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Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger
Somehow, I doubt that handguns, shotguns, and deer rifles are going to be all that effective against helicopter gunships, fighter-bombers, and tanks.
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You'd be surprised. In a Men's Journal magazine issue several months dedicated to Iraqi war stories, there was part of an article that quoted an Army officer that reported the Iraqis very effectively rendered helicopters much less effective with coordinated small arms fire. In the first wave of 60 helicopters every one of them came back with bullet holes in them, wounding several crewmembers. The second wave of helicopters had a couple of them shot down by small arms fire, same tactic, coordinated fire, people just shooting up into the sky at night as they approached. After the initial waves, they avoided flying directly over the cities, towns and villages and Iraqi military positions, a tactic rendering the helicopters less effective at direct confrontation. All you have to do to fight superior machinery is put up a wall of bullets that not even jet fighters can penetrate. 200 million guns could shoot more rounds of ammunition than the military probably even has at it's disposal.
I read of a Basque sheepherder in Wyoming with a .30-30 Winchester put bulletholes in a jet fighter that buzzed his sheep several times. When FBI and military MPs went out to question the sheepherder, they asked him how he managed to put two holes in their jet plane. He said he fired five shots, figured out how far to lead it with the first few shots, then shot it. The pilot was the one that ended up being in trouble, he flew off the flight path and below 1000 feet to make the herd of sheep run.
Most high-powered big game hunting rifles are much more powerful and accurate and shoot further than the light arms carried by soldiers. Also, the non-jacketed soft lead and hollow-point bullets are much more lethal to humans when they do hit than the full metal jacket military stuff mandated by Geneva convention, which both sides are using there in Iraq. There are a lot of handguns more powerful and accurate than the sidearms of the military and most police forces that are using the 9mm (which I've heard called a .38 short). But you do have a point, against WMD, which we do have, bio, chemical, incendiary, and nuclear, small arms are no defense, whether civilian or military.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was to dispute Abe's contention that somehow South Africa was on the right track, when the fact is, American's also have many times more guns than the military and police.