of coercing a change in policy - has been around for thousands of years (the first recorded incidents were the Jews against the Romans), centuries before media cycles, newspapers, etc. But the impacts on society were the same as they are today in that they instilled fear and revulsion in the local population. It's impossible to ignore that dynamic, it exists as a fact.

 

.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Hua Guofang

[misteraven]

To protect oneself and property should be a fundamental human right that exists beyond question.

 

Since this discussion has largely centered on the USA, I'll continue to address it from that point of view (also not qualified to speak to how it works in other countries, though I believe in the opening statement above applies to all, regardless of nationality).

 

In the USA, the Supreme Court has ruled that the law enforcement have zero responsibility to protect you, unless you are actively in their custody. As we've seen repeatedly, most recently in the Epstein case, even being in custody doesn't seem to matter. As such, clearly that burden is placed in the individual.

 

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/12/21/us-judge-says-law-enforcement-officers-had-no-legal-duty-protect-parkland-students-during-mass-shooting/#targetText=In 2005%2C the U.S. Supreme,a woman from her husband.

 

The last of which is particularly relevant as this was a recent ruling that exonerated the LEO that sat around outside the school in the Parkland Mass Shooting, rather than storming in and attempting to save more people from being murdered.

 

----------

 

Further to the above, in terms of how the United States was founded, you can not constitutionally disarm people. I'll concede that politicians have regularly distorted truth to bend new legislation to whatever agenda they're chasing, but that does not take away from the fact that this country was established in a very specific way and that the right of its people to bear arms, as well as who is defined as "people" and what is defined by "arms" is made clear. This is beyond question as there is literally thousands of pages of historical documentation that adds complete context to the topic... What lead to it, why it was important and how it should be interpreted. 

 

Reality is it should all be a moot point. We can discuss the ethics of it, which obviously will never reach a full consensus, but the question on whether our government has the authority to disarm its citizens has been answered conclusively. The only way to do this is to literally dissolve the union and start a new country. There is no other way to accomplish it, or to revoke any of the other first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution.

 

Again going to the cultural conversation, it would literally be impossible to accomplish in any meaningful way, without massive casualty and blood shed. Again in terms of population and geographical size, it simply is not even possible. Likewise, you already have many states that have created amendments to their state constitutions that have clearly stated that they would no comply with new Federal Law that limits Constitutional Right with specific focus on the Second Amendment. In fact, some even said that they'd arrest Federal LEO that stepped foot into the state to that end.

 

 

[Hua Guofang]

Sorry, meant to address the Ebola thing as well. A friend of mine is a molecular bio and he was irate when the whole global ebola thing kicked off as it's nothing compared to malaria and numerous other diseases that are much easier to catch and kill waaaaaaaay more people.

 

But it's not the chance of getting that impacts people, it's the myth around it (bleeding out and all that ghastly shit). Fear is rarely a rational process and emotion is the opposite of rationality. We are not beings that work on numbers and probabilities, we work on emotion and sentiment, which is why terrorism can be a successful tactic. Seeing attacks as a numbers game misses the human and psychological impact.

[misteraven]

16 minutes ago, Hua Guofang said:

Sorry, meant to address the Ebola thing as well. A friend of mine is a molecular bio and he was irate when the whole global ebola thing kicked off as it's nothing compared to malaria and numerous other diseases that are much easier to catch and kill waaaaaaaay more people.

 

But it's not the chance of getting that impacts people, it's the myth around it (bleeding out and all that ghastly shit). Fear is rarely a rational process and emotion is the opposite of rationality. We are not beings that work on numbers and probabilities, we work on emotion and sentiment, which is why terrorism can be a successful tactic. Seeing attacks as a numbers game misses the human and psychological impact.

I don't at all disagree with this. It's the standard human behavior that you've identified here that makes a lot of this nonsense such a powerful tool to corral people in a direction you want them to go.

[abrasivesaint]

On the topic of Ebola:  

 

During that incident many hospitals realized they didn’t have any real protocol to handle Ebola, including the hospital i worked at during those incidents. The media made it a public frenzy, but many hospitals did somewhat scramble during that event. We obviously know how to kill the Ebola virus. It’s actually fairly easy with very little heat. Any standard autoclave cycle can easily destroy the Ebola virus on surgical equipment and an incinerator will destroy anything else, but it could be somewhat hard to contain if hospitals don’t follow proper procedures. It could take roughly 10 days to show symptoms and has been found in semen 3 months after the fact. 

