Quote:
Originally Posted by scc
I don't think there would be as many American Militia groups, or rather they won't be as well equipped. With actual liberals in power in the US gun reforms are likely, now one of the oft quoted reasons for letting people own guns is 'self-defense', now that argument can apply to pistols, which you can carry with you at all times, but doesn't hold much water with rifles, especially military/assault weapons. More to the point, as far as I know, Texas is about the only state where you can get away with using a gun in self-defense (It has specific laws allowing you to use firearms on people who attack you).
Net result of this is that while you can get guns in the US, they're probably in the smaller calibers (like .22, which the military stopped using because it doesn't do enough damage) and either pistols aggressively marketed as 'self-defense' or hunting weapons
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We know that there is a segment of the conservative population in the US that centers their beliefs around weapons ownership. Survivalists were a group/factor, in the modern US, since the inflation of the 60s. They gained a lot of steam after the oil shocks in the early 70s. I agree that legal weapon ownership would have been curtailed under President Kennedy, but I think that would have only entrenched and enhanced the ideology of the militias. Basically everything they were saying about government intrusion was coming true.
I would say that in the chaos after the collapse of the Soviets that Russian weapons would flood into US market. The domestic weapons market and producers would be much smaller - so say SR&C, Remington and S&W probably consolidate by the late 80s into the early 90s, one buying up one or both of their competitors. No one is producing much in the way of small arms - hunting rifles are the best you can get. So AK-47s are in big demand by millitias, and maybe South African sources too. That sets the stage for the Putin/Militia connection after 2000. While the pool of weapons might be smaller, and more expensive, the ideology and will to use them will be that much greater.
Unless your President Kennedy does indeed send jack booted ATF thugs in to confiscate the weapons. I can see that happening in the mid 90s after an attack or three, but it might happen earlier.
That might make an good setting; Ruff-1, named after the author of
How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years. President Reagan in the 70s somehow brings about the Soviet collapse in 1979, except this one is violent. A Russian coup leads to a limited nuclear exchange - while peace is quickly restored the world economy collapses in a heap. If Reagan is blamed (unlikely) you get Ted Kennedy overseeing a liberal
super malaise while the US descends into chaos. Survivalists were right. Its 1988 and various Militias are begining to carve up the US as the feds retreat and local power brokers start to look like warlords in a coming civil war.