Not to mention ...
the home court advantage that local hunters would have.
It is inconceivable that a tiny country like Japan would have a chance marching their troops across America with an 8,000 mile supply line.
In my opinion, bombing pearl harbor was the biggest blunder by the axis in WW2. It galvanized public support guaranteed America's immediate entry into the war.
Undoubtedly there were a myriad of reasons why the Japanese never invaded the mainland US. The prevalence of gun ownership by a populace that knew how to use them certainly must have been a factor, but probably not the main factor. More likely, if all other factors made their decision a close one, an armed US populace would have been just enough to dissuade them.
Dave, you mentioned the French resistance of WWII. When making that comparison you have to take into account that the French populace generally was not nearly as well armed as the American populace is now or has ever been (except maybe in places like Chicago or NY). The French resistance started with virtually no arms, being initially armed through captured german small arms and American covert action to supply them with cheap but effective small arms. They did not expel the Germans, but did often frustrate them in small and occasionally more significant ways. The resistance helped to slow down the Germans and tie up some of their resources which could otherwise have been used on various fronts against regular military targets.
Rather than it being a ludicrous notion that Japanese generals would not advise their Emporer of the potential effect of a well armed populace from which a significant resistance movement might be formed, not advising their leader of this would be highly negligent.
Unlike in France in the late 1930s or even today, gun ownership is quite prevalent in the US. Unlike in most countries, formal training is not only available, but is a thriving industry in the US. Unlike in most countires that the Japanese had invaded, the armed populace of the US was, for the most part familiar with and skilled at the use of the weapons they possessed. Unlike most of the countries they had invaded, many of the American populace who owned guns also hunted and/or were former military therefore had faimliarity with terrain and with tactics which, in the case of hunters, could easily translate into useful military tactics, or in the case of ex-military, has the formal training.
Any of our generals in Iraq, Afganistan, or any other military theater who would not consider the potential effect of civilian resistance would not last long in their position. The same would be as much or more true of any military force that now, or in any time in our history, would consider invading the US.
Anyone who imagines America's hunters as a bunch of Elmer Fudds whistling away as they stumble through the woods "wooking to bwast those wascawwy wabbits" really has an ill-informed and skewed view of reality in this instance.
re: French resistance of WWII.
the other big difference is there was NO 5,000 mile wide ocean between Germany & France.
Oh, and one other thing. The standard issue rifle to American infantry at the start of WWII was a bolt action "30 ot 6" (correctly .30-06 in type or 30 ought 6 in speech) that held 5 rounds. It was replaced with a semi-automatic rifle known commonly as the "Garand", after the man who designed it. It too was a .30-06 with a 5 round capacity. Both are very similar in function and effectiveness to "hunting rifles" in use today and as in use in the 1940s. The standard issue Japanese rifle was similar to the bolt action rifle the US started the war with. The Japanese had great respect for American small arms in the hands of a trained soldier. I would expect that they would have nearly as much respect for a similar weapon in the hands of civilians with formal or informal small arms training on par or nearly so with that of their own infantry.
Be aware that most Japanese infantry soldiers probably had never held a gun prior to being drafted into military service while many, if not most Americans had grown up with at least some familiarity with guns, and in many cases, making regular use of them.
Almost insulting to soldiers???
Most of your responses indicate that the people in Revolutionary War eventually joined militias and army units ... that's what lead to victory. Just owning a gun wasn't enough to make them a successful soldier, yet that's what this post implies. Without leadership, supplies, a tactical gameplan, etc, we wouldn't have won that war. Hunters don't have that. They go out a couple weekends a year and shoot animals. That's not an Army, that's a sport or a hobby.
Among the many astonishing things I've seen in this thread is the assumption that Japan had any desire to invade the US at any time.
During the depression, Japan, rapidly industrializing, population growing, was hit hard by restrictive tariffs and other protectionist economic policies. Markets in South American, European and Asian regions were waning after 30 years of expansion, and Japan's outlook for self sufficiency was looking grim. They needed raw materials and cheap labor, so expansion into Korea and China seemed to be the answer to their problems.
After all, the Europeans (particularly Britain, France and the Netherlands) and Americans had been attempting to colonize the Far East for a century.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was part of a strategy to keep the US from exerting both economic and military pressure. The foremost aim of the attack was to enable the conquest of Dutch East India and the rest of Southeast Asia without interference from the US Navy. Key to the timing was beating the mobilization authorized by the Vinson-Walsh Act that would have enabled the US to greatly increase the size of the fleet to a point where Japan could not have been able to withstand a sea war.
