When was the last time...

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

...that some US civilians took up arms against their government? (hint: not in a year that starts with "17".)

I'm sure some of you have your own answers but I'll return between 11 and midnight with my answer.

[iverglas]

1. it wasn't the last time ...

and it fact was among the first, if not the first. But I'm still quite fond of it.

Shays Rebellion.

When the tree of liberty got watered with the blood of some patriots who just didn't make the cut. Imagine, objecting to the crushing taxes the rich guys had imposed on the people! Why, it was just un-American of them to think they shouldn't be taxed to death.

:rofl:

[mrmpa]

3. 1786 Shays Rebellion................1794 was the whiskey

rebellion. I live 1/2 mile from the flash point of the whiskey rebellion when the citizens burned down General Neville's estate

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

25. Would you be...

...a history buff?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. James Madison:

"Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power." ;)

[iverglas]

17. yes ... and ... ?

Shays Rebellion was an instance of which of those, then?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

21. Yes.

Both.

[iverglas]

36. fascinating

An uprising by impoverished people oppressed by plainly unjust taxes and other economic abuses was an "abuse of liberty".

Yikes. I think maybe your whole union is built on some very shaky ground, there.

[chelsea0011]

2. SLA?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

22. By SLA...

...do you reference the Patty Hearst SLA???

[chelsea0011]

24. yes

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

26. I have read...

...a bit on the SLA but excluded this since the group seemed, to my admittedly arbitrary perspective, for the most part simply criminal.

Thanks for the reply. :)

[chelsea0011]

31. Well, then I would have to say John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

for something a little more organized.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

32. At this point...

...I'm acknowledging the Battle of Athens (TN) in 1946. Please see post #5. :)

[SteveM]

35. Just bank robbers out getting publicity juice. nt

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. I'll be asleep by then.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

20. The sun'll come out tomorrow... :) n/t

[mrmpa]

5. 1946 the Battle of Athens Tennessee? eom

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

12. This was my answer.

Congrats :)

[mrmpa]

14. Thank you, thank you, thank you. eom

[Hoopla Phil]

27. That's what I was thinking but couldn't remember the name or year

to do a proper google search. Pretty pathetic really. I remember the incident but not when or where.

[mrmpa]

6. Wasn't there an incident after or during WWII, where some

veterans and others carved out a piece of California for themselves as an independent state? I read too much and can recall not all of what I read.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

19. Fascinating...

...I'll have to research that. :)

[RevStPatrick]

7. I'm curious what your answer will be.

So I'm kicking this so I remember to check back...

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

23. Please...

...see post #5 by mrmpa.

My other thought had been the unfortunate events in the late Winter and Spring of 1973. Investigations into these events continue with a trial as recently as last year. I'm not certain if this qualifies as the belligerents in this conflict were principally Native Americans and council governing officials. By and large the federal, state and local governments in this country have really shafted the Native Americans. :(

[onehandle]

8. Shitloads of gun hoarding militia types have over the last couple of decades.

And as soon as Obama is re-elected, they will be coming out of the woodwork again.

[Kennah]

9. Why?

Because of National Park carry and guns allowed in checked bags on Amtrak?

[iverglas]

16. what a bizarre assertion

How about because they're vicious right-wing scum?

Not that I think it will happen ... I just found your leap to make it all about guns amusing.

[Kennah]

28. What's bizarre about legislation that passed? Were you not keeping up again?

[TexasProgresive]

10. Probably not the last time but 1861 rings a bell n/t

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

18. Most certainly...

...the longest, worst and most deadly. I have reviewed from time to time the statistics of causalities resulting from armed conflicts that the US has participated in since the Revolution. By a substantial percentage the rate of battle related death and injury in the Civil War was the highest. I would have expected that the rate would be double by virtue of the US citizens comprising both sides but this is not the case. The Civil War rate is even higher yet. My conclusion is not that this rate was unusually high but all the others were unusually low. My theory was/is that the average US citizen is better at killing than the average citizens in other countries. This theory is somewhat reinforced by the fact that even the US non-firearm murder rate exceeds the overall murder rate for many other countries.

[iverglas]

37. US Civil War deaths

Actually, the last series of Who Do You Think You Are? went into this in a little depth because of the connection of one of the celebrities to a battle.

One thing that was remarkable was the amputation rate. Injuries simply could not be treated on the battlefields. A significant factor was the ammunition used.

