Civilians with basement gun stashes would do a pretty poor job of playing Wolverines! against any army worth ten bucks or more. You can argue all day about historical parallels, but insurgents acting without the aggressive support of a sizable third party state generally go the way of the Branch Davidians. However, if a certain kind of folks sieze power then gomer and his gun stash would make a right fine auxiliary civilian militia. I believe that shabiha translates to something like ‘white christian citizens’ brigade.’
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mdblanche
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t all the Wolverines! in the movie wind up dead by the end?
Yutsano
@mdblanche: In the original yes. Not sure about the remake since not even Chris Helmsworth could get me to watch that cinematic atrocity.
Zam
I think a lot of them expect a large portion of the military to turn against the government and look to them as new leadership.
Zifnab
Self-defense just has a better ring to it than self-offense.
Served
I don’t get how they’re supposed to fire all of those guns at the same time before being taken down by the military? Are they also keeping robot soldiers in their basements?
red dog
What a stupid paragraph. Everything you say has been said more clearly in the last three days. Two cents is still two cents or much less.
quannlace
What gets me about the ‘Preppers’ who are specifically prepping for some kind of economic collapse or social anarchy. They sound like they’re actually rooting for it. In a kind of ‘When it happens, then you’ll be sorry.You should have listened to us!”
Spankyslappybottom
Just wanna say as we watch the MSM jizzing all over Joey Scarborough for his “brave” new stance…many of us got there a long time ago without needing a mountain of 6-year-old bodies to stand on.
Fucking disgusting, how all these enablers and advocates of endless, restrictionless gun selling are now going to be hailed as “courageous” and “thoughtful.”
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
pseudonymous in nc
@Served:
Silly rabbit, they just switch from one to the next with consummate ease. We’re talking about blaze-of-glory Ruby Ridge martyrdom fantasies here.
Yutsano
@Zifnab: Offence wins games, defence wins championships. Or something.
Spankyslappybottom
I would also like to point out that Andrew Sullivan has–SURPRISE!–found a way to make the slaughter of 26 people about HIM. Unbelievable. Unfuckingbelievable.
Citizen_X
Or Staalheim, or Basiji, or, what was that group in that one country called? Oh yeah, the Klan.
catclub
Can we have a thread to mock/digest the news on the newly appointed senator for SC?
My contribution is that senators from states like SC and MS tend to stay forever. Will he be an exception to automatic re-election?
Mnemosyne
@quannlace:
That’s very much a feature of apocalyptic thinking. If you read Fred Clark’s eviscerations of the Left Behind books, you’ll see that the series is not stories so much as an extended, seven-book, “Nyah-nyah, you should have listened to us!”
Doomsayers need their doom to happen, or they’re just flapping their gums. What to worry about is the ones who decide that they’re going to kick-start their predicted doom — that’s where McVeigh was coming from (the Oklahoma City bombing was supposed to kick off the race war that he and his white supremacist buddies had been predicting for years, and he was deeply disappointed that it didn’t work).
Valdivia
I am thinking something like the paramilitary groups in Colombia. Because that worked out so well.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I’ve said it before, if the gun bunnies who justify owning an arsenal as some defense against the tyranny of gubmint are serious about their important role in protecting our sacred democracy, they should be learning how to manufacture and build IEDs.
MikeJ
@Yutsano:
I haven’t seen the remake, but I found it interesting that they changed the lead from high school quarterback to “marine on leave”.
mdblanche
@catclub: The new Senator from SC delivers his first speech. (NSFW)
YellowJournalism
@MikeJ: Spoiler! The lead dies after teaching his little high school brother about the true meaning of being a badass and “earning” freedom, as if fighting with a gun in a fictional WWIII is the only way to do so. (I haven’t seen the film, just read a detailed review.)
GregB
Is there not some irony in the fact that large numbers of people who are preparing for the knock on the door and arrest and death from the big bad government have spent their entire lives pushing for more and bigger weapons and increased police spying powers of authority for that very government?
Mark S.
@MikeJ:
They were going for a little more realism in the remake.
Cacti
It’s a barely mentioned fact of US history, but George Washington hated militia forces and thought they were more of a nuisance than a help.
JWL
@Spankyslappybottom: Look at it this way: better late than never, if it portends a perceptual sea change on enacting sensible gun control laws.
