Side story on the recent gun spree

[jmm99]

Attached are three pdfs of relevant pages of the 1995 Cunningham Survey of 300 Marines.

pdf 00 is the question and allowed answers.

pdf 01 is the results by grades of E1-E5 and E6-E7, O1-O3.

pdf 02 is a footnote (#68) of individual comments.

The upshot is that NONE of 13 persons in grades E6-E7, O1-O3 agreed with the shoot order - 7 strongly disagreed; 6 disagreed.

I'm happy to be proved wrong on this point (and gratified as to the 300 Marines surveyed).

But, I still think the Martin Luther King approach is better if the issue is pushed - as it appears it will be. Mark Kelly (who will be an as articulate or more articulate spokesman for gun control as Sarah Brady) was certainly in a push on mode in today's interview with Chris Wallace: "This Isn’t About The Second Amendment Anymore."

Now, as to enforcement (and who BTW will enforce the gun control mandates), Andrew Jackson supposedly said privately in effect: "John Marshall has entered his mandate. Now let him enforce it."

I suppose gun controllers do not expect anything but voluntary compliance with their mandates. They will look at Australia, etc.; and not see it likely that the law-abiding (hence, in their eyes, sheeply) gun owners will put up any sort of fight once the mandate is entered by someone.

That COA (IF there is substantial "civil disobedience", much less any USG "shoot orders") would rip this country apart. On this and many other issues, the country is not really neatly divided blue and red. It is purple with interlaced blue and red boxes.

I think there is a cultural disconnect here.

Regards

Mike

PS: Note the comment in pdf 03 "Only if fired upon". I'd keep that in mind.

Posse Commitatus is no real legal bar. It can be waived by Presidential Order - and there are many options to follow in doing that.

As to Carl's Texabama situation, the President issues a finding that Texabama is in rebellion - and away we go with Civil War II.

Ike and Little Rock - his speech on it, “Mob Rule Cannot Be Allowed to Override the Decisions of Our Courts”:

Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.

Ike and Earl Warren were on better terms than Jackson and Marshall. Ike's legal authority was probably under one of the Force Acts, as updated to that time. I didn't look up which one.

[carl]

Mike:

Are you sure you read that right? The tables I am looking at show one E-6 and one O-1 agreed that they would fire. One O-1 and one O-3 said they had no opinion. A 'no opinion' guy may go with the wind and somebody from on high pushing would be a pretty strong wind. But a sample of 13 isn't really reliable.

An interesting part of the survey was the most willing to fire or with no opinion were the E-2s and E-4s. 43 of E-2s said they would fire or had no opinion vs. 50 who said they would not. 32 of the E-4s said they would fire or had no opinion vs. 35 who said they would not.

No wonder the author of the study said the unit might break up.

This study was done almost 20 years ago and I know of no other similar study done since. There probably won't be one either.

Do guys out there think think attitudes have changed much since the study was done? Why were there such variations in attitudes amongst the enlisted men? Are brand new soldiers more likely to do anything they are told? The cultural disconnect Mike spoke of is, I think, getting more pronounced in the civilian world. Is that reflected at all in the military?

I know there is probably no hard data out there on any of this so I seek subjective opinions.