 

Here’s the big shock, the majority of hospitals do not follow proper procedures. Many departments are under funded, under paid, under staffed and over worked. People get tired and cut corners every day that could have serious repercussions. 

 

So in that sense it was a semi-frenzy as hospitals had to create and enforce proper protocol for something they had never truly considered a threat nor dealt with here in the US. It was the worst outbreak of the disease in Africa and it was feared to be spreading to the US because of the lack of proper procedure enforcement. 

Edited September 4, 2019 by abrasivesaint
Spelling, wording, that sort of shit.

[Mercer]

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

@MercerIf all you've got is sarcasm and a propaganda piece written in a 'Beijing owned' rag, I'm not overly convinced by your argument.

You know as well as I do my point is 100% valid. A completely disarmed, and 100% centrally controlled population is much easier to rule over.

 

England didn't need to run an expensive operation to control India, they only needed to defeat their military, and insert themselves into the central power mechanism already in place. The population was already disarmed. No costly/risky operation was requiring to subjugate this massive society. The "middle management" class all ready in place were more than happy to continue that work for them, especially if it meant they held onto their elevated position in Society. Meanwhile a completely unarmed population was realistically unequipped to ever meaningfully fight back.

 

I'm just pointing out this obvious downside to completely disarming your entire population. Makes the terms of surrender that much easier to figure out logistically when every gun is accounted for, and can be turned over with zero effort. 

 

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

War with China is most definitely a highly plausible outcome, I'm the last to say that's not going to happen. But China can't even unify an island of its own coast, how the fuck is it going to invade and occupy a continent in another hemisphere??!!

I think the previous statement covered that but I'll touch on that specifically here. China could literally dump 10,000 troops a day into the ocean without feeling it. From what I understand they don't have aircraft carriers and the other resources in place to have air superiority (yet), the only thing other than a price tag making invading Australia unfeasible at the moment. History has shown us one thing, it's that things can, and always will change, sometimes rapidly. Within a few short years I'm sure they could put together enough resources to say build a tremendous carrier fleet, overtake Taiwan, possibly continue that use of force to other arenas.

 

 I look at Japan pre WWII. Starved of natural resources like iron, and the coal needed to produce steel domestically they somehow built a formidable advanced Navy. Two generations before, most Japanese were illiterate a completely backwards hermit nation in much the same poverty China suffered under in the 60's, 70's. Didn't take long for an allied embargo on Japan to lead to Pearl Harbor, after they decided to shift more towards use of force to become a regional superpower. I see many parallels with China, who by the way, isn't really a "Communist" country by definition these days, it's more of a "Nationalist Socialist" model. Food for thought.

 

This has strayed way off topic so to circle it back to the point I made. I assert  following a military defeat of the official army, it would be so much easier to subjugate Australia because of it's lack of armed populous, than it would be for a place like Texas as example. Most of the citizens there are armed, and to be honest they're barely governable even by their own government. My only point is that disarming your entire civilian population comes with a price. Again, I think we're all a bit soft in the Western world. We've all grown fat here in the U.S. at least, and we forgot these dirty secrets about the flaws of human nature, and just how fragile peace is.

 

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

China can spend a few billion dollars buying up mines and gas deposits, infiltrate Australian politics and society and develop over-reliance on the Chinese export market

I consider this done already, at the very least it's a continuing process. Most of your foreign trade is with China, so much so that it's more than Australia trades every other nation combined. This is probably what I don't get sometimes about the Australian tendency towards conformity, and unified national Identity when compared to US, Canada. The willpower alone to be on guard against this covert form of subjugation would be exhausting.

 

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

or it can spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on military conquest that will see other vulnerable countries band together so they don't suffer a similar fate..., all with the risk that they won't succeed.

Agreed, they don't hold as much value on human life, so I see them having no problem taking what we would consider to be major losses in the human lives department without even flinching. Losing trillions of dollars not so much, unless they got the dumb ass idea America has, that war economy might be a good thing. Spend trillions of taxpayer dollars to gain billions in oil profits. I'll at least hand this to them, they're playing a much smarter game economically, for now at least. Again, shit always changes.

 

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

Update yourself with the way China does things with the reports/research/reading below:

 

 

Australia's reliance on Chinese markets:

 

http://chinamatters.org.au/policy-brief-/policy-brief-august-edition

tinue https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-15/china-economy-slowdown-will-affect-australia/10716240

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australias-booming-trade-with-china-will-shape-strategic-policy/

 

Can't click now while I'm editing but these should be good, I'll check out the links.

