The world's largest army? America's hunters

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Pahoo

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The world's largest army? America's hunters

I spend my some fall & winter weekends tramping around the woods in pursuit of a buck, a lot of my friends and neighbors do as well.
Add up all the hunters in just a handful of states, and you come to a striking conclusion:
The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That's great. There were over 600,000 hunters.

Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world - more men under arms than Iran ; more than France and Germany combined - deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan 's 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia , and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world..

The point? America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower.
Hunting -- it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a way of life and a matter of national security.
*************************************************

God Bless America and;

Be Safe !!!
 
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Capt. Charlie

Moderator Emeritus
Deer don't shoot back.
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Yeah, but it was enough to intimidate Japan's Admiral Yamamoto during WWII. Remember his famous words? "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."
 
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BitterTait

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per wikipedia, china's got 2.3 million, plus half a million reserve troops. Big number, but quite a bit less than "the entire population of the US", reasonably close to the number of hunters in america, but among my circle, for every hunter I know I know at least one firearms enthusiast who doesn't hunt or hasn't hunted recently.

I think the nuclear arsenal is a slightly greater deterrent than a well trained civilian marksman population, anyone who's studied the major post World War II conflicts would be idiotic to discount irregular civilian forces.
 
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Skadoosh

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Yeah, but it was enough to intimidate Japan's Admiral Yamamoto during WWII. Remember his famous words? "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."
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Probably not so much now as then. I think the ratio of guns to citizens has dropped dramatically. It would be interesting to see what a statistical analysis would yield.
 
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tet4

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There would certainly be quite the resistance and probably a long guerrilla war which would frustrate any invader beyond what they really want to deal with, but don't ever forget that some world leaders are psycho and might try it anyway. Also, don't forget that much of the midwest deer hunting is done with shotguns at <100 yards. In the south, they get into 4 wheelers to go out to the tree stand, sit there all morning and then ride back. I'm not knocking hunters at all - it's hard work and requires skill, but not the same skills as being a soldier. For this reason, I think that more states should keep their own voluntary citizen militias to allow common folks who can't or don't want to in the NG reserves also train for national defense.
 
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lashlaroe

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per wikipedia, china's got 2.3 million, plus half a million reserve troops. Big number, but quite a bit less than "the entire population of the US", reasonably close to the number of hunters in america, but among my circle, for every hunter I know I know at least one firearms enthusiast who doesn't hunt or hasn't hunted recently.
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Bolding is mine

Just some quick addition tells me that in the four states mentioned by the OP alone, there are 2.3 million hunters (assuming that the numbers are correct and there isn't too much overlap). Add the rest of the states where deer hunting occurs and I believe we're back to the OP's original premise.

I don't think it does any good to discuss how well trained they are in combat, as compared to how well regular armies are trained. The basic premise has to do with the sheer amount of firearms per capita in the USA. This thread didn't even discuss the arms and potentially different hunters chasing after preditors, birds, rabbits, and all other legal game.

A big difference here also is that the arms are not just owned by the military, police, and "insurgents" (as in some foreign countries). Here, it's spread pretty evenly amongst the general populace.
 
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Kreyzhorse

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I don't think it does any good to discuss how well trained they are in combat, as compared to how well regular armies are trained.
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+1. Let's not over estimate ourselves here. I've seen some "hunters" who are barely able to hunt a deer for one reason or another much less a trained soldier.

To add to that, my bolt action 7mm Rem Mag isn't exactly a select fire close quarters combat weapon either.
 
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Nickel Plated

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per wikipedia, china's got 2.3 million, plus half a million reserve troops. Big number, but quite a bit less than "the entire population of the US", reasonably close to the number of hunters in america, but among my circle, for every hunter I know I know at least one firearms enthusiast who doesn't hunt or hasn't hunted recently.
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I think what peezakilla meant was that China has a conscript army and can essentially force the vast majority of it's male population into service in case of war. Which would then outnumber us by quite a bit. But you also have to consider the complete lack of a gun culture in China. How many Chinese citizens know how to shoot a gun or have ever even held one in their lives? Plus if the U.S. was invaded the government would be quick to reinstate the draft and a whole lot of people would just sign on voluntarily.

