Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Swiss People Are Armed

Certainly would have made things difficult, but a fixed battle even under the best of circumstances is not a good idea. If you're stuck in the mountains, and the only retreat available to you is over top those mountains, your number is up; only question remaining is when.

�Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity,� George S. Patton, Jr.

I've been thinking about the ramifications to this line of thinking and it seems to negate our whole 2nd Amendment reasoning - an armed populace is anathema to domestic or even foreign enemies.

Admiral Yamamoto is supposed to have said that invading the US of A would be foolhardy because there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass. When he said it our Army and Air Corps were 3rd rate at best and immediately after Pearl Harbor we had no real sea power in the Pacific except for a few carriers. And those rifles behind the grass would likely be lever action 30-30's with just a very sparse smattering of iron sighted bolt actions - not a lot of long range scoped rifles in the 40's. Today we have tons of AR's in private hands and tons more scoped rifles.

Given that our terrain is much more vast than Switzerland, you could still break it up piecemeal and take it one piece at a time, and a large portion of our country is beautiful tank terrain (the whole Southwest and the Great Plains) while other places (mountains, swamps) not so much.

But against a dedicated military force, either our own turned against us under some despot or a foreign power - what good is a bunch of rifles, even very accurate ones? At least that's where I'm seeing this line of thought lead.

In many ways the militia resistance part of the 2nd Amendment has failed. I think it was Federalist Paper number 34 where they talked about the 2nd Amendment being required at the insistence of The South, because they were already in fear of a federal army controlled by the North (gee, weren't they right?). And Hamilton laid out that if the entire populous of The South were allowed private ownership of firearms, the North could never raise an army large enough to successfully invade. It sounded really good on paper, but as Jorge so rightfully pointed out; militia against a competent combined arms regular army becomes cannon fodder.

ETA -
These days in an urban guerrilla campaign the weapon of choice is the bomb, not the gun. And I got bad news for the anti-gunners. You can't take away enough things to ever make it impossible to make bombs.

Thanks for that reply.

Hmm, I need to sell some rifles and get a diesel pickup with extra tanks to haul around large sacks of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

Got a big, really really big, garden to tend to, don'cha know...

The Swiss make ugly ass rifles that'll shoot.

Probably by typing "ammonium nitrate" on the internet I just set off eighteen alarm bells at the NSA...

Haven't come across a whole lot of Swiss firearms that didn't shoot. They like their marksmanship.

Coolest rifle I ever owned was a Sig StGw 57





Unfortunately I owned mine back in the early '90's when there was little to no 7.5 Swiss ammo, so I couldn't afford to feed it on my meager salary. I did learn that you can substitute a .284 Winchester case, size it, trim it, and it will work. Problem is, the 57 was absolutely abusive to brass and my cases only lasted 2-3 loadings before they split.

Look at the photo. See the white rectangle in the middle of the receiver? That's the "semi-auto" provision. In Switzerland they require the rifles be restricted (or they did) to semi-auto at rifle matches. So that white thing is a little spring steel tab that when sandwiched between the upper receiver and the trigger housing, will prevent the secondary disconnector/sear from deploying, making the rifle semi-auto.

US imported rifles included this tab, but they were obviously missing the FA parts. Other differences, the bolt carrier didn't have the hump for the FA disconnector, and the receiver was made in a way that it wouldn't accept a full auto trigger group without permanent modification to the receiver.

The sights were absolutely beautiful, save for the front. Both were folding to accommodate a scope. The rear stayed put, but the front could be bumped out of place without too much trouble; that was about the only real flaw of the rifle.

The integral bipod was slick, it could slide up or down the barrel jacket to be out near the front sight or near the receiver (not sure why someone would want a bipod that long near the reciever. Unfortunately the bipod didn't lock in the out position, so you had to take care not to bear down on it too much.

There were so many other little goodies on that rifle; I could go on and on.

Slick rifle, wish I had another one; but they go for like 6-8 grand these days.

ETA
Okay one more little snippet. Only the Swiss would design a rifle with controlled round ejection. And the extractor was the ejector also...again, really slick.

That's completely wrong. That's not what it says. It speaks of the states and their armed populations vs a professional army raised by the Federal Government.

I remember when those were dirt cheap at military surplus stores. One such store I recall had rows upon rows of them out on the floor. I was tempted, but never "pulled the trigger."

Hawk, that's pretty much exactly what it says (see below). It was Federalist number 46, not 34 (my bad memory).

" Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. " - Alexander Hamilton; Federalist Paper number 46.

Nope, not the same. The quote you provide doesn't match with what you said, as you made it a North vs South thing in the Federalist, which it was not.

I was setting the background for why Federalist 46 was written. That part wasn't supposed to be a quote of what was in 46.

The delegates from the South and all non-federalists were adamant against a peacetime standing army. The slavery issue was still contentious from the get go, and the South deeply distrusted the North (a distrust that turned out to be spot on). Federalist 46 was to settle fears that a standing federal army (And Hamilton always saw himself at the head of that army) would be turned on it's own. So I was commenting on the background for why Hamilton wrote 46.

So speaketh the Campfire Oracle Drug Addled Rectal Orifice...