" 10 MINUTES! "

You see your stick leader mouth the words and hold up all ten fingers. No need to get antsy yet. Plenty of time left. As the bird speeds along its course towards the target, you have nothing to do but listen to the high-pitched whine from the rotors and think...

Are they actually armed?
Will they be waiting for us?
How trained are they?
How willing to fight are they?

You can gather intelligence from people and aerial photos all you'd like, but once you get on the ground, the picture is almost always different than what you expect. When your intelligence sources separately confirm 'these guys are known to carry firearms at all times and have fought before', your ears perk up.

You know you're not simply dealing with a local looking for ways to make some money to feed his family. There are true believers on your designated target. The plan just got far more complex.

Back in your head, you notice the word goes out to the stick leader listening over headphones patched into the pilot communication channel: ONE MINUTE

The anxiety rises slightly as your limbs loosen. Time slows a bit. Cycle the plan in your head. Pray they're not armed and wanting to fight... THIRTY SECONDS

Everyone is vibrating subtly with a nervous energy, waiting for wheels to touch and move quickly out of the back of the bird.

You never quite know what to expect when you finally get your boots on the ground. All you can do is hope and pray that if anyone greets you below, they're not interested in a fight.

---

Argument: Wide-scale, anonymous, private ownership of firearms makes open warfare less likely.

A maxim all privates in the American infantry learn is the "3 to 1 rule". What this means is, if you don't have 3-to-1 odds in a fight, don't attack. Save your strength and fight another day. Sun Tzu advised to not start a fight unless you know you've already won.

Criminals tend to do this naturally, because it is natural. The thought of getting in a fight is scary for anyone with a pulse, but made less scary if you have friends. Particularly if your friends are bigger, more numerous, and/or better trained than your prey.

For anyone with a shred of tactical and strategic experience, it should be apparent that introducing 'hot bits metal zipping around at high-velocity' can, and often does, change the dynamics of any environment. Interestingly, they make factors like 'size and strength' of opposition less important.

Postulate: Firearms are an equalizer.

With firearms in the mix, any entity capable of creating a plan that involves forcibly threatening or imposing themselves on another person, must take into consideration the possibility of private ownership of firearm(s). Why? Because getting shot fucking hurts, of course. And it can make you dead, which renders planning after that point irrelevant or more challenging.

Might, in its traditional sense of physical strength, is made 'less right'. What matters now is if you're bringing a knife or words to a gun fight.

For evidence, I submit to you Exhibit A:

Fun 80s cinema references aside, firearms and shrapnel-based explosive devices have been around for over a millennium and have, unsurprisingly, changed the dynamics of warfare rapidly. Firearms are not 'new', but they are 'game-changing'... a paradigm shift... whatever other generic synonyms like that you can think of.

Postulate: From the perspective of an enemy planner, the presence of firearms changes tactical and logistical considerations.

Now add in some components of the American 2nd Amendment, and you have some more interesting dynamics that develop:

• relative anonymous ownership makes search and seizure that much more complex and planning for operations that much more unknown
• embedded, highly trained and armed former professional military and law enforcement personnel scattered throughout the country who speak the native language and are held with relatively high levels of respect from the average population
• wide-reaching existing industry of firearm production and logistics established within country make interdiction of the supply chain more complex
• relatively high levels of firearm and ammunition production and maintenance knowledge among population

What all of this adds up to, from the perspective of an aspiring enemy, makes for a strategic fucking nightmare. Trying to come at an armed population like Americas from any conventional sense is absolutely idiotic and would only lead to a bloody stalemate at best. More likely, it would be like kicking a hornets nest while trying to get a piggy-back ride from a silver-back gorilla.

Makes the asymmetric, unconventional approaches far more appealing, eh? Asymmetric like shootings in public places. Unconventional like shootings in 'gun-free zones'.

But that's another topic for another time.