McVeigh and the single case refulation of the arms right.

[Gary Allison]

If the goal is to bring down an adminstration that has not completely
become a dictatorship, then violence at levels too low to accomplish a
revolution may still succeed by creating enough chaos to cause the people
to through the rascals out at the polls or otherwise.  AntiWar violence and
chaos during the Vietnam War brought down Lyndon Johnson.  NATO violence
and resulting chaos brought down Milosovic in Serbia.  Low-level violence
in Palestine seems to be bringing down Barak.

At 02:29 PM 1/11/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>We speak of deterrence even when the deterrence may not completely eliminate
>the activity we seek to deter. For example, one purpose of criminal
>sanctions is to deter crime, even though we know that criminal sanctions
>will not prevent all crime.
>
>Mark S. Scarberry
>Pepperdine University School of Law
>mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Calvin Johnson [mailto:chjohnson at MAIL.LAW.UTEXAS.EDU]
>Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 1:10 PM
>To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
>Subject: Re: McVeigh and the single case refulation of the arms right.
>
>
>I dont understand Mark's argument, even a little bit.  "Deterrence" as in
>nuclear deterrence means, sure Moscow can drop a bomb on us, but we will
>wipe them and every one of their present and future heirs off the map.
>Thus the "fruit" of their  bombing us, to use Mark's wonderful sense of
>understatement, "will not be so sweet."  For deterrence to work, the havoc
>must be commenserate to the action.  Thus if all the police are trying to
>do is enforce a pooper scooper law, then shooting off a knee cap might well
>deter the police.  If it is real tyrrany that is to deterred, however, then
>the nuke seems to be required.  If the deterrence is not supposed to be
>really effective then well the retaliation might well be nonserious.  As a
>matter of linquistics, however,  I doubt that merely irritating
>ineffectively deterring violence, such as dead people in the suburbs,
>should  be called deterrence if it is too small a retaliation against the
>Federal government to be effective.
>
>At 12:11 PM 01/10/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>>Even the possession of less than military equivalent arms by the populace
>>may deter tyranny. Massive military force is not always useful when one
>>wishes to rule a city (for example) rather than destroy it. (Note that
>>police typically do not carry hand grenades.) And pistols and non-automatic
>>rifles in the hands of the citizenry can make a tyrant's job in maintaining
>>rule very difficult. One need not necessarily be able to defeat a tyrant in
>>a pitched battle in order to deter tyranny; it may be enough if potential
>>tyrants are brought to an understanding that the fruit of any seizure of
>>power will not be sweet. That is why the deterrence rationale can coexist
>>with reasonable limits on arms possession by the citizens.
>>
>>Mark S. Scarberry
>>Pepperdine University School of Law
>>mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
>>
>>
>