True, but they made the effort nonetheless.

Because they're a 'most favored' trading partner, corporations tend to puss out if anything is anti-Chinese.

Just look at the upcoming Red Dawn remake.

Way to chicken out.

There's a remake? Uhm, okay. Didn't even know that. Who's the big bad? Russian Nationalists?

It was the Chinese, until said Chinese bitched and moaned about it, so they changed it to a North Korean invasion in post-production. It'll be out sometime in 3rd quarter, I think.

Part "Chinese Bitched", part "Don't want to piss off a major trade partner", part "They're our major trade partner, why would they invade us after all?"

They probably had Kimmie talk with a bunch of other crackpot dictators into assaulting the US. Watch Castro (Whichever one is in power now. ) be part of the leadership against the USA.

Why do I feel like this is the beginning of a gussied up "Yellow Menace" fad? If Hollywood wants to use Red Dawn name recognition, why not just re-make the movie as an '80's alt-history flick? It worked fine for Watchmen and it looked hella cool.


Eh, tinpot dictators can't even feed their own people. I know they like their missile and marching parades but I don't know how they would manage a coordinated assault on the world's last remaining military super-power.

Get a good leader, some boats, a few events that gets the US Military weakened or unable to communicate in some way, job done. The US is a big place (Although still smaller than Canada ), and the Army/Marines/Air Force are spread out over quite a bit of property. The Navy just has issues getting to Kansas for some odd reason.

Because movie studios are staffed by idiots.




Well, that's the big thing. Nobody's got the transport power to move the troops on the scale required for an invasion of the United States.

The Chinese have the manpower and decent enough technology handy to do it, and I could see them appropriating a bunch of supertankers/cargo ships to move materiel over and stage an invasion of the West Coast. From there, lob a bomb onto NORAD to shut it down, nuclear response is paralyzed as it's U.S. soil, and then the guerilla warfare begins; gets nasty in the mountain states and probably stalls to a stalemate in the Rockies.

The North Koreans have the people, but I'm not so sure about the hardware. They could come in the same way, but doing something like that would enable the South Koreans to roll over the border and unify.

I think all public schools should teach riflery to students w/out gang affiliation or criminal record. That would make things hilarious if anyone tried to invade. The schools already teach chemistry...

In american schools, do they even NEED to teach them that?
Don't they have metal detectors there because they don't need to? o.O

"You have been to grade school, so I feel you are proficient in small arms." - The Simpsons, to a Drill Instructor that just handed Bart Simpson a 40mm Grenade Launcher

That's the one.

To be fair, that's only some US Schools. The rare ones in high crime gang territory. You know, the place where time traveling Shadowrunners could drop out of the sky and feel at home in. The rest are pretty decent. Even if they are brainwashing students into being content factory workers when there's no more factories to work for.

But that's another discussion.

BTW: The Boy Scouts have a Rifle Shooting Merit Badge. So does that count?

Always prepared, even for School, so of course it counts *snickers*

It's sad that I didn't stick with that sort of thing as a child... My merit badge collection would be epic.

...

Or Exhibit A.

The good thing about North Koprea is that it's led by a man who lives the dream of actually being a Bond villain. Down to beige jumpsuits and weirdo hair. I bet he also has a huge, white cat.


Nobody remotely sane would want to invade the states. And the only two states who once wanted to were both led by insane people, with one receiving the beating of it's lifetime (Mexico) and the other not even building up the technology to potentially invate the US due to crushing defeat by US forces at our own doorstep (Germany).



Even if someone had (china might in a few years), with the states' nuclear arsenal, everyone who invades the states will see all their logistics, reinforcements and homeland nuked mere hours after starting the invasion. You cannot win a war against a nuclear power. You can just make it lose too with your own nukes.

It's just highly implausible in general. And really, North Korea. What would they use to invade the US? Miniature submarines?

And 5 minutes after the US of A launch the first, somebody else has launched the last. 2 Hours later, Humanity has vanished.

There's still much of Africa and South America left (and quite possibly India, sicne the Himalayans will shield them from the China fallout for the most part). And radiation is way, way overrated.

I did mention this about 50 posts ago.