 

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

China's use of market access for political coercion:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/21/chinese-port-bans-imports-of-australian-coal-sending-dollar-tumbling

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-wine-shipments-held-up-at-chinese-ports-amid-political-tensions-report-20180615-p4zloj.html

https://www.cnbc.com/id/39318826

https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/chinas-use-of-coercive-economic-measures

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/072418_Blumenthal_Testimony.pdf

 

 

Chinese agents infiltrate political parties, media and social organisations in Australia and New Zealand in effort to support pro-China policies and sentiment (google the United Work Front Department):

 

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/dastyari-icac-and-the-chinese-agent-of-influence-20190829-p52m6e.html

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/political-donor-chau-chak-wing-behind-un-bribe-scandal-parliament-told-20180522-p4zgs5.html

https://www.afr.com/opinion/chinas-influence-in-australia-is-not-ordinary-soft-power-20170606-gwli1m

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/long-reach-Chinas-united-front-work

https://theconversation.com/inside-chinas-vast-influence-network-how-it-works-and-its-reach-in-australia-119174

https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/inside-the-enigmatic-world-of-chau-chak-wing-20180614-h11djw

Whole book written on the covert networks to influence Australia - https://theconversation.com/book-review-clive-hamiltons-silent-invasion-chinas-influence-in-australia-93650

 

Specific details of CCP and UWF members and affiliates infiltrating New Zealand parliament and politics (including former spy trainer for PLA university):

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/magic-weapons-chinas-political-influence-activities-under-xi-jinping

Person who did that research blocked from submitting to parliament by committee led by one of the accused:

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/03/08/477641/brady-blocked-from-appearing-before-justice-committee

 

Australia even created a new law to push back against Chinese infiltration:

https://www.ag.gov.au/Integrity/foreign-influence-transparency-scheme/Pages/default.aspx

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

I do this exact stuff for a job, man (as well as being an ex-soldier), I wrote my thesis on Chinese military and diplomatic strategy. Wars aren't won by an untrained populace armed with a couple of gats. In terms of China V Australia, at least, it's the stuff of fantasy.

 

 

 

.

Exactly why I took it there, this is clearly your area of expertise and it's not just a hobby for you. Not sure if ever examined that angle of disarming your entire civilian population but it's something that immediately crosses mine. I don't know if you'll believe me when I say this, but I feel safer knowing Americans are armed to the teeth.  To me the benefits of this are by nature intangible, and unquantifiable but this peace of mind is so valuable to me it's worth the rare, easily quantified, and emotionally appealing drawbacks.

[misteraven]

What has yet to be mentioned is how many lives are potentially saved as a result of an armed populace.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2018/04/30/that-time-the-cdc-asked-about-defensive-gun-uses/#5ab0d9f6299a

 

CDC Report: https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15

 

Defensive Use of Guns

Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.

[Hua Guofang]

10 hours ago, Mercer said:

You know as well as I do my point is 100% valid. A completely disarmed, and 100% centrally controlled population is much easier to rule over.

 

England didn't need to run an expensive operation to control India, they only needed to defeat their military, and insert themselves into the central power mechanism already in place. The population was already disarmed. No costly/risky operation was requiring to subjugate this massive society. The "middle management" class all ready in place were more than happy to continue that work for them, especially if it meant they held onto their elevated position in Society. Meanwhile a completely unarmed population was realistically unequipped to ever meaningfully fight back.

 

I'm just pointing out this obvious downside to completely disarming your entire population. Makes the terms of surrender that much easier to figure out logistically when every gun is accounted for, and can be turned over with zero effort. 

 

I think the previous statement covered that but I'll touch on that specifically here. China could literally dump 10,000 troops a day into the ocean without feeling it. From what I understand they don't have aircraft carriers and the other resources in place to have air superiority (yet), the only thing other than a price tag making invading Australia unfeasible at the moment. History has shown us one thing, it's that things can, and always will change, sometimes rapidly. Within a few short years I'm sure they could put together enough resources to say build a tremendous carrier fleet, overtake Taiwan, possibly continue that use of force to other arenas.

 

 I look at Japan pre WWII. Starved of natural resources like iron, and the coal needed to produce steel domestically they somehow built a formidable advanced Navy. Two generations before, most Japanese were illiterate a completely backwards hermit nation in much the same poverty China suffered under in the 60's, 70's. Didn't take long for an allied embargo on Japan to lead to Pearl Harbor, after they decided to shift more towards use of force to become a regional superpower. I see many parallels with China, who by the way, isn't really a "Communist" country by definition these days, it's more of a "Nationalist Socialist" model. Food for thought.

