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Originally Posted by Got Stripers
what percentage of the civilian population are armed
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Numbers of gun owners range from 65 to 80 million. With an adult population of 250,000,000 that gives us a crude percentage of 26% - 32%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Got Stripers
and then you have to ask; what percentage of those people will take up arms against the military?
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Before the 1775 Revolution it was said that 3% were committed to oust the British. I think it would be higher today and possibly much higher, depending on the actions of government.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Got Stripers
Then taking this bizarre scenario further, we have X number of willing civilian militia armed with guns, rifles, shotguns and a smaller percentage with AR style assault rifles, all going against 4 branches of the military; all controlled of course by some mythical leader with unreal power to control and persuade the leaders of the military this is what needs to happen to form the new world order.
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Yeah, that's the idea. It hasn't changed at all from 1788 when Madison laid out the principle in the Federalist 46. Madison recognized that the biggest standing army that could be supported amounted to just 1% of the nation's population (3 million people at the time = 30,000 troops).
Madison said that if those troops "entirely at the devotion of the federal government" ever acted against the liberties of the citizen, those troops would be "opposed" by 500,000 armed citizens -- a ratio of 17 citizens "with arms in their hands" opposing each soldier.
Today the ratio's are pretty much in alignment . . . 320 million total population, just under 3 million active duty and reserve "standing army" and say 75 million citizens with arms in their hands. That gives us a ratio of 25 armed citizens vs each soldier in modern times.
IMNSHO, all the 2nd Amendment was intended to do was preserve this beneficial numerical superiority of armed citizens vs "standing army" and to ensure that they had useful weapons if the ugly scenario ever materialized . . . And it is clear that by how Madison framed the scenario, that AR's and other military style guns are indisputably protected arms.
Just for info's sake, here's Madison's exposition (paragraph breaks added):
"Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.
The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands . . . It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. . . .
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
James Madison, Federalist 46