Both the new Red Dawn and Homefront were originally supposed to have the Chinese invading. Of course, we know what happened there.

In the case of Red Dawn, the decision came so late that most of the filming had already been completed, so they re-shot some of the Chinese dialogue with Korean, and are going back and digitally altering every Chinese insignia, marking, and lettering in the movie to North Korean equivalents.

That said, China invading the US doesn't make much sense anyhow. The US is their biggest trade partner. They are dependent on the US economy by this point - much like a LOT of the rest of the world. If the US goes down, so do they.

Quite honestly, there are no credible "invasion" threats to the US anymore. I remember a study a few years ago that calculated the US military spending per year was more than the next five nations combined.




-k

Not the worst way to die!

Shooting is a discipline. There's a big difference between a trained marksman, and someone who has access but doesn't really know what they're doing.

In my opinion I think that legitimate firearms owners who spend thousands of dollars on training and ammunition, and lots of free time in building and maintaining skills, are harmed by negative sterotypes of firearms users as being careless, or undisciplined. If only people knew how much discipline and dedication was involved I don't think that they would feel the need to try and regulate access. Right now the problem is that lots of people think a firearm is like a Wand of Magic Missile.

I blame Hollywood and the News.

I mean, even folks that shoot for a living (Soldiers) fire off hundreds of rounds before hitting a target. Admittedly, said target is shooting back, which changes things greatly.

Personally, I do think waiting period for all firearm licenses should be required.

Not for stopping crime. That's stupid. Gun control at the consumer level doesn't do a damn thing to stop crime. A staggering majority of gun crime is committed with already-illegally obtained weapons. Criminals don't give a crap about gun laws, so restrictions on gun access only affect law-abiding folks.

You need to go higher up the food chain, after illegal suppliers, to even begin to address gun crime. But I suppose that kinda stuff isn't as politically sexy.

No, I believe all licenses should require a full operational and safety certification before they are permitted. That would do more to save lives, simply because better trained firearm owners are safer firearm owners.




-k

You mean like the system Canada has in place now. You need to pass a safety lesson from a registered trainer in order to start the paperwork to legally buy firearms or ammunition. Thing is, when it was first put into place, it had a lot of... Oddities: Such as having to know about Black Powder and Bow Hunting as well as conventional rifles and shotguns for a standard firearms license. Not sure if it's the same today.

I just have issues with the Firearms Licensing System, however. It is a money dump that has done jack squat. Hell, if half of the rifles in Northern Canada are actually licensed, I'd be majorly surprised. And those are responsible firearms owners.

Yeah, 'cause having operational and safety certification keeps anyone from ever getting into car wrecks, right?

Actually, yes it does. It would prevent the frequent cases of death because of failing to remember which pedal is gas and which is brake.

Of course, America's staggering murder and gun crime quota isn't directly related to gun ownership, but to the prevalent mentality of gun use. That's different in other countries with prolific weapon ownage (like Switzerland).

You did say that before, and it was so good it bore repeating. I was even going through typing that saying "I KNOW I've seen it before, which thread was it..."

No wonder I couldn't find.

US military spending by % of GDP is more than all other nations combined. Hard dollars wise, it's pretty far up there. I'm not sure the next five nations could add up.

Meh. Rifles are for babies. I won the archery competition at Boy Scout Camp in 1988. Anyone wants to invade my hometown is getting a carbon hunting arrow through the eye socket. GREEN ARROW, BABY!

Which is why I prefer my that my invasions involve aliens or extra-dimensional menaces. WW2 style conventional warfare doesn't exist in the 21st century context except in tribal skirmishes or insurgencies.

Watch Threads all the way through. When you're done shaking from terror you have my permission to cry.

Compared to countries that don't have licensing systems in place, nor a culture that teaches children to drive (Like Northern Canada and Southern USA), and where the illiteracy rates are so high professional drivers can't even read road signs...

One good part of firearms safety is demonstrated on the show "Sons of Guns", where new firearms owners walk into the store and the shop owners explain exactly what the people are getting into. Right up to, and including exactly how most home invasion shootings occur using the indoor pistol range.