 

This has strayed way off topic so to circle it back to the point I made. I assert  following a military defeat of the official army, it would be so much easier to subjugate Australia because of it's lack of armed populous, than it would be for a place like Texas as example. Most of the citizens there are armed, and to be honest they're barely governable even by their own government. My only point is that disarming your entire civilian population comes with a price. Again, I think we're all a bit soft in the Western world. We've all grown fat here in the U.S. at least, and we forgot these dirty secrets about the flaws of human nature, and just how fragile peace is.

 

I consider this done already, at the very least it's a continuing process. Most of your foreign trade is with China, so much so that it's more than Australia trades every other nation combined. This is probably what I don't get sometimes about the Australian tendency towards conformity, and unified national Identity when compared to US, Canada. The willpower alone to be on guard against this covert form of subjugation would be exhausting.

 

Agreed, they don't hold as much value on human life, so I see them having no problem taking what we would consider to be major losses in the human lives department without even flinching. Losing trillions of dollars not so much, unless they got the dumb ass idea America has, that war economy might be a good thing. Spend trillions of taxpayer dollars to gain billions in oil profits. I'll at least hand this to them, they're playing a much smarter game economically, for now at least. Again, shit always changes.

 

Can't click now while I'm editing but these should be good, I'll check out the links.

 

 

Exactly why I took it there, this is clearly your area of expertise and it's not just a hobby for you. Not sure if ever examined that angle of disarming your entire civilian population but it's something that immediately crosses mine. I don't know if you'll believe me when I say this, but I feel safer knowing Americans are armed to the teeth.  To me the benefits of this are by nature intangible, and unquantifiable but this peace of mind is so valuable to me it's worth the rare, easily quantified, and emotionally appealing drawbacks.

So, it's a couple of hours since I wrote the below section and I'm choosing to reword my response but leave the below because it's still valid.

 

So, does an armed populace help deter invasion, that's the central question. The answer is not simple and smart minds in Australia continuously discuss this topic and the answer from my end is a little from column A and a little from column B. If the population were monolithic in their opposition to the invaders, sure, it would increase the costs of invasion, but would it deter it, no, not really. I offer exhibit A, Afghanistan 2001. Has the the armed population increased the cost of invasion? My fucking word it has. Did it stop it? Obviously not. Why? Because the country was not unanimously against the invading force and many of those armed locals sided with the invaders.

 

Exhibit B, your own example of India. If the middle class where armed, do you think that fact would have made them refuse elevated positions of power and wealth as offered by the colonising power? There's lots of examples in history suggesting that having guns wouldn't have shifted the equation. China under colonial rule is also another fantastic example. Not only was the populace armed (crude weapons, but still armed) but it also massively outnumbered the invading colonial forces. Did that deter invasion? No. Did it increase costs of occupation? Barely. Did a significant element of locals side with the invaders for personal benefit? Yes.

 

The problem with your argument is that you only look at the crudest element, which I would guess is a result of how emotional and misinformed some of your local gun debate is. You only focus on the gun itself, which I would say is one of the least important elements of the equation here. And that is the equation of guerilla resistance. And the most important part of guerilla resistance is strategy and tactics. The tools of force - weapons - are effective because of the way they are deployed, not because they are deployed.

 

What I think you should be arguing for is national service, not just an untrained, unorganised, potentially disloyal, armed populace. Sweden, Israel and until recently, Taiwan along with many other countries that have small populations living in dangerous neihgbourhoods have national service. Each person learns how to operate a personal weapon and operate in a basic command structure. But much more importantly, they are assigned jobs. National service organises your forces, ensures diverse skill-sets, divides resources appropriately and puts a plan in place so when shit hits fan the resistance doesn't take a few years to coalesce, organise and eventually become effective, if it doesn't get wiped out in the meantime.

 

Another part of the problem with thinking you can just have a bunch of folk with gats is that resistance is way, way more than just shooting at people. It's societal resilience - friend of mine in Sweden had the job of driving a bus. The core role was logistics to move troops around but the secondary role was keeping the country running by getting kids to school, getting people to work and moving essential products about. Then there has to be command and control, propaganda, medical, logistics, intelligence, materials, etc. etc. You see what I mean about just having an armed population is barely even the bare minimum?

 

I'm a fan of national service for this reason and others, but welcome to tax country because that shit is fucking expensive.

