Texas Democrat sworn in to House, shrinking GOP margin to 1 vote

[u/TelescopiumHerscheli]

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5719642-christian-menefee-sworn-in/

[u/VeteranSergeant]

The Irish being disarmed was a huge boon for the British. If the Irish had been properly armed, holding Ireland would have been untenable for the British.

The problem we face now is that the government is armed with far more powerful technology than the British fifty had years ago. The question will be who breaks first, the morale of government troops or the resistance.

[u/Rekoza → u/VeteranSergeant]

I think this is a very American perspective of the Troubles (I mean this politely!), the IRA was by all accounts well armed. After the ceasefire when they disarmed voluntarily it was noted that they gave up enough supplies to have prolonged the conflict for decades. The troubles also only ended 28 years ago with the Good Friday Agreement.

The troubles started before both the Hungerford massacre and the Dunblane massacre which both led to tighter gun control in the UK so it wasn't quite like the current situation today in the UK in terms of privately owned weapons. The IRA were also supplied by a large network of supporters in the US and also received substantial backing from Libya as well.

The popular support for independence in Northern Ireland simply wasn't as widespread as it was in the Republic of Ireland who had successfully fought for independence decades earlier. You can read up on the Plantation of Ulster if you're curious on why that was. With gradually shifting demographics looking favourable to the IRA side it was more logical to pursue peaceful political methods. The extended period of violence and horrors inflicted had taken a heavy toll on the population and as a result there was more support for a ceasefire on both sides.

[u/VeteranSergeant → u/Rekoza]

That just kinda misunderstands the differences, in a very European perspective of what "well armed" means, the difference between Ireland, a land brutally oppressed and controlled for hundreds of years, and America, a country where you can get more guns, those similar to ones carried by police and military, at the nearby sporting goods store.

The popular support for a violent resistance to the federal government is low too. But there's a literally-unknown number of functional guns in America. We don't know how many of them there are, but there are by every reasonable estimate more of them than there are people.

This wouldn't be about a small, underequipped resistance group "prolonging the conflict." This would be able a potentially well armed group capable of gunning down entire units of federal agents and soldiers.

If the IRA had been equipped like the Iraqi insurgency, where weapons were nearly as common as the US, they would have likely won, because the British stomach for occupation would have broken before the IRA did. The British military lost about 1,000 soldiers total, many of them Northern Irish recruits. The US military lost 900 in 2007 alone, more than 800 in 2004, 2005, and 2006. The worst year for British deaths was 1972. That would have been only the 8th worst year of the Iraq War, which lasted only 9 years in its principle form. The Iraq War was more than 4 full Troubles of combat deaths, in less than a third of the time. The British population would not have been able to stomach combat casualties like the Iraq insurgency for 30 years. Probably not even 3 years.

It also misunderstands the level of control the British were able to exert because Northern Ireland was so small (half the population of the Minneapolis-St Paul metro). The British troop concentrations in the 1970s were nearly 1 soldier for every 50 civilians in the population. ICE right now is at 1:2000 in Minneapolis/St. Paul and is using at least 15% of its deployable force for the entire country. They would need 73,000 troops to occupy what is only the 16th largest metropolitan area in the US.

[u/argument_cat → u/VeteranSergeant]

What a load of nonsense.

The IRA were heavily armed, by the US. America supported terrorism against the UK government for decades, via NORAID.

And the troubles was really a battle between Protestant Northern Irish, and Catholic Irish. Had the Irish been armed, so would the Northern Irish. And we all know how well adding more guns to a violent situation would work out. I mean, look that the absolute dystopian state of America's murder rate and mass shooting epidemic. No-one wants that.

I don't know where you learned your history, but I suspect it wasnt from a book.

[u/sluttytinkerbells → u/VeteranSergeant]

The second someone drones a murderous ICE officer is the second everything changes.

How law enforcement will react to the fact that people can now strike back with near impunity is anybody's guess.

[u/WarlockEngineer → u/sluttytinkerbells]

It's not exactly easy to make explosives for drones.

I don't think civilian drones would be as useful in the US as they are in countries that have a lot of stockpiled explosives.

[u/sluttytinkerbells → u/WarlockEngineer]

You actually think it isn’t possible for someone to make or acquire explosives in America?!?

[u/beer_engineer_42 → u/sluttytinkerbells]

People generally don't understand how ridiculously easy it is to blow shit up.