Japan made two mistakes: First, they overestimated the effect the attack would have on US morale, thinking that the US would refrain from quickly entering a Pacific war; and second, they attacked in a place where the ships targeted were easily recoverable, with their crews on shore leave or at least away from the ships, and several major aircraft carriers were not in port at the time of the attack.
I'm not sure that I'm willing to assume that this thread was ever really about Japan or World War II at all...
> I'm not sure that I'm willing to assume that this thread was ever really about Japan or World War II at all...
1/3 of non-surveying the threads on here (and 90% of the P&R treads) are some sort of sociopolitical Rorschach test at heart.
Probably true......but the point is that this cut and paste came from the website that is perfectly willing to make a point supporting their position using a premise that is totally false.
>"True story and most people do not know it...."
If one starts with the facts, then the premise falls apart.
(That said, I'd hate to be a member of any army that tried a march to conquest through any part of these United States.)
> ...but the point is that this cut and paste came from the website that is perfectly willing to make a point supporting their position using a premise that is totally false.
>
I have no idea if the premise is true or not. Probably not. What you posted about a move to prevent our Navy from interfering with their other conquests seems far more likely.
It is not unreasonable to presume that the Japanese may have started making plans for an eventual invasion of the West Coast. Militaries make all kinds of contingency plans for near and far future events. But it would have made little sense for them to invade until after they had other conquered territories securely under their control and only then if the US still presented some threat to their other holdings.
The attack on Pearl was a daring move that stretched the Japanese to their reasonable limit in terms of distance from established supply lines. An attack on the West Coast may have made sense if the plan was to stage an attack similar to that staged on Pearl. Rush in, break things, run away. A sustained invasion would have made no strategic sense. The likelihood of significant armed civilian resistance was only one (probably minor) reason for that.
>
>
> If one starts with the facts, then the premise falls apart.
>
The premise that the Japanese seriously planned to invade early in the war, you're right. But the premise that it would have been foolish to do so, not so much. The facts presented to support that one are most likely accurate or close to enough. Which brings us to...
>
> (That said, I'd hate to be a member of any army that tried a march to conquest through any part of these United States.)
Which agrees with the underlying premise of the OP, if not the opening premise used to introduce the main one.
> I have no idea if the premise is true or not. Probably not. What you posted about a move to prevent our Navy from interfering with their other conquests seems far more likely.
>
It's even more likely if one reads real, documented, factual history instead of spurious websites.
I'm not pointing any fingers here, but this kind of thing gets picked up out of the ether and accepted as "fact" all too readily.
I can't say I personally know what the Japanese had planned, but sources I've read and trust indicate what I posted.
Asto agreeing with the general premise if I am going to arrive at the right answer, I'd rather arrive there through due dilligence, rather than sloppy research.
Good for you, Dan!
My mistake about this thread was the original post was about rational thought or actual history. It isn't about that; it is about thumping our chest and proclaiming how scary we are. I will keep that in mind for the future.
No Army worth its salt is going to not invade because of concerns about the local population. They will be prepared to deal with the local population and undisciplined casual troops don't usually hang out for very long in the face of a well-trained and equipped Army. Sure you would be able to pick off a few of the enemy soldiers before their artillery, tanks and airplanes destroy you and your whole neighborhood.
The original post is simple propaganda and its very attractive to some people.
It really isn't about actual history; its about people's egos.
Just a side thought on this one. Japan...whatever.
I've noticed that folks who don't hang around with people that don't have guns don't seem to realize how many folks do have guns. I don't like a lot of modern music, so I don't tend to notice what those who do are talking about.
Dave may not see this gun thing where he lives, but in my neck of the woods its very alive and very apparent. Much as Kris says.
If Red Dawn happened on my street, who knows?
Dave
You look at life with rose colored glasses. There are millions of retired military personnel in this country. They are trained.
Your thoughts about the intent of this thread are as misguided as your thoughts on "a few hunters with 30 ought 6's".
Tell ya what, next time a thread about planes or something like a bird that flies comes up, I'll drop a dime and let you know. Since you're the only self proclaimed "fly boy" on here, we tend to not interact in those threads due to lack of experience.
