No US Blood And Treasure For Countries That Won’t Defend Themselves

The US has a penchant for getting involved in every war in the world.  Currently we are supporting Ukraine against Russia and Israel against Gaza. Most recently our government is planning to defend Taiwan against any Chinese invasion.

What do all three of these countries have in common?  ALL of them infringe on the god given rights of their citizens to defend themselves.  Japanese Admiral Yamamoto stated that “You could never invade the mainland of the United States, There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” The biggest deterrent to an invasion is an armed populace. If every Ukrainian was armed, Russia would not have invaded.

The US needs to stop spending the blood of its citizens and the treasure of its future citizens on endless wars that we are charging on a credit card, especially in defense of regimes who don’t believe citizens have the right to bear arms.  We currently have a budget deficit of $1.8 Trillion and a total accumulated debt of over $36 Trillion.  We can not afford to spend any money on these conflicts around the world, and certainly can’t spend it for countries who refuse to spend their own money and refuse to allow their citizens to defend themselves.

Taiwan:

Vivek Ramaswamy pointed out in the Republican primary debates that Taiwan prohibits its citizens from self defense. He spoke of the idea that if we want Taiwan to be defended from a Chinese invasion, the best option would be for us to give an AR-15 to every family on Taiwan.  Taiwan has a population of around 24 million people.  If this is 1 per 4 people, then we are talking 6 million AR 15s.  I can buy an AR 15 for around $400, so I assume a government buying millions can get the price to half of that.  For $1.2 billion this could happen; less than 1% of the last aid package to Ukrainian.   Upon making this suggestion the liberal arm of the media is pretending that Vivek is a crazy person.  Listen to this quote from China Daily: 

“In the age of social networking, it is highly unlikely Ramaswamy would be unaware of how many lives get snuffed out in mass shootings in the US every year. He now wants to send that menace to the island to endanger the lives of 23 million people there.”

Let’s talk about the “menace” of AR 15s.  Estimates put the number of AR 15s in American civilian hands as between 20 million and 44 million.  The US population is around 350 million people.  In 2022 there were 16,485 homicides in the United States.  Of those 5,803 were committed with handguns, 4,584 with “firearms, not specified” (likely mostly handguns), 1,216 with knifes, and only 489 with rifles.  Mind you this is ALL rifles, not just AR-15s.  There are roughly 113 million rifles in the US, so AR 15s make up somewhere between  15% and 39% of all rifles.  There are an estimated 495 million total fire arms in the United States. This demonstrates that the vast majority of homicides are with handguns, followed by knifes, then rifles.

In November of 2022 this article was published stating that at least 36 people were killed with AR-15s in “mass shootings” in 2022.  If this number is the accurate number, then out of 20 to 44 million AR 15s, only 36 people were murdered with them in mass shootings.  This translates to roughly 1 victim per MILLION AR 15s.  Since these shootings are multiple homicide situations, it is closer to 6 AR 15s per year are used in mass shootings.  6 AR 15s were used in mass shootings out of around 36 million AR 15s or 1 out of every 6 million AR 15s.  If every AR 15 in the US was used to kill 6 people, there would be no more people left in the US. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

This also does not include any statistics of firearms used to prevent homicides.  In 2021, firearms in general were used 1.67 million times to protect people from crimes. Balance this against the 16,485 homicides.  The homicide rate would be much greater if people were not able to use firearms as a deterrent to violent crime.

The idea that AR-15s would be a menace to the people of Taiwan is absolute hyperbole.  At this point, I must point out that Taiwan has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.  It is one of only 5 countries with an estimated 0.0 firearms per 100 people. Taiwan has chosen to keep its people from being able to defend themselves.  Taiwan has also chosen to spend very little on its actual military.  In 2023 Taiwan will spend $19 Billion on its defense budget, accounting for just 2.5% of GDP.  2.5% of GDP is a reasonable number for an average country, but Taiwan is not average.  Taiwan is a small island that sits just 100 miles off the coast of China.  China is a superpower that sees Taiwan as part of China who spends somewhere between $300 Billion and $700 Billion a year on defense spending.   A responsible government of Taiwan would be spending closer to 10% of GDP to have any chance to defend against China. No, Taiwan has chosen to exist under the assumption that the United States will spill its blood and treasure to defend Taiwan if China aggresses.

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan will see tens to hundreds of thousands of Taiwan’s citizens murdered by the invading force.  Is it possible that with 6 million AR 15s, there could be some murders that take place with them?  If it is proportional to the amount of murders that happen in the US, then it is possible that a total of 6 people per year may be murdered in mass shootings with AR-15s if we sent 6 million AR-15s to Taiwan.  Weighed against the full force of a Chinese military invasion that would likely see hundreds of thousands of Taiwan’s citizens murdered, the media is obviously worried about the wrong thing.

Israel:

Israel makes getting a firearm as a citizen extremely difficult.  Israel has an estimated 6.7 firearms per 100 citizens.  After the attack on October 7th Israel has started coming to its senses and is issuing more permits for firearm ownership.  The process is being streamlined so now rather than 100 people per day receiving permits, closer to 3,000 a day are.  This still will not change things dramatically.  In a country with a population of roughly 10 million people, it will take a full year just to get to 10% ownership.  By the way, these aren’t “real” firearms.  These are pistols with a LIMIT of 50 rounds of total ammunition.  Not AR-15s with no limit on ammo.