 

 

But this is where I stop, because your example was Australia defending itself against an invasion by China. For that argument, I leave below my original response.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Honestly, I don't even know where to go with this discussion anymore as you've displayed an utter lack of basics (for starters, China does have an aircraft carrier and is building more, secondly, China cannot bust out of the first island chain into the oceans and I doubt you actually know what the first island chain and the Malacca dilemma is, which dominates Chinese defence strategy - China is struggling to just defend its own coastline, look up A2AD). You also don't seem to have a grasp of force projection over long distances and that the bedrock is logistics rather than firepower - in other words, you should be talking about heavy lift capability, capacity and capability to replenish and defend huuuuuge supply lines over open waters, local industrial base to supply munitions/maintenance/POL/food/etc, logistics fleets to supply large forces at long distances over long periods, layers of redundancy built into secure lines of communications over long distances, etc. etc. before you even think about aircraft carriers and methods of occupation. I'm sure you've heard Bradley's old saying that amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics.

 

Again, Chinese doesn't have these things to invade and occupy an island off it's own coast and it's been working at that goal since 1949. To think that invading Australia is a real concern is just, well, I don't even have words.

 

And to follow that up, let me sumarise why I posted all those articles. Your reason as to why China would invade Australia is because it wants resources. There are many problems with this, the first one being that China already gets them, it has no reason to invade. Why would it spend costs in orders of magnitude over what it already pays for something it can just buy?

 

What if Australia decided to block Chinese access to resources as a means of coercing China? Australia is hugely reliant on the Chinese market for its balance of payments. To cut ourselves off from the Chinese market would hurt our economy as much as it hurts the Chinese and would be self-defeating. As a matter of fact, the shoe is on the other foot. China relies on Australia but it has other suppliers for coal (Indonesia, Mongolia, Russia), iron ore (Brazil), etc etc and can send its students and tourists to other countries. These suppliers would jack up the price if China blocked Australian imports but this would hurt Australia more than it would hurt China as there are no markets as large and as wealthy that Australia could divert trade to and no country supplies students to Australian universities at the rate China does (education is our 4th largest export). Australia is more at risk from economic coercion by China than the other way around.

 

Is there a cheaper and less risky way for China to coerce Australia than invading and occupying a continent thousands of miles across the ocean? Yes, by market reliance and economic coercion (see above) and political influence/interference. China has been buying off politicians, media orgs and community organisations (as well as coercing universities, local councils, state govts, you name it.....) in order to develop China-friendly policies from within the Australian system. See all the links I provided above.

 

China also has massive amounts of investment dollars as epitomised in the Belt and Road Initiative, which buys influence, not only in Australia, but also with other countries, which can then support Chinese positions in multilateral fora, such as the UN, World Bank, ASEAN, etc. etc.

 

 

 

So, the equation is:

 

China doesn't have the capability or capacity to invade Australia   +   China has fuck all reason to invade Australia   =   I'm not in the slightest going to entertain the notion.

 

 

 

 

HOWEVER!!!! Some of Australia's greatest minds do think that China ATTACKING (not invading and occupying) Australia is something that we will have to consider. You will likely enjoy this podcast that some folk at another Australian university recorded only two months back discussing this exact question. Hugh White is very much a lone voice with this opinion and there is a little bit of talk about 'people's war' in this pod. However, as Hugh discusses, because of the air-sea gap around Australia, our forces are multiplied by the huge distances China would have to travel to get to Australia and the multitude of other countries it would also have to invade, or at least get them on board in terms of invading Australia, to make it possible. And even then, submarines, missiles and aircraft are what will defend Australia, not a bunch of yokels with some 556.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Hua Guofang

[Hua Guofang]

Forgot to add the pod link - https://thenationalsecuritypodcast.simplecast.com/episodes/national-security-podcast-extra-hugh-white-on-how-to-defend-australia

[Mercer]

By that logic, there's no need for arms even at a state level. I mean the Afgan's were just going to get beat on the battlefield anyway. Why draw out the conflict resisting at all when they could have just as easily bent over and spread their but cheeks for the superpowers.

 

From a certain perspective the Afgans have beaten both Russia, and soon the US. To me I define war as the use of violence to meet political objectives. Their political objective of driving out the invaders has been met (in the case of Russia), and will be met once we finally fucking leave that piece of shit to rot. Whereas our's, and Russia's political objectives of establishing a self sustaining state system modeled after our own will fail, at the cost of trillions.

 

Sure, at Australias current place in time you're obviously as secure as most any other developed nation including the US. I have no doubts that right now, the threat is very small. I don't have any plausible scenarios right now making me think the US will be invaded either. That does not mean I don't think there will ever be any surprises, and the landscape can't change almost instantly, in the snap of a finger, or the push of a button.  You don't need to acknowledging this, but it 's possible, or at least plausible. Shit happens.

