Part of Freedom...

...is having the right to defend it. Part of having a right to life is being able to defend yourself.

As I said yesterday, I have never understood how anyone can think that a disarmed people can be called "free."

History Teaches Well

As God is my witness, I have never understood how anyone can call a disarmed people "free."

Amen, and Amen...

This wonderful thought was sent to me by a friend. There will be a few more coming in days ahead.

"Uncle Eric" on the Swiss Defense

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Another post from a previous blogging incarnation.

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For quite some time, I've had a post "in process" that talks about our involvement in the Middle East, national defense, etc., and one of the points therein is that I prefer, overall, a "Swiss model" of national defense. The best short explanation of this concept that I have found has been in one of "Uncle Eric's" (Richard Maybury) books, World War I: The Rest of the Story and How It Affects You Today, but as I do not own my own copy, I have not dwelt on it.

Well, as it happens, my oldest son borrowed the thing from the library, and I am going to share his material on the Swiss with you, counting on the fact that you will be inspired to go out and buy your own copy of this and others of Mr. Maybury's books. Any of Mr. Maybury's books is an education. That is not to say that I agree with every jot and tittle of what he writes, but you will emerge from your reading with a significantly improved understanding of the way the world works. So, without further ado:

Switzerland stayed out of the World Wars; yet Switzerland is smaller than Ohio in both population and area. How did the Swiss do it?

Their story is very enlightening, but not usually revealed in school textbooks. Consequently, many people today are unaware that Switzerland has a crucially important lesson to teach.

In Switzerland, a man joins the militia at age 20 and remains until age 50 (officers remain until age 55). A militia is all the able-bodied adult males of good character in the country. They are trained, equipped, and ready at all times to turn out for guerrilla operations.

Contrary to the unflattering picture of militias often painted by the news media, a militia is a military version of the volunteer firemen who are always trained and ready to turn out to fight fires.

Each Swiss militiaman trains regularly, much like the National Guard in the U.S. He keeps his battle rifle and ammunition in his home ready for immediate use.

Militia-guerrillas are trained to ambush privates and corporals only when a more valuable target is not available. They prefer colonels and generals.

Marksmanship is the Swiss national sport, and all Swiss militiamen are required to be expert marksmen. This means they are all qualified to be snipers, and the colonels and generals of surrounding nations know it.

There is an old saying, Switzerland does not have an army; Switzerland is an army. It is an entire nation of Minutemen.

In World War II, the Swiss militia numbered 850, 000, a fifth of the population. These were more troops than the U.S. Army had when the World Trade Center was destroyed.

Not bad for such a small country.

Under the six-to-one ratio, the Germans and Italians would have needed five million troops to successfully occupy that tiny nation. Facing 850, 000 snipers, the German generals decided they could invade, but they would never get out of Switzerland alive.

[snip]

...Switzerland has long been famous for the effectiveness of its militia and for its heavily armed neutrality. If you will read FEDERALIST PAPERS number 20, 42, and 43 by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, you will find that in creating the American system, the Founders studied Switzerland. The Second Amendment and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution especially bear the imprint of Swiss thinking.

Nothing strikes terror into the heart of a general like the prospect of invading a country infested with snipers.

[snip]

...at the time I write this letter, neutral Switzerland has not been in a war in two centuries.

[snip]

...why don't all countries use this system? My guess: a militia-guerrilla force cannot be used to invade other people's homelands. Militiamen are only part-time soldiers. Because they have civilian jobs and families to take care of, a militia is strictly defensive, not offensive.

Also, most governments have so much power that their subjects (their citizens) hate them, and I am sure these rulers do not want their subjects to have weapons.

Today, if we used the militia-guerrilla system of defense required by the Second Amendment, the U.S. could field 50 million able-bodied males. This means an invader would need, at a minimum, 300 million troops.

All the armed forces of the rest of the world combined total less than 40 million.

Try to imagine invading a country infested with 50 million snipers.

Incidentally...let me point out the exact wording of the Second Amendment:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The right "to keep and bear arms" clause gets most of the press, but notice that the militia clause comes first.

Also, notice that the militia clause does not say, "A well regulated militia, being optional for the security of a free State." It says "necessary."

In other words, the amendment does not give permission for a well-regulated militia; it requires one. The American Founders were no fools.

After all, it was the Pennsylvania flintlock rifle (invented by immigrant gunsmiths from Germany, incidentally) used as a sniper rifle that enabled Minutemen to keep the Redcoats from controlling America. British officers had a terrible fear of that rifle. Sniper Timothy Murphy is credited with winning the battle of Saratoga by killing both British commanders. With their leaders dead, the battle turned against the British.

[really big snip]

The one thing we can be sure about is that in both World Wars tiny Switzerland was surrounded by warring powers but was not invaded.

[snip]

...besides being the most heavily armed population in the world, the Swiss also have one of the lowest crime rates. In a country where a well-trained soldier with a battle rifle resides in almost every home, criminals know that their careers will likely be short and painful.

