Executive Summary – The USA citizens are not secure and something has then concerned about the safety and security of their life and property. Guess what? For the month of April there were 1.2 million Fbi Criminal Background Checks performed at the request of licensed gun dealers regarding a firearms sale. If a person were buying 12 guns there would only be one check. This means the figure could represent more than 1.2 million guns sold for the month. There is also the possibility that the person was turned down and thus no gun was sold, just a check performed. In the previous year for the month of April 2008 940,000 checks were performed. This is a 30% increase. How about next year?
Discussion – The people are scared. Ammo sales are also soaring creating shortages in ammo. We all know it’s their own government the people are fearful of. How long can a country last with a worthless currency, failed businesses, high unemployment, millions of homeless people, and to top it off a President who cannot prove he is qualified to hold the office as a person born in the USA? Not long and the people seem to be aware of this. Seems like they a re waiting for a trigger before it all breaks loose.
Why Guns – A government cannot occupy a country if the general population is armed. The USA is acutely aware of this. During the German occupation of France the USA was dropping firearms into France and the Philippines for the use of the resistance fighters and anyone else who wished to use the guns against the occupying army. This is of course terrorism but since the USA did it, it is never called that.
During WWII, a gun called the Liberator was dropped in the tens of thousands into enemy terrority by the USA. Over one million of these nifty little pistols were made at a cost of $2.10 each adjusted to the USD today it was probably $150.00 each. The pistols were single shot and came with I believe ten rounds of ammo. They shot the heavy hitting, slow moving .45 ACP with full jacket ball ammo. The gun was perfect for someone to walk up on a German or Japanese soldier and execute them with a round through the head. The rounds would penetrate the helmets used at the time.
They were smooth bore, free of serial numbers (shocking) short barreled and good for no more than 20 feet in distance, but more realistically 3-5 feet would be the practical range. These guns scared the enemy big time. They had to view every person as a potential threat. The psychological value of these guns was important. It put the occupying troops on edge. They would not be safe wondering around the towns drunk doing their occupying army thing. The gun came with instructions called comic book instructions.
Now lets jump forward to the Vietnam era. The CIA wanted something similar to be used in Vietnam. They developed a similar but a bit more sophisticated gun called the “Deer Gun”.The US government knows that a country cannot easily be occupied if the population is armed. They also knew extremely simple “Saturday Night Special” type guns were enough to thwart the occupying army big time. Now mind you the people in the USA do not have junk pot metal liberator guns that look like Mattel Toy Company made them. They have sophisticated guns in many cases better than what the military has except for maybe the crack units like Navy Seals. The people in the USA also know how to use these guns.
Why An Occupying Army Would Fear the USA Gun Owners – An armed society is a polite society and a free society. Total occupation and enslavement becomes difficult, not impossible just a lot more difficult. The challenges facing an occupying Army from civilian owned sophisticated guns are deep and complex. I will go into some of them. We will cover types of guns and applications.
Pistols – These are not considered a significant military weapon. They are easily concealed which make them threatening. The military helmets and body armor of today defeat the bullets from handguns quite well. One would need to go into illegally hand loading very light, and fast bullets to penetrate body armor. Modern armies on the other hand do have available armor piercing ammo to defeat body armor with their handguns.
Handguns have limited practical ranges. Most people cannot use them effectively over 21 feet. If you try to engage a target at longer distances the time required to acquire a good front sight picture and squeeze off a round increases. Some people can train themselves to shoot a handgun effectively out to 50 feet. I know you can shoot out further but if you get into variables like the target is moving, bad light, taking cover, the target is hooting back etc you realize quickly these are short range weapons. I do understand that there are hunting handguns that can be used to shoot out at long distances even 200 yards but these are also bulky heavy weapons hard to conceal.
Handguns can be used to ambush or bushwhack soldiers as was done in France and the Philippines with these throw away guns. This makes every pedestrian within 20 feet of a soldier a serious threat. The soldiers have to stay alert and watch their back all the time. Hard to do with long hours and troops stretched thin. Drop your guard and thump you are dead. Now come vehicle stops. If the population is armed you have big problems with checkpoints. Two soldiers cannot work a checkpoint. Numerous personnel need to be deployed. Some need to be behind barriers so as to make an ambush seem futile. It is very easy to shoot a policeman or soldier in their unprotected face when they come to the driver window to ask for papers. Just ask any highway patrolman how nervous they get when they walk up on a car at night full of people when they cannot see their hands.
So now checkpoints need to be sophisticated with numerous personnel, think 8-12. This drains resources of the occupier’s big time. They love checkpoints to enforce requirements that the populace register and carry papers always. To get the populace in compliance they need their checkpoints. Now these become burdensome. Also they like roving patrols say two soldiers or police to stop pedestrians and ask for papers. With an armed population this can be dangerous and they need 8 man patrols. When the populace in France would see a single solider they could easily walk behind him and shoot him when a truck goes by to cover noise. They drag the body away a bit and discard the pistol.
Under other circumstances they can upgrade their junk gun for a good rifle and handgun by shooting the soldier. So now soldiers have to travel about armed and in pairs when off duty as a minimum, to avoid execution by the people they are occupying. This is a big psychological stress on the soldiers. It is one thing to know they are not wanted, it is another matter to know the people will take every opportunity to kill them and have the guns to do it with. For an army to be effective the soldiers must be in agreement with the officers who must be in agreement with the generals who must be in agreement with the political leaders. If any piece is missing, it does not work.
Look at the USA in Vietnam as a model of a breakdown and a lack of agreement. The USA soldiers were constantly encountering armed citizens conducting terrorism against them. Morale was bad. Soldiers become poorly motivated; drug and alcohol use was high. Soldiers were killing their officers in the field, often called fragging although they shot them as well. The USA lost and abandoned the occupation. A determined armed population will make life miserable for an occupying army.
Shotguns – These are 17 wsm ammo deadly close quarter weapons. The most popular is the 12 gauge which fires 9-12 balls of lead generally about the size of a .32 caliber pistol bullet. Shotgun slugs are also available which is perhaps more useful for hunting large animals. The armor of soldiers does stop buckshot. Problem is the buckshot spreads in a pattern and hits places of the body not covered by armor like extremities.
Shotguns are effective for most shooters out to 75 feet. Good hits from a shotgun are hard to survive. There are a lot of semi-automatic shotguns that will fire 8 rounds of shotgun ammo in perhaps 3 seconds or less. That is 100 balls of buckshot flying at your target. If you do the math this is very comparable to full automatic fire, even better. These are effective weapons for ambush and counter ambush.
They were so used in Vietnam although there in pump mode which resists dirt more but makes firing multiple rounds slower. There are many thousands of semi-automatic shotguns in the USA in private hands with countless rounds of ammo.
Shotguns are also effective in stopping groups of people from entering your premises. One would get behind cover and start throwing lead at the intruders trying to come through a door or window. It is hard to advance into such a barrage even with armor. Semi-auto and pump shotguns owned by civilians that an army is trying to occupy and control are not something any military wishes to encounter. I would say in the USA they are at least a few hundred thousand pump and semi-automatic shotguns. Then there are double barrel shotguns, bolt-action shotguns and single barrel shotguns.