The vote on the Feinstein automatic weapons bill which she intends to re-submit will be telling whether or not it has.
gnomedad
And that’s a bad thing how?
/teepers
Mnemosyne
@JWL:
I’m wondering how many Republican senators will be mysteriously unavailable for a vote.
Holden Pattern
@Spankyslappybottom:
Sort of like Ronald Reagan only got behind nuclear disarmament AFTER seeing “The Day After.” How crippled does your brain have to be to not understand what happens in a nuclear exchange without seeing the movin’ pitchers?
AnonPhenom
@Citizen_X:
Or for those with ties to the North of Ireland; “B Specials”
So many groups of authoritarian thugs, so little time.
Davis X. Machina
@Mark S.:
Hence the North Korean invasion…
@ GregB: They say ‘the government’ but they mean ‘Nat Turner’ or ‘H. Rap Brown.’
In a way that’s encouraging, and shows the growth of civil society. because they can’t say “H. Rap Brown” any more, and have to say ‘the government’. Except on the internet. Where they can say both. Rather a lot.
hep kitty
As my dad predicted, Haley appointed Tea Party African American Tim Scott to replace DeMint.
I would love to see Jim Clyburn take this guy down in the next election but I probably haven’t lived a good enough life.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Ooh! Ooh! At what point do we get to tell them their All-American macho war movie doesn’t star an American??
JoyceH
Let’s also not forget that the Soviet Union, the most massively armed tyranny in human history, was not brought down by the Arsenal of Democracy, as many Americans I know always expected to happen, nor yet by a homegrown insurgency – but by the unarmed citizens of Moscow.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Holden Pattern: Now, now. Any teacher will tell you that different people have different modes of learning, that some folks are tactile learners, some are visual learners, some like to talk…
Ahhh, fuck it, you gotta be right at the bottom of the stupid ditch to not understand that a nuclear exchange means “everyone and everything dies”. You’ve got to be standing with a shovel ready to dig it deeper, stringer of drool trailing from your mouth to the ground, to not understand that “one gun for every inhabitant of the United States” means that a lot of people are going to get shot all the time.
Culture of Truth
I wish these people planning to overthrow the government would just do it already.
I mean, a foreign-born kenyan marxist just took over the government. What exactly are they waiting for?
Comrade Dread
A guerrilla force could potentially bleed an occupying army dry, but it would have a lot of hurdles to overcome. Organization would need to be quickly imposed; support from the community or international support would have to be garnered; you’d need a host of recruits willing to die and commit atrocities; you’d need an alternative method of communication because the government would be tracking your cell phones; you’d need to learn how to travel in secret and avoid drones and patrols; you’d need an opposing general who wouldn’t just order the neighborhood you’re operating from to be surrounded and firebombed.
In short, yeah, most of these would-be commandos would be dead within a week.
Violet
@hep kitty: I don’t know anything about him. Outside of him being African American and Tea Party, what else is there to know? Is he crazier than your average Teabagger?
Mnemosyne
@Holden Pattern:
You have to be especially stupid if you’re someone who was an adult during WWII and presumably saw the footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or did he just dismiss that as “movie magic”?
Zifnab25
@quannlace: There’s a comedy-survival-horror book, called “This Book is Full of Spiders” that encapsulates the whole End-of-the-World mentality really nicely.
One chapter is dedicated entirely to a rant by a survivalist out on the edge of the town, as he complains about his musician son and a friend that showed up on the survivalist’s ranch during the outbreak.
It basically boils down with all the classic “Stupid lazy people just lucked out and now you’re all getting what’s coming to you and they all called me crazy but who is laughing now?” Eerie in its accuracy to the sort of things I’ve heard real life people say. :-p
I don’t know if these survivalist guys are hoping for the end of the world so much as they are simply hoping to sing “You were wrong, I was right” and to hell with everyone else after that.
catclub
@Violet: “Is he crazier than your average Teabagger? ”
A high (or low) bar, indeed.
ThinkProgress notes that he has called for Impeachment
of Obama — after being elected to the House of Reps.
Violet
@Zifnab25:
Yes, they want everyone to recognize they were right. But they also want, after they’ve been shown to be right, to get respect for their knowledge and foresight. And to be held up as some kind of leader.