Firearms deaths are rare, too. These people take guns seriously. The whole country is trained in their safe and proper use.

Summarizing the Swiss experience in World War II, the Swiss essentially delivered a message to Axis rulers, the same one they had been delivering to foreign rulers for centuries: yes, you can probably beat us eventually, but by that time we will have hunted down and killed your officers, your henchmen, and you.

Axis rulers left the Swiss porcupine alone.

[snip]

Switzerland is not only a country, it is a citadel. Every village and every mountain pass is fortified. Every new house is built with a bomb shelter in the basement. The long, straight stretches of the expressways have been designed to do double-duty as military airstrips. The highway tunnels are bombproof hangars. Mountain caves are packed with enough food and ammunition for the whole population to conduct guerrilla operations for years.

To a tyrant, there is no place in the world as scary as Switzerland.

[snip]

Nearly every book and movie about the World Wars omits Switzerland. The attitude of the writers seems to be, the Swiss were not in the wars, so they are not important; they are not part of the story.

To me, no country in the World Wars is more important than Switzerland. It is the example the others should be copying.

To my mind, the Swiss model of national defense is nothing short of brilliant.

There is only one thing wherein I question its effectiveness: in dealing with enemies who count their own lives of no significance. Deterrence works brilliantly when your enemies value their own lives, as most people do. But when your enemies are convinced that death in battle against you is a sure-fire ticket to paradise, deterrence is not as effective. Other strategies must come into play.

But would I employ this defense, were it in my power? Oh, you betcha.

Perspective

This was sent to me by a relative.

Truer words have seldom been spoken. I can't tell you the number of times I've talked to people whose premises, if followed to their logical conclusions, amount to this very thing.

On Guns, Self-Defense, and Personal Security

Not so long ago, the Obama administration, via Attorney General Eric Holder, made it known that they would like to reinstitute the old ban on "assault weapons" (in quotes because the term is defined so loosely as to include some weapons that are most definitely NOT what one would ordinarily consider assault weapons), as well as other possible gun controls. Reaction from such of the conservative blogosphere as I read was predictable, mostly focusing on the obvious (in my opinion) violation of the 2nd amendment, with some weighing in on the right to defend one's life and property and the need to be prepared to do so.

I, too, agree that the 2nd amendment would be violated by such a ban; the wording of the 2nd amendment seems very plain to me. I do not see how banning "assault weapons" would not constitute an infringement of the right of the people to keep and bear arms (Please don't attempt to argue this point in the comments unless you have something really novel to bring to the table; I am already familiar with the common arguments on both sides of the issue.). I also agree that man has an inalienable right to defend his life and property, and that there will soon be, if there already isn't, a greater need to be prepared for such defense. But I still think Americans' rights to own firearms are going to be infringed. The only questions are "How much?" and "How fast?" We have too few people who understand these things now for the country to avoid being demogogued into such infringements.

What are you going to do, if it comes down to it and the federales come to take your guns?

I suppose you might begin now to hide your guns, but even assuming that you are carpenter enough and surreptitious enough that no one else alive knows where to find your guns, a hidden gun isn't the most useful self-defense tool, is it? And if it really does come down to it, despite our much-beloved "from my cold, dead fingers" rhetoric, I doubt very many will actually choose being shot to death in front of their wives and children. Unless we are able to win--and keep winning--the battle for the 2nd amendment in the political realm, I think the reality is that it is going to be very difficult to keep, let alone carry and use, firearms for self-defense.

I also think that people tend to imagine themselves more capable with a gun than they really are--that is, they tend not to be aware of what can go wrong, or to over-rely on their firearms. Nothing is foolproof. For example, if I recall correctly, the author of Attack Proof told of an experiment where gun owners were placed on one side of a smallish room and someone with a knife on the other. In no case was the gun owner able to draw and aim before the knife-wielder had crossed the room and commenced his attack--and they knew the attack was coming! If you own a gun, are you sure that you will be able to draw, aim, and fire in time? What if you are grabbed first? What if the situation doesn't call for deadly force? What if someone attempts to take your gun away? Don't tell me it can't happen; police officers worry about it all the time.

I like guns; I have two and would like to buy two more. I would never suggest that firearms aren't a valuable part of a self-defense plan. But I am suggesting that relying solely on firearms is a mistake. Our thinking needs to be broader than that. We need to ask, and keep on asking ourselves questions like, "What will I do if I am followed? In a car? On foot? What will I do if I can't get to my gun? If I am surprised, what will I do until I can draw and aim? What can I do to minimize the chances of being surprised? How will I react to sudden stress and fear? What will I do if someone tries to take my gun? How can I keep intruders out of my house or car in the first place? Are there other viable ways to defend myself and my family that I can add to my personal security plan?"

Those questions are important now. How important will they be if, someday, your firearms are legislated out of your hands?