By Major Van Harl USAF Ret
Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)- I truly hate the term registered firearms when you are talking about American gun owners–it is flat out against our 2nd amendment right.
The term however, and the condition of state control of privately owned firearms is sadly well accepted in the rest of the world.
Take Sweden for example, it has approximately 9.5 million people.
Now they are a gun loving people, and have about 2.8 million legally owned firearms in that nation.
There are also approximately 4 million unregistered firearms in Sweden, probably the highest rate of out-law owned firearms in Europe.
As much as the womb-to-tomb socialist government of Sweden wants to control these out-law firearms, this unlawful possession of guns by renegade Swedes may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for that country.
Sweden is about to get its back-side handed to itself once again, at the hands of the Russians. Something the Russians have been successfully doing to Sweden for the past 300 plus years. The Russians have to go to war with the Chinese in the next 4-8 years. Russia is running out of people and will get to the point very soon; they will not have enough manpower to facilitate a large enough military to stop the impending invasion of the Steppes of Russia by communist China.
Russia is a large country with few people and lots of natural resources (read gas & oil). China is a large country with way too many people. China is running out of room and resources.
China has to take what it can from Russia, and Russia has a short timeline that will allow them to defend from and destroy the Chinese land army. Always remember that the Russians (long before they were Soviets) have never believed in fighting a two front war. Russia knows she has to fight China, but the Mother-Land does not want to leave NATO sitting intact, on their western front, allowing for the possibility that the Europeans might decide to join in and help the Chinese. So, the Russians will take back the Baltic states while assuming that NATO will come to the “alleged” promised rescue of Lithuania, thereby starting their needed European war.
However, before they start this overland attack of the Baltic states they will invade the Swedish island of Gotland.
This island sits between mainland Sweden and Lithuania and NATO aircraft will need to fly east to west over the Baltic Sea to respond to the Russian ground hordes. So the Russians will put their fighter aircraft, and their anti-aircraft missiles on Gotland Island and attempt to make a devastating mess of US Air Force assets speeding to the fight. It will have to be US aircraft because the attack will happen on a Sunday, and the rest of NATO will be off for the weekend.
At present Sweden’s military can respond to an invasion by mobilizing two Army battalion of Soldiers (300-800, maybe 1000 on a good day) in approximately 90 days. A poll was taken in 2013 and only 6% of Swedes believed their country can protect itself. The Russians will control western Sweden 48 hours after the first shots are fire, but there may be hope.
That hope will come in the hands of Swedish citizens who want nothing to do with being in their nation’s military, but possess a love of out-law firearms. The French have a word for it, Francs-tireur, meaning free-shooter. It usually involves civilian guerrilla fighters who rise up and help defend their nation during the early days of an invasion. This happens while the regular military is trying desperately to get their act together, and save the country from being overrun.
NATO aligned European nations do not want to spend the money to make their militaries ready to meet the Russian bear. Sweden continues with their neutrality nonsense hoping this will keep them out of yet another European war, but they also hope the Americans will fly in and save them.
I would suspect someone will wind up getting nuked and most likely it will be Poland. The Poles will fight the hardest and lose the most. They know all too well what it is like to be invaded by the Russians and then occupied. The Russians would not let the Polish citizens have firearms when they owned the country, and the current Polish government has the same private gun owner restrictions they learned about from their former communist masters.
Don’t expect many Polish Francs-tireurs, even though they would love to have access to the rifles. The Germans have too much invested in Russian and they have an East-German trained, fluent Russian speaking Chancellor in control of that country. I would not be surprised if the US aircraft stationed on German soil never leave the flight line to try and help save Lithuania and occupied Sweden.
How do you say I want to be a Francs-tireur in Swedish or Polish?
The first WW II American military casualty in Europe was Captain Robert M. Losey, a US Army-Airman who was killed while assisting US embassy personal to escape from Norway into neutral Sweden. I would suspect the next “first casualty” will also be an Airman, perhaps dying over neutral Swedish airspace.
Major Van Harl USAF Ret. /vanharl@aol.com
About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School. A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI. His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training. He believes “evil hates organization.” vanharl@aol.com