They are looking for the respect they don’t think they’re getting enough of at the moment. Once they’re proven right, everyone will have to follow them and trust them and respect them.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: He may have thought that Dr Strangelove was a documentary. Note that that movie does not show anyone suffering from radiation poisoning, or extreme burns.
Violet
@catclub: Yeah, a low (or high) bar, indeed. But calling for the impeachment of the President definitely puts him on the crazier end of the teabagger spectrum.
TOP123
Sounds like requetés and catastrophists.
To extend the analogy, we could make the Boehners Alfonsists and the Cantors and Demints Falangists…
Mnemosyne
@Zifnab25:
Wasn’t there some Renaissance vision of Hell where people in Heaven basically had a balcony overlooking Hell so they could enjoy watching their friends and neighbors be eternally tortured, eternally secure in the knowledge that they had been right?
Zifnab25
@Comrade Dread:
The gun-nut survivalists tend to dove-tail nicely with the anti-Federal sessessionists. And, frankly, I’ve always found the Southern state governors – particularly those with the least ambition beyond the Governor’s mansion – to have a meaner tyrannical streak than US Presidents.
So if I’m going to put my money on “The guy who I’ll need to go to ground against as a Wolverines! guerrilla fighter”, its going to be some jacked up state elected lord-ling that the Feds aren’t interested in reining in.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I said it another thread, but I’ll repeat it here: if gun nuttery were really about defense against govt tyranny, Native American tribes would be armed to the teeth. When was the last time you encountered a red, brown or yellow gun nut? Gun nuts are white males with few exceptions, and demographics don’t lie.
Schlemizel
@Spankyslappybottom:
Why is that unbelievable? It is what that infected pustual on the ass of America does.
Cassidy
@Violet: I think it’s funny that in all these fantasies of their’s they think they are the wolf, when all likelihood, they’ll be a dead sheep and their female loved ones will be taken as a number of things, and their children pressed into the service of the completely sociopathic. But somehow, they imagine themselves the warlord.
nemesis
Just read that gun shops are packed with customers in the wake of last weeks mass shootings and its the holidays! Give a gift of death. Give a gun.
We are seriously fucked up.
Are there really that many folks out there that truly believe in the “more guns” mantra or is it, as I suspect, a very small, very vocal minority who receives outsized attention with their gun fetishism?
Regardless, Im kinda fed up with the “more guns” talk. Beyond fed up.
I smell an excuse for gun lovers to go way round the bend with all the talk of gun control. Its their pet nightmare scenario where the mean black guy in the WH comes for their freedomz! Also expect wingers to claim some sort of inside, black bag operation directed by liebruls to discredit gun owners. You know, like creating the mass murders for use against gun owners. Total paranoia.
This may not end well…
Schlemizel
I don’t think it is much of a surprise but it is an open secret in some circles that “zombie” is just the word used because that other word, the one white guys are not allowed to use, is off limits.
Cyan
J. Skiddy joins the light side of the force? Maybe this atrocity really is the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back…
Forum Transmitted Disease
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Don’t get quite so hasty there, cowboy. When I was living in the Bay Area, every damn male Asian I met had enough firepower to start their own government.
It’s a “hobby” that frankly requires a lot of money, which may explain some of the ethnic disparities.
Brendanyc
@Mnemosyne: ” Doomsayers need their doom to happen, or they’re just flapping their gums. What to worry about is the ones who decide that they’re going to kick-start their predicted doom — that’s where McVeigh was coming from (the Oklahoma City bombing was supposed to kick off the race war that he and his white supremacist buddies had been predicting for years, and he was deeply disappointed that it didn’t work).”
also Charles Manson. This is a perceptive comment, and yes this psychological need to prove the rest of us wrong is one reason–maybe the reason–the preppers seem actually excited about the coming apocalypse/collapse/race war. hard to say at times if they are warning against it or urging it forward. or both at once.
Culture of Truth
ThinkProgress notes that he has called for Impeachment of Obama — after being elected to the House of Reps.
“After”? Why he’s practically a socialist.
Culture of Truth
Wasn’t there some Renaissance vision of Hell where people in Heaven basically had a balcony overlooking Hell so they could enjoy watching their friends and neighbors be eternally tortured, eternally secure in the knowledge that they had been right?
Like the luxury box at a Jets game.