The U.S. has a large (not as big as it should be though) population of people who shoot on a regular basis. All you need is a few hunters with scoped rifles sending a few well aimed shots at a Chinese army everywhere they go to keep them constantly tired and demoralized. By the time the Chinese get their citizens to learn which end of the rifle the bullets come out of we will have millions of people locked and loaded. And unlike their citizens we don't have to wait for the government to provide us with guns from some warehouse somewhere which may or may not have already been bombed.

All of this is assuming that the Chinese even make it to the U.S. Our Navy and Air Force will have their ships sitting on the ocean floor before they even leave international waters.
 
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Alden

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Does anyone seriously think China would ever try to invade mainland USA?

They already own us, economically speaking.
 
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egor20

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Kreyzhorse
Senior Member

+1. Let's not over estimate ourselves here. I've seen some "hunters" who are barely able to hunt a deer for one reason or another much less a trained soldier.

Deer are a lot smarter than conscript soldiers.
 
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bottom rung

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Alden, your right. They own us. It isn't an invasion when you try to occupy the land and houses you purchased. Some of you fellows are actually mortgaged out to some Arabs too. Not a pretty picture.

Of all nations, America will lead the bloodiest, most chaotic guerrilla war this world has ever seen.

The whole hunter possible fighter scenario, made sense back during WW2. Most fellows had more guts back then.

They weren't in "touch".

Most guys today would die without TV, Sports, beer, video games, and constant praise.

They would leave the woods and quit fighting because somebody said something negative to them.

Others might get upset because somebody was praying to God, and they just don't see what God would have to do with preserving a nation.

In short, we no be so lucky.
 
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oneounceload

Moderator
The world's largest army? America's hunters
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Sorry to disagree - an "army" implies an organized group with standardized equipment - something the hunters in the USA are NOT......they can't even agree on their current political leadership, let alone supporting the biggest gun group.......if we were invaded, it would be the biggest Keystone Kops cluster you-know-what they ever filmed
 
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Sturmgewehre

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I don't believe deer are a "menace", they are a food source. If anything is a "menace", it's the moronic hunters I encounter regularly in my home state. I'm not saying all hunters are moronic, they're not. But there are more than a few dolts running around out there.

The fact none of the Wisconsin hunters managed to kill themselves much less someone else so far this year is nothing short of amazing... usually they have some pretty funny Darwin award type stunts that result in death each year up there.

A company of Marines could take on a force 10x's the size or more comprised only of your typical American hunter. The Marines would steam roll them. An over weight city dweller that waddles himself to the woods once a year armed with an antique firearm doesn't not constitute a "soldier" IMHO. Militia, yes. A professional soldier, not even close.

I love hunting and firearms obviously, but let's not overstate their relevance to our nations ability to effectively wage war against an aggressor nation (historically fought over seas and not in our woods). Most of them would become nothing more than bullet traps for a professional military, if it came to that... and lets pray it doesn't.

There are more guns than people in places like Afghanistan. We've effectively occupied their nation and kill thousands of them each month. They are powerless to stop our military from doing what it wants, where it wants and when it wants. Much of the Afghan population is war hardened, they've known nothing else but war their entire lives... even as civilians. They have just as many guns as our citizens do, per capita... Heck, they even have access to things we only dream about such as RPG's, belt fed LMGs, grenades, etc. yet they're not repelling our invasion.
 
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BlueTrain

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Like most people in most places, they only have to have the patience to wait us out. In the meantime, they like to fight. They like to shoot at things just to see if they can hit them, which sounds like a few Americans, by the way. I bet if we ever run out of ammuntion while we're over there, they give us some so we could keep fighting.
 
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Glenn E. Meyer

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I don't see this going anywhere and I see we've already had some unacceptable posts. Foreign invasion and your 30-30 is a little too much TEOTWAWKI, so:

Closed.
 
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