[Hua Guofang]

58 minutes ago, Mercer said:

By that logic, there's no need for arms even at a state level. I mean the Afgan's were just going to get beat on the battlefield anyway. Why draw out the conflict resisting at all when they could have just as easily bent over and spread their but cheeks for the superpowers.

 

From a certain perspective the Afgans have beaten both Russia, and soon the US. To me I define war as the use of violence to meet political objectives. Their political objective of driving out the invaders has been met (in the case of Russia), and will be met once we finally fucking leave that piece of shit to rot. Whereas our's, and Russia's political objectives of establishing a self sustaining state system modeled after our own will fail, at the cost of trillions.

 

Sure, at Australias current place in time you're obviously as secure as most any other developed nation including the US. I have no doubts that right now, the threat is very small. I don't have any plausible scenarios right now making me think the US will be invaded either. That does not mean I don't think there will ever be any surprises, and the landscape can't change almost instantly, in the snap of a finger, or the push of a button.  You don't need to acknowledging this, but it 's possible, or at least plausible. Shit happens.

 

 

By that logic, there's no need for arms even at a state level.

 

I don't get your meaning.

 

 

From a certain perspective the Afgans have beaten both Russia, and soon the US. To me I define war as the use of violence to meet political objectives. Their political objective of driving out the invaders has been met (in the case of Russia), and will be met once we finally fucking leave that piece of shit to rot. Whereas our's, and Russia's political objectives of establishing a self sustaining state system modeled after our own will fail, at the cost of trillions.

 

The afghans have certainly defeated Russia. However, you misunderstand what America's priority objective was: denying international terror organisations the ability to launch attacks against US interests using Astan as a base. The rest was mission creep.

 

The point with Astan is though, that they were not an armed populace, the way you prescribe, when invaded by Russia. Their weapons and training came from the US, Pakistan, KSA, and the Muslim Ummah. The enemy that the US is fighting now is not so much an armed populace that is uprising but a standing army using guerilla tactics. Yes, the population is armed, but many are enemies of the US, many are neutral and many are fighting alongside the US. The key points are that the enemy the US faces was armed, trained and organised decades before the US invaded and they are supported by states in their resistance to the US. It does not even resemble the model you propose.

 

 

Sure, at Australia's current place in time you're obviously as secure as most any other developed nation including the US. I have no doubts that right now, the threat is very small. I don't have any plausible scenarios right now making me think the US will be invaded either. That does not mean I don't think there will ever be any surprises, and the landscape can't change almost instantly, in the snap of a finger, or the push of a button.  You don't need to acknowledging this, but it 's possible, or at least plausible. Shit happens.

 

Of course, and that's why we have a standing force of air, sea and land-based services.

 

A defence force isn't only about deterring or defeating an invasion either, that is the ultimate reason. You also have them to help shape the global environment (you know, by invading other countries on faulty intelligence for bullshit reasons only to kill heaps of people and aid a fucked up regime like the Iranian theocracy.....), adding credibility and threat to your diplomacy, keeping international waterways safe and open for trade, protecting overseas investment/citizens and retrieving them from harm, securing your immediate environment when states fail on your doorstep, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, aid to the civil power in times of crisis such as natural disaster, etc. etc.

 

Australia has no clear enemy in terms of a country that will apply sustained force on the continent. Indonesia, 250m pop. with a huge army is on our doorstep but is the largest archipelagic nation, which creates huge internal stresses and costs - it struggles to keep its own nation under control (see secession of Timor Leste in 1999, the insurgency in Aceh, the current uprising in West Papua, etc.) and they don't even have the logistical capability to move their troops around their own country let alone send an invasion force over the seas. I think the closest country with the logistics required is Singapore, which hasn't the capacity in terms of manpower or economy to consider an invasion and occupation. The US and Japan are realistically the nations with the potential to invade Australia, but we're all treaty allies so we cool.

 

Change happens a lot slower than 'almost instant', though. Look at the lead up for both wars in Iraq. Huge amount of political discussion before forces are mobilised, transferred to staging bases, etc. etc. Full-scale invasions across oceans are monufuckingmental efforts and the counties with that kind of capability watch each other like hawks for any sign - political, diplomatic, physical, etc. - that this could be happening. To develop forces capable of doing big things - such as China creating a force capable of invading Australia - literally takes generations.

