GUN CONTROL

[Angel Cruz Ortiz]

True story and most people will never know it..

After the Japanese decimated our fleet in Pearl Harbor Dec 7, 1941,
they could have sent their troop ships and carriers directly to California
to finish what they started. The prediction from our Chief of Staff
was we would not be able to stop a
Massive invasion until they reached the Mississippi River.
Remember, we had a 2 million man army and war ships....all fighting the
Germans.

So, why did they not invade?

After the war, the remaining Japanese generals and admirals were
asked that question.
Their answer....They know that almost every home had guns and the
Americans knew how to use them.

The world's largest army... America's hunters!
I had never thought about this....

A blogger added up the deer license sales in just a handful of states and
Arrived at a striking conclusion:

There were over 600,000 hunters this season in the state of Wisconsin..
Allow me to restate that number.
Over the last several months, Wisconsin’s hunters became the eighth
largest army in the world.

More men under arms than in Iran..

More than in France and Germany combined.

These men deployed to the woods of a single American state to hunt
With firearms, and no one was killed.

That number pales in comparison to the 750,000 who hunted the woods of
Pennsylvania and Michigan 's 700,000 hunters All of whom have now
returned home.

Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia and it literally
Establishes the fact that the hunters of those four states alone
would comprise the largest army in the world.

The point?

America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of
home-grown firepower.
Hunting -- it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of
national security.

That's why all enemies, foreign and domestic, want to see us disarmed.
Food for thought when next we consider gun control.

Shortly after the treacherous attack on our Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Fleet Admiral Yamamoto, who was educated in the USA in the 1930's- said this: "We have awakened a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve. We never formally declared war on Germany or Italy, a few days after FDR's famous "Day of Infamy" speech, Hitler declared war on the US- part of the Axis Powers deal.

Alaska was not a State then, but the proximity of the Japanese Army near Alaska and their Naval presence in the Bering Straits was a great concern. We won the War in the Pacific Theater- IMO- due to our developing technology- the proximity fuze, which reduced the number of shells required to kill a Zero fighter plane from 2600 to 400, the electric torpedo with the homing device, the thermite bomb, the great Corsair F4-U (a P-51 Mustang with retractable folding wings for carrier usage- again IMO) the Norden bombsight, the Manhattan project, and the brave Marines and Sailors and other Americans who paid the ultimate price for the island victories that gave us bombing range access to Japan's mainland.

I always wanted to be a pilot- but that didn't happen. How they Japanese could cleverly re-set their torpedoes with wooden fins to run effectively in the 30-35 foot depths of Pearl Harbor, and not develop retractable landing gear or armor for their Zero fighters-strange- US pilots soon learned that to put a Japanese pilot into a tight right banking turn would cause the plane to lose control- wonder if the fixed landing gear was a factor, or just right hand torque from the prop.

Admiral Chester Nimitz said it best about the sacrifice of Iwo Jima- "Uncommon valor was a common virtue"- Just as the british under Churchill with their Home Guard would have fought to the death to repell Hitler's Wehrmacht had that lunatic decided to invade England, no doubt in my mind thousands of Japanese would have died at the 30-30's and 12 gauges of Americans had they tried to invade us-

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Francis Morin

We won the War in the Pacific Theater- IMO- due to our developing technology- the proximity fuze, which reduced the number of shells required to kill a Zero fighter plane from 2600 to 400, the electric torpedo with the homing device, the thermite bomb, the great Corsair F4-U (a P-51 Mustang with retractable folding wings for carrier usage- again IMO) the Norden bombsight, the Manhattan project, :

Let us not forget the considerable military advantage we found ourselves in because of the inventions of RADAR and SONAR developed during the early days of the war.

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Let us not forget the considerable military advantage we found ourselves in because of the inventions of RADAR and SONAR developed during the early days of the war.

-- The code breakers that broke the Japanese purple Code with the test fake message about the faulty fresh water condensers- that ID'd Midway-- and the intact capture of a U-Boat in the North Sea and the Enigma code book the british found intact in the Captain's safe- the British were reading the Nazis' messages and the Germans were unaware of that- they thought the U-Boat went down with the crew-- Lucky breaks--

[King Brown]

Japan did not invade the US---in fact, there were strong military reservations about victory itself because of America's industrial capacity---because it didn't have the resources to do so.

As for the Zero fighter, no American fighter could come near it in any conditions until introduction of the Grumann F6F Hellcat in 1943---not even the contemporary Spitfire, Hurricane, Messerschmidt 109. One-on-one, fixed undercarriage and only 1,000hp notwithstanding, to tangle with a Zero was suicide, according to US military analysts and historians.

As for the Hunter Defence Force notion, it's not a bad one: warfare of today proves the limits of our surpassing military power in North Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. Canada couldn't control the streets of Kandahar after 10 years in Afghanistan; read Sebastian Junger's best-selling "War" to discover 10 years of US Army's ineffectiveness in the Korengal Valley. That's why our countries are leaving.

Citizens everywhere dislike being occupied by foreign countries, and have simple and cost-effective ways of defeating them. Nineteen Muslims scared the world half to death and changed it forever on 9/11. It was intended solely as a provocation and we got the message. America didn't invade beaten Japan because the casualties would have been prohibitive. Why would America be different?

Gun control within this context is least of our problems. The greatest danger to US sovereignty is its currently dysfunctional political system which is weakening its armed forces and indirectly paying the full shot of China's growing military capacity. Canada's current military debate is a complete make-over to give more autonomy to front-line troops. Our command and support "tail" has grown four times as fast as deployment of our fighting men and women.

[Twice Shooter]

Hi King, Japan did invade and occupy an island in the Aleutian Chain of Alaska, which was and is a part of the US. Alaska was not a state at the time but still part of the US.

Cheers, Tom

[King Brown]

Yes, Tom, and that Aleutians excursion confirmed to Japanese military that they couldn't win the war when a piece of their engineering from a wrecked Zero fighter in the Aleutians turn up as an American fighter modification THREE months later. Japan had antiquated, second-rate industrial capacity entering the war. Invading another continent from a resources-weak island would be an impossible logistical task, and Canada---mobilized, already two years at war---was between Alaska and the US and still is. Please consider also that Japan was aware that the British signed a contract for 320 Mustang P51 aircraft with North American Aircraft on 29 May 1940 (18 months before Pearl Harbour) and five months to the day the first one was off the assembly line. RAF Mustangs entered combat in May 1942. Japan knew it couldn't match that design, engineering and production capacity. Its best fighter entering and at the end of the war was the Zero.

[Jared V.]

Just a few thoughts... Pretty sure we weren't at war with Germany when the attack by the Japanese on Dec. 7 1941 occured. I believe it was Germany who declared war on the USA first, shortly after Pearl Harbor, in support of the Japanese Empire . My historical memory comes and goes so someone please check this out.

Originally Posted by Jared Valeski

Just a few thoughts... Pretty sure we weren't at war with Germany when the attack by the Japanese on Dec. 7 1941 occured. I believe it was Germany who declared war on the USA shortly after Pearl Harbor . My historical memory comes and goes so someone please check this out.

Two days after the FDR "Day of Infamy" speech and our declaration of war against Imperial Japan, Germany declared a state of war with the USA-Verruckt!!!

[William Stevenson]

Not to be picky, but the Japanese Zero fighter plane did have retractable landing gear. Several of their other types did not. Bill