This month's Rant is based upon a magazine article I wrote in 2011.
We’ve all see the bumper stickers: “The 2nd Amendment is not about duck hunting.”
We’ve all see the bumper stickers: “The 2nd Amendment is not about duck hunting.”
Definitely true. But maybe the Second Amendment is linked to deer
hunting.
Consider this:
A popular email circulating in The Gun
Culture notes that in a recent season, Wisconsin alone fielded 600,000
hunters. According to Badger State
sources, that number would equal the eighth largest army on earth, which is true
(after the active-duty military of Turkey and ahead of Iran). Reportedly Michigan’s hunters numbered about
700,000 and Pennsylvanians approached 750,000.
Actually, the email was wrong. Checking online, we find that in 2009
Wisconsin sold 843,000 deer licenses, including 638,000 for firearms. And Pennsylvanians purchased 948,000 general
hunting licenses for the 2009-2010 season.
Then there’s Michigan. Between 2004 and 2009, those folks purchased
an average of 1.56 million deer tags annually, including bow hunters. If that
number represented individuals, the Wolverine State fell between the active
military strengths of China and the United States.
So what’s the foregoing have to do with
preserving our right to bear arms?
The Founders were deeply mistrustful of
a standing army, with good reason. They
had just won the war for American independence from Britain, which possessed
the greatest army on earth. The Second
Amendment was crafted as a check on the greedy grasp of government: a permanent
deterrent and, if necessary, an active resistance. That’s why they placed so much emphasis upon
personally-owned arms.
Reportedly other people took note. Again reverting to internet sources (caveat emptor anyone?) they included
Japan’s Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who planned the Pearl Harbor attack. Allegedly he advised against an invasion of
North America “because there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”
Like the more famous quote about
awaking a sleeping giant, Yamamoto’s purported statement regarding armed
Americans cannot be verified. (There’s
some evidence that the statement was made by another Japanese officer.) Certainly Yamamoto was aware of widespread
civilian firearms ownership, as he studied in the U.S. during the 1920s. More pertinent, however, is logistics—the
axle upon which all wars turn. By 1942
Japan was engaged in a long war in China while expanding its holdings in Asia
and the Pacific, stretching its shipping to the limit. With a population of 100 million, the Japanese
Empire had no prospect of conquering 130 million Americans—even if the Japanese
could get here.
However, it’s interesting to speculate
upon the Empire of the Sun clashing with tens of thousands of American
deerstalkers armed with Winchester 94s and Model 70s.
Today the military-industrial complex’s
go-to bogeyman is China, which is not about to start a war with its number one
trade partner. That feud would destroy
both economies, but the Pentagon and the pols need somebody as an excuse for buying platinum-plated stealth airplanes
and submarines.
So
let’s set aside the Who for a moment and look at the What. What would an invader face, aside from the
U.S. military?
It’s called the unorganized militia.
Presently the U.S. armed forces involve
1.47 million active and 1.45 million reserve component personnel: 2.92 million
at home and abroad.
What’s left to oppose our hypothetical
invasion?
For starters, it’s not several million
deerstalkers. Those merely with hunting
licenses are not the Founders’ bulwark against oppression. They’re just where
you start the winnowing process. (Some
background: c. 1980 an Oregon IPSC friend was a game warden. He conducted some impromptu field tests of
random nimrods and found that the average effective range on a paper plate was
about 40 yards. On the other hand, some
of us know people who’ve made one-shot kills at 300 yards.)
Meanwhile, let’s omit the NRA. It has about 4 million members but there’s no
telling how many are proficient marksmen.
So what’s the likely number to resist
oppression?
Consider how many Americans bag a deer
every year. It’s far less than the
number of hunting licenses but it’s a good starting point. After all, anyone who spends money, time, and
effort tromping around the woods, being cold and uncomfortable for the chance
to fire one round, is a candidate for resistance.
Based on available data, we conducted a tedious state by state
survey of deer “harvested” nationwide by adult rifle hunters. (Bow hunters typically
account for 11 to 34% of deer taken.) Much
of the information is incomplete: useful figures for Florida, Montana, and
Oregon are unavailable, and there is little deer hunting in Alaska and
Hawaii. Other states only show totals of
deer taken without breaking out archers, juvenile or out of state hunters. In order to guesstimate rifle hunters for
those states, we split the average of bow hunters, deducting 20% from the
overall figures.
Our figures have obvious glitches. Many states permit multiple tags, usually
with drawings for various areas and controlled hunts beyond the general season.
But by rounding, we should achieve a fairly conservative total of competent
riflemen over age 16.
Excepting the states noted above, our
accounting shows that typically 4,985,000 rifle hunters bag a deer annually. Taking an extremely minimal total for the
uncounted states, we rounded up to an even 5 million, still 30 percent more
than the combined U.S. military-police total of 3.8 million.
Would all of those 5 million actively
resist? They’re certainly more likely to
do so than those who simply buy a license or belong to an organized group. Of course, we all know some extremely
dedicated folks who have never filled a game tag, so let’s call it a push.
Comes “the day.” What happens when 5 million riflemen decide
to fire one round a week, apportioned daily?
China has 2.28 million active military
and 800,000 reserves. North Korea has
1.1 million active and 8.2 million reserves, counting all branches. Nobody else is close in either category,
though North Korea cannot even feed itself.
So, being whimsical…
If The War begins with hordes of enemy
parachutes descending across the nation on Monday morning (you recall the scene
in Red Dawn), it probably ends
Tuesday morning, after potentially 714,000 rounds are fired. With 70 percent accuracy (the shooters are
all successful hunters) that’s almost 500,000 hits--likely more than the total
number of exposed targets at one time nationwide.
If 10 percent of the deerslayers decide
to resist, that’s half a million rounds per week, or 71,400 per day with 50,000
hits in the first 24 hours.
If only 1 percent of the deerslayers decide
to resist, that’s still 50,000 rounds per week, or 7,100 rounds per day
yielding 5,000 hits. That war could last
a few days, but the round count probably is more than enough to preserve the
nation for its rightful owners.
Just as the Founders intended.