On a quick google --

http://ehistory.osu.edu/uscw/features/medicine/cwsurgeon/amputations.cfm

Civil War Battlefield Surgery

A Description of Civil War Field Surgery

The most common Civil War surgery was the amputation. A few words about why there were so many amputations may be appropriate here. Many people have construed the Civil War surgeon to be a heartless indivdual or someone who was somehow incompetent and that was the reason for the great number of amputations performed. This is false. The medical director of the Army of the Potomac, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, wrote in his report after the battle of Antietam:

The surgery of these battle-fields has been pronounced butchery. Gross misrepresentations of the conduct of medical officers have been made and scattered broadcast over the country, causing deep and heart-rending anxiety to those who had friends or relatives in the army, who might at any moment require the services of a surgeon. It is not to be supposed that there were no incompetent surgeons in the army. It is certainly true that there were; but these sweeping denunciations against a class of men who will favorably compare with the military surgeons of any country, because of the incompetency and short-comings of a few, are wrong, and do injustice to a body of men who have labored faithfully and well. It is easy to magnify an existing evil until it is beyond the bounds of truth. It is equally easy to pass by the good that has been done on the other side. Some medical officers lost their lives in their devotion to duty in the battle of Antietam, and others sickened from excessive labor which they conscientiously and skillfully performed. If any objection could be urged against the surgery of those fields, it would be the efforts on the part of surgeons to practice "conservative surgery" to too great an extent.

Still the Civil War surgeon suffers from being called a butcher or some other derisive term.

The slow-moving Minie bullet used during the American Civil War caused catastophic injuries. The two minie bullets, for example, that struck John Bell Hood's leg at Chickamauga destroyed 5 inches of his upper thigh bone. This left surgeons no choice but to amputate shattered limbs. Hood's leg was removed only 4 and 1/2 inches away from his body. Hip amputations, like Hood's, had mortality rates of around 83%. The closer to the body the amputation was done, the more the increase in the wound being mortal. An upper arm amputation, as was done on Stonewall Jackson or General Oliver O. Howard (who lost his arm at Fair Oaks in 1862) had a mortality rate of about 24%.

Following is a description of a common battlefield amputation. ...

Oh look. A US Civil War history buff north of whatever that latitude line is.

[ileus]

11. Waco?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. I believe warrants existed for at least...

...some of those in the Davidian compound so I excluded this one.
I also excluded the Weavers for the same reason.

[russ1943]

29. Nichols & McVeigh? They don’t count?

There are already signs of radical right violence reminiscent of the 1990s. Right-wing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers since Obama's inauguration. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the president. Most recently, as recounted in the new issue of the Intelligence Report, a number of individuals with antigovernment, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-report-number-of-patriot-groups-militias-surges-by-244-in-past-year



This article was written after the hearing on Monday in Norway to charge Breivik with his crimes. From this article, I learned that there was at least one security guard present at the sight of the shootings in Norway. "But Norway's royal court said Monday that those killed at the island retreat included Crown Princess Mette-Marit's stepbrother, an off-duty police officer, who was working there as a security guard." Some of the chatter coming from the gun rights extremists pointed to lack of security on the island. If only, oh if only, someone on that island would have had a gun, things would have been different. Apparently these folks have forgotten about the shooting of 4 police officers in Tacoma, Washington and the brazen killing of 3 Pittsburgh police officers in an ambush by Pennsylvania gun permit holder, Richard Poplawski. Read these words about Poplawski and wonder about comparisons to Anders Breivik-"It appears that what police may be looking at is a budding white supremacist who frequented one of the most popular neo-
Nazi websites and harbored an apocalyptic dread of the federal government." And this-"He slept with a gun under his pillow in a basement room filled with firearms and ammunition, convinced that Jews controlled the media and President Obama was scheming to take away his arsenal, friends and relatives said Saturday." http://www.commongunsense.com/

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

33. I've decided...

...that they don't count because I'm interested in actions the directed action occurred to affect a change civil government and no criminal charges were filed or warrants existed.

Poplawski, Nichols, McVeigh, Weaver... these are criminals and terrorists. In Weaver's case while I believe he was a victim of entrapment, manufacturing a sawed-off shotgun is a crime.

[DissedByBush]

30. Non-firing taking up of arms?

The Black Panthers gathered on the California capitol steps armed to the teeth, stating black men must become armed to protect themselves.

California's current ban on carrying loaded weapons is the DIRECT result of this action.

While not an official sense, the KKK was very often closely intertwined with local law enforcement and politicians.

Robert F. Williams is famous for organizing the armed defense for blacks against the KKK.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

34. Only the highest...

...regard is appropriate for the Black Panther practice of "policing the police". Those who involved themselves many times were armed and frequently risked reprisal. They are the essence of freedom and embody the type of self sacrifice essential to our society.

They did not actually fire on any local, state or federal workers and were scrupulous about acting within the law. I was hoping to find cases where civilians actually exchanged fire with government agents and were not convicted of a crime.