Schlemizel
@nemesis:
Just like when the original assault weapon ban went into effect this will cause a spike in sales.
The moran BIL way over paid for a cheap Chinese knock off AK47 that time. I don’t know that he has ever actually used the piece of junk but it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t go buy a second one now.
A more useful approach would be to outlaw high capacity clips. The gun range I shoot at sells a 200 round ‘snail’ for the AR15. Besides how ridiculous it would be to acrry that weight what on earth justifies that other than a tiny peep?
nemesis
Along with the disgusting Doomsday Preppers show on the National Geographic channel, Discovery now shows Doomsday Bunkers. Its a shit reality show where we follow the builders of Doomsday shelters. Obviously paranoid, derranged people are seen spending $150,000 on 600 sq ft underground shelters for, in this case, protection against the impending meltdown of a nearby nuclear facility. Note to paranoid idiot: if you worry that much about meltdowns, move to an alternate location.
Anyway, a dude on this program bought a large in ground shelter. This brainiac lives in a high water zone of Louisiana. Right. An in ground shelter thats just a few feet from an existing body of water. $50,000 for the right to sit in an underwater shelter and drown.
My feeling is programs like these legitimize the paranoid survivalists out there. It emboldens them.
The Red Pen
Anecdote #1
In 2009, I moved to Springfield, MO, which is home to Bass Pro. A coworker was hosting a shooting day including skeet on some undeveloped land he owns. I have a Mossberg 12-gauge and so I went to Bass Pro to buy some appropriate shot and a case of clay pigeons. While browsing the section for shotgun and rifle supplies, some dumbass who looked like a stock redneck straight out of central casting, started freaking out. He couldn’t find any ammo for his pistol. Now, keeping in mind that he’s standing next to a shelf with thousands of assault-rifle rounds, he starts yelling, “Obama did it! He banned ammunition for mah guns!” A clerk came over and calmed him down. He then pointed out the sign he was standing right next to indicating that pistol ammunition was downstairs. It’s really hard to quantify this level of stupid.
Anecdote #2
Years earlier, in the early 90’s I was talking with coworkers about guns (in Texas). I explained that I had the aforementioned shot gun, and a 45-caliber pistol. One coworker advised me to get a high-caliber rifle as well in case I had to take on “the government.” After he left, I asked my other colleague — a former special-forces Ranger — if that was as stupid as it sounded. He explained that he and many others had been trained in MOUT — military operations in urban terrain — and that some suburban dickhole with a rifle would last about 8 nanoseconds against trained forces.
The original coworker still recommended the rifle because if Clinton were elected, he would ban all guns and then there would be a civil war. Sound familiar?
Violet
@Cyan: I’m of the opinion that the New York media folks are getting behind this for two reasons. One the kids are mostly white. Two, it happened in Connecticut, close enough to NYC that people commute there to work. It’s their own backyard, just like with Sandy.
If this had happened in, say, an inner city elementary school where the victims were primarily non-white and in, say, Detroit or St. Louis, I think the response from the New York media types would be substantially different.
Hill Dweller
The Republicans seem to think having a couple of people of color in their party inoculates them from any charges of racism. It’s the political equivalent of the “I have black friends” excuse people cart out after making a racist statement.
As an aside, it looks like the Republicans are going to try and divide the electoral votes up by congressional district, as opposed to winner takes all, in MI, PA, VA, FL, and OH.
JWL
@Mnemosyne: The GOP is so far gone that I won’t be surprised if they vote unanimously against Feinstein’s resubmitted legislation.
Cassidy
@Violet: I hate to say it, but I don’t care what their reasons are. As long as it gets done, I don’t give a shit about their conscience.
Rational Subjectivist
The only serious shooters I’d be afraid of as a group are Hmong. Some of the Hmong men in the US learned to stalk and kill as resistance fighters in Laos.
TOP123
@Mnemosyne: St. Augustine!
beltane
@nemesis: These programs present the behavior of these crazy people as a rational response to real threats instead of as the crazed doings of paranoid idiots responding to their imaginary demons. It’s sort of like the way the media legitimized the birthers by providing known nutters such as Orly Taitz and Andy Martin a soapbox from which to shout at people from
Waldo
@quannlace: I can see why the “preppers” would be rooting for disaster. Once you commit your time, effort and resources to surviving whatever doomsday scenario has captured your imagination, there are only two possible outcomes: you’re either going to look incredibly prescient or incredibly foolish. And nobody wants to look foolish.