 

For example, China decided in the 1980s that it wanted to break out of the first island chain and that would require a capability to defeat US aircraft carriers, to unify with Taiwan, to detect and defeat US subs that would block access through maritime bottlenecks and for China to have aircraft carriers of their own. that was close to 40 years ago. Since then China has developed a missile that might threaten US carriers, a sub fleet that is renowned for being the noisiest and most detectable in the business and they've bought a decommissioned carrier from Ukraine, which has been refitted as a training vessel. That's it - 40 YEARS!

 

Developing workable strategic platforms like carriers, subs, Gen5 aircraft, ICBMs, etc. take decades, developing doctrine takes generations and combat experience (which China hasn't had since a small land skirmish with Vietnam and India in the 60/70s), developing training regimes takes generations, etc. etc. You also have to have a rotation of forces. To have one SSBN constantly deployed at sea for nuclear survivability, you need 3-4 subs (one on operation, one on rest/leave, one in maintenance and if you can afford it, one getting the latest upgrades). The same goes for any operation - for any vessel you have a sea you must have two in the docks. For every soldier deployed in theatre you have to have two in barracks and another in training.

 

Developing a global force takes generation upon generation. Developing the capability to capably project force long distances for sustained periods takes time and doesn't go unnoticed. IF country A is doing this, country BCDEF..... are all responding by beefing up to deter, disrupt and defeat. This is exactly what is happening now in the Idno-Pacific, and has been since the 1990s because of Chinese behaviour. 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Hua Guofang

[Hua Guofang]

The safety you feel from having an armed populace is misplaced. Glad it keeps you warm at night but what you should be arguing for is national service.

 

Your national guard basically serves that purpose though.

[abrasivesaint]

Have some catching up to do with these recent posts but i was just reminded i saw this exploring a particularly shitty hood a week ago..

[Hua Guofang]

Feel me?

[Kults]

33 minutes ago, Hua Guofang said:

Feel me?

As in, you got it? 

[Hua Guofang]

lol, I know, I was just enjoying the fact that some one would actually write it on a sign like that.

[Kults]

Yup

[Brink]

All these shootings remind me of a classic Onion article they've been posting for years now

 

'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Edited September 5, 2019 by Brink

[misteraven]

Look at it from the opposite side... How many genocides have begun through the disarmament of the population?

 

I think both @Hua Guofangand @Mercerhave made a lot of valid points and other claims that IMHO are less valid. At the end of the day, we're simply exploring a topic and if the answer was definitive or remotely clear cut, it would have likely been solved long before 12oz. I'm not trying to shut down the debate, but would like to take a moment and point that out.

 

I still stand by what I believe to be truth that there is no universal answer as there are cultural issues at play that would affect it to the point of no single solution. Sure if we could put the genie back in the bottle, so no guns existed ever... No doubt that would alleviate a lot of the problem. But until we find a solution to eradicate evil and evil tendency from the human condition, it will always manifest in creative new ways according to opportunity and availability. Thats what all of this comes down to and to think that a government confiscating guns from its people is anything other than ineffective, low hanging fruit for politicians - in most circumstances - would be ignoring the root of the problem. 

 

Culturally countries like India are predisposed to be passive. Sure there is exception to the rules, but in general, most would acknowledge that. Culturally countries like the USA are predisposed to be aggressive. It's just fact and if you look at how this country was founded and most of its history, you'll note that in most instances its taken an offensive position, rather than defensive. That fact permeates our society, through to popular culture and social consciousness, for better or worse. Like a zoo animal that is predisposed to predation, what happens when you put that animal under undue stress? This is the best analogy I can give to summarize the situation and add clarity to topic.

 

So it comes down to a fundamental couple of questions...

 

- Do you believe evil exists?

 

- If your answer is yes, then the next question would be do you believe your safety is your own responsibility should it present itself?

 

If you answer to both is yes, then this entire debate becomes very simple... When confronting evil and likely fighting for your life, would you rather be disadvantaged or have tools that could potentially equalize the confrontation?

 

Its as simple as that. We can argue training, we can argue mindset, we can complicate it many different ways, but its as fundamental as that. Man has been finding innovative new ways to bring violence since the dawn of mankind. We can go on and pretend we're civilized and stand above animalistic tendency like violence, but you'd be lying to yourself. I see violence every single day at various scale and in various forms, whether its animals in nature, or humans treatment of nature and each other.

 

But again pulling a very easy to understand analogy... You know what keeps one animal from killing another animal in nature that has become targeted as prey? A balance of power that gives it a fighting chance or a method to escape and live another day.

