Posted on 06/24/2018 5:04:46 AM PDT by marktwain
Uncertainty about any firearms data requires systematic estimation that relies on a broad spectrum of sources and makes approximation unavoidable. The Small Arms Survey’s estimates of civilian firearms holdings use data gathered from multiple sources. However, with much of civilian ownership concealed or hard to identify, gun ownership numbers can only approximate reality. Using data from several different sources, at the end of 2017 there were approximately 857 million civilian-held firearms in the world’s 230 countries and territories. Civilian firearms registration data was available for 133 countries and territories. Survey results were used to help establish total gun civilian holdings in 56 countries. The new figure is 32 percent higher than the previous estimate from 2006, when the Small Arms Survey estimated there were approximately 650 million civilian-held firearms. Virtually all countries show higher numbers, although national ownership rates vary widely, reflecting factors such as national legislation, a country’s gun culture, historical and other factors. While some of the increase reflects improved data and research methods, much is due to actual growth of civilian ownership.While the United States accounted for 60 percent of the total global increase, nearly all countries experienced an increase in firearms ownership. The United States was estimated to have 41.5% of privately owned firearms in the world in 2006. At the end of 2017, the Small Arms Survey estimated the U.S.A. had 46% of privately owned firearms in the world.
The survey doesn’t take into consideration people in counties with severe restrictions on gun ownership who will never tell if they a gun, and the same goes for America. I am sure that there are a lot more commercially manufacture small arms out there than anyone knows. Guns that were purchased decades and decades ago and past down in families that are not recorded anywhere!
The US standing army is flea on the back of a wolf. It is only 800,000 with half faggots, REMFs and support units. The best are overseas. The USA Army could NOT put down a rebellion in Florida let only the entire USA! It’s a joke to think so. There are more counties(around 3000) the USA than M-1a tanks. One tank per county LOL!
“It took 130,000 US troops to suppress about 10,000 insurgents in Iraq. A country about the size of Kalifornia.
Also, there is a large contingent of former military in the civilian population many with years of combat experience. IMHO the German/Europe comparison in WW2 does not hold up.” [mad_as_he$$, post 40]
“The US standing army is flea on the back of a wolf. It is only 800,000 with half faggots, REMFs and support units. The best are overseas. The USA Army could NOT put down a rebellion in Florida let only the entire USA! It’s a joke to think so...” [central_va, post 42]
Analysis is at least 140 years out of date. Unsupported, foot troops are one thing only: targets. Came true before smokeless powder came onto the field. A brief look at the casualty figures from World War One ought to shed some light. And those losses happened before combined arms doctrine took shape.
No entity on the battlefield owns a poorer ratio of capability versus vulnerability than a footsoldier. There are dozens of systems against which infantry is powerless; combat today takes place in realms where a footsoldier will never venture, and about which the citizenry at large is unaware.
“Combat experience” is overrated (not that the population of combat veterans is all that large: mad_as_he$$ ought to take a closer look at the implications of the numbers he cited). I’ve met thousands and worked with hundreds. I spent more time getting them to “unlearn” stuff they “knew” was true but wasn’t, than I did informing them about what was going on. Right up to and including four-stars.
Even the best, most experienced veterans can boast only limited experience, especially when it comes to realms of action outside their own particular specialty. Situations are far too particular, details far too overpowering, for combat veterans to have developed a generalized sort of “superior wisdom” that grants them perfect understanding, that never fades with time. Training gets stale, or is imperfectly remembered; degrades a veteran’s ability to train others.
40%???
Buy more. Make it 70% and REALLy give them something to be nervous about.
I’ll do my part... :^)
The math doesn’t work, the standing army is a meaningless foot note in the case of a general insurrection. It isn’t even seed corn.
Ok lets take FLA there are 67 countries in FLA. Let's say they rebel. That means there would be available 62 aircraft of all sorts per county. Lets say half are combat ready ~30 or so. 30 aircraft are not going to suppress an entire county. IF you ad just one more state of equal size you are down to 15 and so on. The numbers don't work out for the Feds.
I would suspect that if the true number were known it would be closer to 50 %.
“41%? We can do better people.”
Hey..it’s a foot in the door....a good start.
I’m, cutting back on purchases to about 1 per month. I have 2 safes and they are full, so now I have to get a new one.
“...I have 2 safes and they are full..”
There’s ALWAYS room for one more piece!!!!
“It took 130,000 US troops to suppress about 10,000 insurgents in Iraq...the German/Europe comparison in WW2 does not hold up.” [mad_as_he$$, post 40]
“[The] … standing army is flea ... only 800,000 with half faggots, REMFs and support units. … could NOT put down a rebellion ... It’s a joke to think so.” [central_va, post 42]
“The math doesn’t work, the standing army is a meaningless foot note in the case of a general insurrection. …” [central_va, post 45]
It’s less than honest to claim irregular forces can prevail over numerically superior regular forces in one case, then discount historically verifiable cases where they did not. That level of analysis is over-generalized. Leaves out too many variables.
Let me get this straight … so central_va saying that Group A (veterans with incomplete {or at most out-of-date} training, leading the unorganized militia and other sympathetic parties who have no training, nor any heavy weapons), are going to prevail over Group B (younger, better-trained people with unlimited access to the complete arsenal of weapons, munitions, and support)? Can’t happen without Group A enduring severe casualties - something Americans are loathe to do.
The remark about “half faggots, REMFs and support” has no weight unless one believes armed conflict is about macho posturing. That is less true every day, as newer systems are imagined, developed, tested, and put into the inventory. Remote sensors, robotic devices, sensor-linked weapons, and comm networks don’t care about the morals or the sex of who operates them, and - thus supported - many can kill the mightiest he-man like that.
An infantryman can’t do much without water, food, ammunition, communications, intel & warning. Interrupt these for only a short time and his effectiveness dwindles to naught. “Support” is indispensable, and it’s where the biggest changes are happening.
Math 101: US Standing army 800,000 ( minus defections ). The potential army of insurrection = 30,000,000 ( actually who knows how many more).
“...US Standing army 800,000 ( minus defections ). The potential army of insurrection = 30,000,000 ( actually who knows how many more).” [central_va, post 52]
Arithmetic is everything. And nothing.
Americans are highly averse to losses in action. Especially in ground combat: they grow war-weary in a hurry.
Consider the October 1993 incident in Mogadishu - the subject of Mark Bowden’s book and the subsequent film directed by Ridley Scott. US forces racked up a kill ratio between 80 and 100 to one. But the entire affair has gone down in pop-culture memory as an American defeat.
During Desert Storm in early 1991, public opinion swung against Coalition actions, because of the large numbers of casualties inflicted by Coalition air attacks against Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait. In other words, we were killing the enemy too well.
In the 1970s, the nation walked away from Southeast Asia because unhappiness over losses created a reversal in public opinion.
During the Second World War, US Joint Chiefs of Staff and theater commanders developed serious concern that US opinion would reverse itself on the war effort against Imperial Japan, because US & Allied Forces were experiencing combat losses that mounted steadily with each succeeding ground action - despite the fact that combat operations kept racking up a kill ratio of ten to one or greater. It’s all there in the meeting minutes.
In the face of these sorts of verified or anticipated public reactions to historical numbers (not the estimates that central_va admits are highly speculative anyway), optimism appears less warranted.
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