Possibly you should follow the same train of thought.
Propoganda? Dave, WTF?
Propaganda for what??? Propaganda to get people to exercise their 2nd amendment right (Except in Cali as you fools let them take it from you). Propaganda to point out our self-reliant nature?
You slammed the NRA above. This is your prerogative. However, be advised, I'm a local committee member for the "Friends of the NRA" which hosts banquets each year which we're having one next week. I'll buy you a dinner ticket if you want to attend.
At any rate, that money raised goes back into local communities to get shooting ranges, youth shooting grants, and just about everything else geared toward kids to get them shooting and liking not only firearms, but the sport of shooting.
Sounds worthwhile to me.
Propoganda? Dave, WTF?
Dave and I live about an hour apart. He lives in a suburban, near urban area of a highly populated county and I live in a rural area of a neighboring relatively sparsely populated county. The political demographics are strikingly different and so certain social issues, such as views on gun ownership.
I had no idea prior to this that he harbored such ill feelings toward gun ownership and perhaps gun owners (an impression based on this thread and the other thread started to ridicule those who recognize the potential significance of gun ownership in an imagined ground conflict in the US. Perhaps a mistaken impression). But his view is a prevalent one in the area he lives. They are almost polar opposite of the prevalent view of the majority of those who live just an hour east of him.
Not all in CA are so ready to give away our freedoms or so willing to take the ones we choose not to exercise from others. By area, CA is mostly rural and mostly conservative when it comes to issues like gun ownership, but by population, the vast majority is concentrated in a few urban megalopoli (LA, SF Bay Area, Sacramento) where people tend to think that the police are there to protect them and are always just around the corner when needed.
I would not be at all surprised if there were as many or more guns as people in El Dorado County, and I'd be willing to bet that most of the gun owners were both responsible and knowledgeable when it comes to the weapons they own.
As to the opening story being NRA propoganda? that comes from the same sort of urban arrogance that imagines that all hunters are either Elmer Fudds or a Hollywood charicature of a fat, dirty, drunken slob who would shoot at any noise or movement in the woods in the hopes of being lucky enough to bag a deer, and that all farm raised people are virtually indistinguishable from the cast of Hee-Haw.
I've been a member of the NRA for over 20 years and have never seen that story, or any similar in any NRA publication, letter, or email, although I have seen it in chain emails of nebulous origin once or twice.
I categorize the story along with those emails titled "Andy Rooney Said This - No Lie, I heard it...". They sometimes contain enough verifiable fact to support an underlying premise, but mix it up with a significant amount of unverifiable factoid or some totally made up stuff to destroy the credibility of the instant message and unfortunately erode the value of any true fact or valid premise in the message.
I like Dave. I respect him as a surveyor (one of my favorite contributors to survey threads), and like him as a person. We'll probably see each other at the next CLSA Chapter meeting and have some decent conversation. But ascribing the opening story to the NRA as some dubious propoganda it has developed and dispersed dips at least down to the level of those "Andy Rooney said.." emails in that he has made up a patently false factoid for the purpose of supporting a (in this case) false premise that gun owners must make up positive stories in an attempt to justify their silly hobby. His arrogant ridicule of people who exercise a right and engage in activities he has no interest in really stands in stark contrast to his logical and learned approach to profesional matters.
Many who may have had the opportunity to learn to fly a small aircraft may not be interested in it, and may not see the point of doing so as an area of interest. If such a person were to ridicule Dave as some wannabe TopGun pilot in his little winged go-cart, that would be quite comparable, and just as silly as Dave's comments here on gun ownership and the potential effectiveness of civilian gun owners as a significant resistance to an invading army.
Kris, kudos on your involvement with FNRA. Our local chapter does a lot of good here too. One of the things our local Rod & Gun Club have going is a program called PLINK (Please Leave It NRA Klean), where members regularly pick an area in the nearby National Forest and clean up all the mess that the visiting urbanites leave behind after a weekend of camping and trashing our "neighborhood". The last couple of banquets had 400 to 500 attendees just from our little rural county and raised over $100,000 in one night. That's attendance on par with our state survey association conference and significantly better than the take on the auction at the CLSA conference.
Propoganda? Dave, WTF?
Respectfully, Evan, I think that was uncalled for. Dave deserves better from his friends. Perhaps you are not his friend; I thought you were.
Don