 

It boggles my mind - truly - to think anyone would be against another persons right to defend their life and property. By taking away a tool that can effectively provide a chance to balance the power between predator and prey (or aggressor and victim), you are doing exactly that.

[misteraven]

And again, I'm not comparing the USA to Australia nor do I claim to know much about Australian culture or its nuance, but a quick Google search produced this study by the Australian Institute of Criminology. Indeed homicides are trendy very slightly down, but most violent crime is rising at a rate that equals or outpaces the decline in homicides. Most notably rapes in which Australia ranks higher per capita than the USA and fairly high globally.

 

I'll be the first to admit that correlation does not necessarily equal causation, but the situation merits review and I'd be willing to bet that all these people that were sexually assaulted would have likely preferred having a tool that might have stopped it.

 

https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/DA3DED213BAE8114CA257178001B6949?Opendocument

 

 

 

tandi359.pdf

[abrasivesaint]

 

How many of those knife robberies resulted in death though? How many gun robberies result in death because people think “fuck it,” or are trying to live a thug life? Just a couple months ago a kid was shot at the only skatepark in New Orleans. From what rumor has the situation went like this: 

 

It was an armed robbery gone awry. There was an altercation and both parties had guns. The victim struggled with the would be robber and a gun went off and the victim got shot in the fight. The robber then said “fuck it” figuring the victim had already been shot, and plugged him. It was a straight up execution at that point. 

 

Obviously this is only one instance.

 

The shooter was eventually caught because people have had enough of the gun violence here and witnesses in this situation seemed to abandon the “Dont snitch” mentality because they’re tired of seeing people they know get killed. This isn’t the first kid to get shot in the neighborhood of the only skatepark in NOLA. 

 

 

According to this “around half” were between the ages of 10-19 and in the .pdf you sent it seems the majority of sexual assaults are minors. If you’re talking about arming minors you’ve lost me. 

[abrasivesaint]

This might come off as sort of crackpot, and i’ll admit as i have before many of you are more read on this shit, but the only reason i feel safe there’s so many guns in the US is in the case that we were ever invaded. A lot of people have toyed with civil war being a possibility the way things are going politically in this country. Does anyone really think other nations, or our enemies would sit back and just watch us duke it out and not attempt to snap off a little piece for themselves? Just watching from a distance munching on their popcorn.. 

 

I had a friend stationed in San Diego, and while i’m totally speaking on hearsay, he told me that when N.Korea was in the news a lot in the US, we were constantly checking their submarines in the Pacific. He basically described it like a dog getting too close to your dinner plate and giving them the ol “HEY.. back the fuck off..”

 

 

[abrasivesaint]

It took to long to edit so i have to sort of repost with the edits, sorry..

 

 

This might come off as sort of crackpot, and i’ll admit as i have before many of you are more read on this shit, but the only reason i feel safe there’s so many guns in the US is in the case that we were ever invaded. (Edit: That is the highest area of concern in terms of protection for my family and friends. I totally understand carrying in places like Montana where predators can just come strolling onto your property, and the idea of “rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.” I’m not legally allowed to own a gun in my home state, so i carry a knife, everywhere. However, there are some people, people we all know, who should not have access to firearms, and there has to be ways to prevent them from acquiring them.)

 

(more edit: look at that incident in Florida where a family parked in a handicap spot and some dude accosted them. The father came out of the store and saw it and shoved the dude to the ground. The man then pulled his gun from the sitting position and blasted the father in the chest. Do you think that was necessary? Come on.. There could have been a “back the fuck off” type warning. But that guy wanted to kill him, plain and simple. He wanted him dead. Feared for his life my ass. He was a coward and was afraid he was about to get a smacking. Mercer mentioned society getting soft.. that shooter was soft as a marshmallow, and now a family father is dead. Should he have pushed him? No. Does a shove to the ground warrant shooting him in the chest? Absolutely not. 

 

A lot of people have toyed with civil war being a possibility the way things are going politically in this country. Does anyone really think other nations, or our enemies would sit back and just watch us duke it out and not attempt to snap off a little piece for themselves? Just watching from a distance munching on their popcorn.. 

 

I had a friend stationed in San Diego, and while i’m totally speaking on hearsay, he told me that when N.Korea was in the news a lot in the US, we were constantly checking their submarines in the Pacific. He basically described it like a dog getting too close to your dinner plate and giving them the ol “HEY.. back the fuck off..”

 

Edit: i’m going to come back to this, my brain is feeling kinda scrambled at the moment. 

[abrasivesaint]

This was posted in the random news thread i had started, probably more suited here..