Violet
@Cassidy: Oh, yeah, I agree. I really don’t care what helps it happen. Glad to have Scarborough wake the fuck up.
I guess it’s just kind of depressing to watch. Unless it somehow affects them, it’s just another fly in and do tragedy/disaster p0rn reporting and leave. It’s like their brains can’t comprehend that if it can happen in Columbine/Virginia Tech/Portland/Aurora/wherever it can happen to them. And that dealing with the problem helps everyone–including them–not just those people.
The Red Pen
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Well, it’s been about 4 years since I left Texas, so I’m going to say “about 4 years.”
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Schlemizel: A desire to have a jam on your third or fourth shot, just as the Aurora shooter had (he had the hundred-round “beta” mag). Those things don’t work worth a shit, no mag over twenty rounds does, and the guys who actually shoot those things for a living will tell you not to put more than 16 rounds in your 20-round mag or it will jam too.
I shoot and appreciate a decent gun, but anything other than a decent 10 round mag and good scope is just glitter sprinkled on your dick.
Rational Subjectivist
@Waldo:
See, but if they die with their arsenal unused, then they deterred the government from stealing their liberties by being heavily armed. So win/win.
Scott de B.
As I’ve been saying for years, if the government oppressing the people via military force is something you are worried about, you should support disbanding most of the military. Keep the Coast Guard and a portion of the Navy and Marines. Disband or drastically reduce the size of the FBI and CIA. But of course people who think that way support exactly the opposite.
Richard W. Crews
People with guns kill people
I think the anti-government 2nd Amendment justifications are nonsense. Antiquated nonsense. Fudgin” Branch Dividian Waconess. See how it ends. There ain’t a wacko “patriot” in suburbia that has a wife who will live through the toilet not working, much less all dreams held in 401-Ks and equities when your checking account is closed . You think there’s someone to shoot at? Tip the couch over in front of the picture window and … ? March on ??? You and what army?:
Get real? They will drone your posterior while you’re sneaking over to the neighbors for a bucket of water while everything you ever planned on dissolves and the world never even notices.
You tell me what the Federal Government of the United States Of America has to do that will ever get an organized group of NOT-CRAZY people ( I’ve been to Tea Party big events) to act in an armed manner.
Then, after you finally stretch out all logic and history, whatever you put up, I will measure against school massacres.
I propose that semi-auto pistols be illegal. No ammo magazines over 6 rounds – if you can’t take that deer down with 6, give it up.
TOP123
@Violet: I understand that you are making a point, and a valid one in many ways, but your stated evidence is a little off here, and living as I do a very short drive from Newtown, I feel like I have to point out that Newtown is not Greenwich. Newtown is also not where well-paid NYC media people live, nor is it a convenient suburb of the city. Yes, like much of non-urban Connecticut, it is mostly white, though the one Newtown kindergartener I personally know is not… and physically unharmed, thank goodness.
Again, I understand your point. I just want to clarify that Connecticut is not simply synecdoche for wealthy Wall Street suburb, and that I think the (very, very welcome) pushback against the NRA talking points we might be seeing in the media and political worlds has a whole lot more to do with how very small the victims were.
(edited for bad typing!)
Cassidy
@Forum Transmitted Disease: 30 Round mags don’t typically jam unless you wear them out, but that’s the same for any magazine.
catclub
@Violet: “If this had happened in, say, an inner city elementary school”
One earlier post referring to DrScience emphasized that it actually NEVER happens anywhere except those white schools.
Paducah kentucky, Pearl MS, Amish school, etc etc.
Columbine, CO.
I figure the (always) white gunmen would be too scared to go into the inner city. Even armed to the teeth and planning suicide by cop. Strange.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
Or more vocal; take your pick. You can’t convince me that there aren’t a lot of them who would like to see the President impeached, unless it’s because you’ve convinced me that the majority favors more violent and less regular approaches to getting the President out of office.
El Cid
If our military (not to mention the local police) couldn’t take out some “Don’t Tread on Me” neighborhood yahoos with whatever preferred armory they were keeping, they’d hardly be worth the 500+ billion a year they’re funded.
mapaghimagsik
@Mnemosyne:
Wasn’t that Manson’s shtick?
