People shoot people not guns?

[texasjohn]

Hmm... you mean.... We is "they"

Good post!

 

[N80]

The rule of thumb is that a unit that looses 30% is no longer fit for combat.

This is very true. Notable exceptions include many Confederate units in the Civil War that continued to fight as cohesive units with losses exceeding 50%!

I bring this up as a point of trivia but it also fits well with this thread. At the time of the Civil War the south was totally unindustrial. It was rural. It was unorganized and the general population was uneducated. The north on the other hand was progressive, industrial and powerful. Why then did the war take 4-5 years to end and not 1? Lots of reasons. Incompetent leadership in the north during the early part of the war. But also because the south was populated with people who had and knew how to use firearms. And whatever you may have learned about the Civil War in the government schools, the reason that these poor, ignorant white boys fought like rabid wolverines was not to support slavery or the plantation system. They fought because they felt like their homeland was under attack and because they were loyal to a fault to the men that led them. Just another example of the power of an armed citizenry. On paper, the south should have been subdued in months.

Why they had weapons was simply for protection and to put food on the table.

There has been a leftist historical revisionist movement that claims that all that is Hollywood hype. They say that the pioneers couldn't afford guns. And those who settled this country had none. They say that the wild west was a myth and the southern boys with guns is a legend. They say gun ownership in the colonies was about the same as everyhwere else in the world. Books have been written. The 'new' history has been widely accepted and will soon be filtering down into the government schools so that our kids won't be fed that right wing lie that this country was and has always been a nation of armed citizens. I don't know my history/demographics well enough to refute them. But certainly something smells rotten in Denmark.

 

[texasjohn]

All I know is that my house is filled with guns... some modern, but even more are antiques.... not in the valuable sense, but they have been in the family for a long time... cap and ball shotguns, pistol, dmascus barrel shotgun, etc. no longer functional.

However, the family history is replete with arms and survival by them. On my mother's side, Michael Stoner was a best friend and companion of Daniel Boone. Then, on my Dad's side, relatives came to Texas while still under Mexico, ultimately ran off the Indians and Mexicans... Texas Rangers in the family... signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence....

Um... I kinda totally believe that all our written and verbal family history is replete with stories of who shot who, skeletans in the closet.... genuine stories of somebody coming to town with a chip on their shoulder for a relative, and the relative hunted him up and killed him in subsequent pistol fight.

Regarding the Civil War... units were often made up of men all from the same town/community... thus personal loyalty was extremely high. They just didn't quit fighting. I suspect this accounted for much of the tenacity of the South during the "late unplesantness"

One wonders if there happens to be a parallel between this American experience and what is now going on in Iraq (tribe based)

 

[N80]

One wonders if there happens to be a parallel between this American experience and what is now going on in Iraq (tribe based)

I thought about that too. But I don't think that's the case. A lot of the violence going on in Iraq, even the violence that seems local, is being stirred up, funded by and often perpetrated by foreign nationals. Especially on the Shiite side that influence is coming from Iran.