At least Israel does spend a significant chunk of its own treasure on defense.  Israel is surrounded by enemies.  The Arab states surrounding Israel have invaded Israel in the past and have made it clear that they are after no less than extermination of the Israeli people from the continent.  With several wars and cease fire treaties over the years, Israel ended up in a unique spot where the Palestinians control the Gaza strip, which borders Israel on 2 sides.  Hamas, a terrorist organization has control of the Gaza strip. Despite this heavily populated border with a government whose stated goal is to exterminate them, the people of Israel are prohibited from owning firearms. The idea that US soldiers would risk their lives, or that the US should risk its money defending Israel when it refuses to allow its citizens to defend themselves is madness.

Ukraine:

So far the United States has spent over $175 Billion in direct, on the books aid to Ukraine in the war so far. We have allied ourselves with Ukraine because, of course, Russia is the enemy, and the enemy of our enemy is our friend. Why is Russia the enemy?  The cold war has been over for over 30 years!

We as a nation are terrible at making deals.  We salivated at the idea of a proxy war with Russia, so we quickly sent as much money and equipment to Ukraine as the American people would stomach.  The goal wasn’t a ROI for our money, the goal was to bleed Russia’s war machine.  Of course Russia has been bleeding its own war machine for decades.  Most of Russia’s equipment is obsolete and physically degraded.  If we are going to send $175 Billion to Ukraine, we should ask ourselves what could or should we have gotten in return?

We should have gotten land. We should have included in our deal that in exchange, for every $10,000 of aid we send, we gain an acre of land.  With 175 Billion we should therefore get 17.5 million acres of land, about 12% of Ukraine.  This would have given Ukraine the knowledge that there is not an infinite well of US treasure and that if they will experience some pain when they don’t use resources efficiently.

In Ukraine handguns are illegal except for target shooting, those who hold concealed carry permits, and handguns awarded for service.^[1] Concealed carry licenses are available, but are not normally issued unless a threat to life is present and can be proven.^[2]

A license is required to own firearms, and a citizen may be issued a license if that person:

• is 25 years of age for rifle ownership, 21 years of age for smoothbore weapon ownership, 18 years of age for cold or pneumatic weapon ownership;
• has no criminal record;
• has no history of domestic violence;
• has no mental illness or history of mental illness;
• has a good reason (target shooting, hunting, collection).* * Note that overthrowing an oppressive government is not on the list*

Once a license is issued, all guns must be kept unloaded and in a safe.

Because of the lack of statutes regarding firearm ownership, authorities have great discretion when giving firearm licenses. The president and ministers often give guns to members of the elite, while making it hard for ordinary people to obtain them. It is estimated that more than 50,000 guns have been issued as presents from authorities.^[3]

Gun owners are required by order to renew their licenses and registration of their guns every three years. Failure to comply will result in revocation of the license, as well as confiscation of guns. There is a 10-round magazine limit for rifles.^[4]“

The policies outlined above have led to Ukraine having just 10 firearms per 100 people.  The country has very few handguns and magazines with a maximum of 10 rounds are a joke.

On February 24, 2022 Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities” in a tweet. As of February 26, 2022 over 25,000 automatic rifles, 10 million rounds of ammunition and unknown number of RPGs have been handed out to civilians according to Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky. All one needs to get a rifle now is an I.D. card.

This is of course too little too late.  People need to be comfortable with their firearms and well trained over time.

South Korea:

Over 36,000 American died to protect South Korea from the Communists.  The South Koreans are still propped up by US backing, yet their citizens are banned from owning firearms.  The South Koreans have fewer firearms per capita than the North Koreans!  0.3/100 people in the North Vs. 0.2 / 100 people in the South.  This is madness. When the tanks come from the North across the DMZ the North Korean people will be sitting ducks. South Korea and the rest of the world will be yelling for the US to come and defend them, but that defense would not be necessary if the citizenry was armed.

An Extension To NATO Countries:

Currently an attack on 1 NATO member is seen as an attack on all.  NATO consists of 32 countries.  All NATO countries are expected to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense.  In 2014 Greece and the UK were the only 2 countries that hit the 2% target outside of the US.  For 2023 this has increased to Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, and the Slovak Republic.  This makes only 11 total countries pulling their weight.  The other 21 countries should either be kicked out of NATO or lose all protection that NATO is supposed to offer.

Most of these are countries that were taken over by Nazi Germany in WW2, and many also by the Soviets by the end of the war.  For these countries to not value self defense is their own problem.  Even beyond them not spending their own money, many NATO countries also greatly restrict the ability of citizens to own guns.  Guns are virtually non existent in the UK.  (weird how the UK has a lot more acid attacks and knife attacks than the US).

Our Blood And Treasure Shouldn’t Be Spilled For Tyrants And Grasshoppers:

We have spent the last 80 years building the largest military industrial complex in the history of the world.  We have spent trillions of dollars that we don’t have in order to build our military to what it is.  We robbed our children and grandchildren of their future economic output in order to build our supply of advanced weaponry.  We should not be giving this away to countries who did not do the same.

Even with our F35s and Aircraft carriers the biggest deterrent to an invasion of the United States is still that there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.  At an average retail price of around $1,000 per firearm including ammo and accessories, the United States citizens have built up around $500 Billion worth of arms in this country separate from the government. It is also very likely that these estimates are low. These countries have forbidden their citizens from owning firearms and building up this moat of defense, that should be their burden and natural consequences, not ours.