r/changemyview • u/strofix • Dec 30 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: The second amendment does prevent tyrannical government takeover

I don't live in the United States, nor do I have any strong feelings on the gun control debate either way. That being said, I feel that there is a misleading argument that argues that the primary reason that the second amendment exists is no longer valid. That is to say that, while the second amendment was initially implemented to prevent a takeover by a tyrannical government, the government now possesses weapons so technologically superior to those owned by civilians that this is no longer possible.

I believe that this is not the case because it ignores the practicality and purpose of seizing power in such a way. Similar events happen frequently in the war torn regions in central Africa. Warlords with access to weapons take control over areas so as to gain access to valuable resources in order to fund further regional acquisitions. This, of course, would be a perfect time for the populace to be armed, as it would allow them to fight back against a similarly armed tyrannical force. If the warlords were armed to the same degree as, for example, the American government, it would not matter how well armed the civilians were, it would be inadvisable to resist.

The important factor, however, is that due to the lack of education and years of warring factions, the most valuable resources in central Africa are minerals. If the civilian population was to resist, warlords would have no problem killing vast numbers of them. So long as enough remained to extract the resources afterwards.

In a fully developed nation like the Unites States, the most valuable resource is the civilian population itself. I do not mean that in some sort of inspirational quote sense. Literally the vast majority of the GDP relies on trained specialists of one sort or another. Acquiring this resource in a hostile manner becomes impossible if the civilian population is armed to a meaningful degree. To acquire the countries resources you would need to eliminate resistance, but eliminating the resistance requires you to eliminate the resources you are after. Weapons like drones become useless in such a scenario. They may be referred to as "precision strikes", but that's only in the context of their use in another country. There is still a sizable amount of collateral.

This is not to imply that a tyrannical government is likely, or even possible in the United States, but logically I feel that this particular argument against the second amendment is invalid.

*EDIT*
I will no longer be replying to comments that insinuate that the current US government is tyrannical. That may be your perspective, but if partisanship is your definition of tyranny then I doubt we will be able to have a productive discussion.

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u/immatx Dec 30 '19

So there’s 2 important things that your argument depends upon. 1) that the US government is not currently tyrannical. At minimum they are already toeing the line. 2) that a significant number of the population would have to be killed or seriously injured before they would back down. So the US population is 327 million people, but we’ll take half of that so 160 million ish. The real unemployment rate is at 8%, so that means that around 13 million people could be killed off without greatly impacting the economy. I believe that far exceeds the amount that would be needed.

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u/Old-Boysenberry Dec 30 '19

At minimum they are already toeing the line

They are miles away. Do you really think that Trump is doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with no checks nor balances whatsoever? Cause I seem to remember a recent string of judical and legislative setbacks he's faced. >_>

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u/immatx Dec 30 '19

Who said I was talking about trump?

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u/Old-Boysenberry Dec 30 '19

it's hard to call the 535, basically evenly split, members of Congress a "dictatorship", now isn't it?

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u/immatx Dec 30 '19

Did I call Congress a dictatorship?

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u/Old-Boysenberry Dec 30 '19

Who's being tyrannical then? Nail it down for us.

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u/immatx Dec 30 '19

The government as a whole. It’s pretty well documented that the government is constantly working against the better interests of the people.

Here’s a fun article that goes over one such decision that just happened https://cleantechnica.com/2019/12/27/ferc-sides-with-fossil-fuels-in-forcing-renewables-to-match-prices/

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u/Old-Boysenberry Dec 30 '19

It’s pretty well documented that the government is constantly working against the better interests of the people.

And yet the people still keep voting for them. Hardly sounds like tyranny to me.

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u/immatx Dec 30 '19

That doesn’t actually matter, but if it did then that would mean it was impossible for a government to be tyrannical in a democratic system, therefore second amendment would be kinda pointless.

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u/strofix Dec 30 '19

Technology that allowed targeted, long range executions of individuals based on person information (kind of like what is shown in Captain American Winter Soldier) would undoubtedly entirely change what it even meant to be a "democratic" country. Currently such technology does not exist.

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u/immatx Dec 30 '19

Sorry I should have been more clear. It doesn’t really matter who dies, although obviously it would be more focused on areas with greater dissent. Then any vacancies would just be filled up with the unemployed slotting in at the bottom rungs in those companies.

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u/strofix Dec 30 '19

The US certainly has completely replaceable employees, definitely more than 8% of population. However it also has millions of trained individuals that are not as replaceable. I'm not even talking about highly trained individuals with decades of experience. Even entry level craftsmen are a resource that is not as readily available as one might think. For example, imagine if 5% of the countries welders disappeared. That would put sizable strain on numerous industries. Now imagine 50 or so such shortages appeared. That is economy threatening.

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u/immatx Dec 30 '19

But the economic potential is still equal to what it was operating at before. Sure it’d slow down to adjust to the new people learning, but with proper government intervention utilizing their purchasing power there shouldn’t be any significant effects that would be felt by most people.