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I just finished reading My Friend the Mercenary and the whole ‘rebellion without outside support fails’ is exactly right. Every time I hear about a rebel group being some what successful the first question I ask is where are they getting money and weapons?
Roger Moore
@Scott de B.:
What, and let the UN take over the country? I think this is a big reason for the paranoia about the government betraying us to some kind of international order. If you’re afraid of straight foreigners, then we need a strong military but not a personal stockpile of guns. If you’re afraid of the government, you need a personal stockpile of guns but should want to gut the military. It’s only when you have a nebulous national/international conspiracy that you need both a strong military (to keep the foreigners out) and a personal arsenal (to fight the military if they betray us).
trollhattan
@catclub:
Not so. Just down the road, this happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_School_massacre
hungrycaterpillar
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: What makes you think they aren’t?
Violet
@TOP123: You certainly know more about the geography than I do. I was basing my comment on what someone from the town said in an interview–that people live there and drive to work in NYC. That they choose to do that even though it’s a bit further than the usual Connecticut NYC suburb towns but that people felt it was worth it because it was so idyllic.
I agree that NYC media types probably don’t live there, but I still think it’s enough of “their own backyard” that it still fits the general need for them to have something hit home for them before they realize it’s a real issue.
catclub
@trollhattan: I stand corrected. (well sit, anyway)
Roy G.
I wish Nancy Lanza was still alive so we could tell her to her face how wrong she was. I’m sure when she was alive, she was spouting all of the gun nut rhetoric that we’ve been subjected to since Friday morning.
TOP123
I think I was being a little tetchy, sorry. I do get tired of seeing Connecticut portrayed as one extended bedroom community for the 1%, that’s all. It would be nice to have people think of Mark Twain, Noah Webster, and Igor Sikorsky rather than Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and George H.W. Bush.
On a related note, I have always liked this ;) :
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushconnecticutwelcome.htm
Violet
@TOP123: No worries. I don’t know much about Connecticut and you live there so you would know much more. I just happened to see someone–a real estate agent I think–from Newtown talking about the town and who lives there, etc. Maybe she’s not even right about it, although at 60 miles from NYC, it’s probably just at the edge of what people are willing to do in a commute. Crazy long, but doable, especially if those folks don’t work in Manhattan but maybe somewhere nearby but easier to get to. Of course I live in a place where a 60 mile commute is considered acceptable, so maybe I have a slightly warped view.
mclaren
Before you spew this kind of gibberish, you need to read your history. The Yugoslavs had just about expelled the entire Nazi war machine from their territory by 1945.
canuckistani
@mclaren:
True, but you fail to mention the Balkans were a sideshow for the Nazis in 1945, who were busy being crushed by conventional armies on the Western, Italian and especially the Eastern Fronts by then.
They did manage to evict a tiny fraction of the Nazi war machine with considerable material aid from the major powers.
anonymouse
@mclaren:
You conveniently ignore the fact that they had lots of external support to tie the Nazis down and that they had been fighting the Ottoman empire (and each other) for generations and had a preexisting corps of soldiers/militia, leadership and knowledge base. Along with a community with the will to continue resisting despite atrocity after atrocity.
The idea that you can compare people hardened by generations of war, supported by a superpower, with soft, flabby losers who struggle to make the walk from car to mall is absurdly stupid.
Even against the armed forces with the worst record against guerilla opponents (the United States) you will need logistics, training, leadership, toughness born of lives of hardship, and foreign support. And you will still die. That’s what guerillas do against a superior force. They die.
I grew up in a country that lived in mortal terror of a facist regional power. We all did national service (conscription) and the only way not to freak out at how pathetic you were vs an army that was the terror of its part of the world was to accept that, once you started your service period, you were already dead.
If you can accept that, that you will die and your family will either be tortured to death or live destitute, and you can run 5km with a loaded AK, two mags and two litres of water, you might have a chance at being a momentary annoyance against real soldiers.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Richard W. Crews:
Get real? They will drone your posterior while you’re sneaking over to the neighbors for a bucket of water while everything you ever planned on dissolves and the world never even notices.
I think it’s safe to say that where two sides have assault rifles and are unable to move against each other, the side that ALSO has a mortar will always win nicely.