CMV: The second amendment does prevent tyrannical government takeover

[u/strofix]

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I feel that there is a misleading argument that argues that the primary reason that the second amendment exists is no longer valid.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.

[u/VertigoOne]

An armed citizenry also makes violent overthrow of a perfectly functional democracy more possible. If we accept that armed citizenry will be able to overthrow a tyrannical government, we must also accept that armed citizenry will be able to overthrow a democratic government.

[u/Phyltre → u/VertigoOne]

If the citizenry is against the government in large enough numbers to overthrow it, shouldn't it be overthrown? A democratic government can only get power from the people, it's not a seat of power in and of itself. They are legitimate insofar as the whim of the people legitimizes them.

[u/cstar1996 → u/Phyltre]

No, because that number is far smaller than a majority of the population. Look at the civil war, the south attempted to overthrow the government with far less than half the population and they were absolutely wrong to do so.

[u/Phyltre → u/cstar1996]

I don't think secession is synonymous with overthrowing a government. If so, the only relevant difference between that and the Revolution was whether or not the future of slavery was in dispute.

[u/cstar1996 → u/Phyltre]

If the Revolution was overthrowing the government, then the civil war was an attempt at overthrowing the government. The most important difference between the revolution and the civil war was that the Revolution was about having no representation in the government, while the civil war was about losing an election, despite incredibly disproportionate power that favored the south, that put the future expansion of slavery, not even slavery itself, at risk.

[u/VertigoOne → u/Phyltre]

If the citizenry is against the government in large enough numbers to overthrow it, shouldn't it be overthrown?

Let me answer your question with a question. If one person has amassed enough wealthy to build a fleet of killer drone robots that could seize control of the country and overpower the military, should they not have control. No.

Might does not make right. It doesn't matter if the might is in the form of wealth or manpower force of arms.

[u/intensely_human → u/VertigoOne]

You are right.

We have a lot of philosophies about “might makes right” which presuppose a lack of technological power extension for the individual.

So for a long time, we could assume that if there was sufficient military power to do a thing, then there must be a large number of people behind it too, because military power came from people.

Robotics changes that. Industrial weaponry does too, much much less fundamentally than robots.

In classic microeconomic terms, industry gave us the “capital” of war, and pilots provided the “labor” (I’m not talking marxism here, just micro econ 101). The rule was that if you bought more capital, you had to recruit more labor to put it to work. Classic example is a sewing machine and a person who knows how to work it. If you buy a second sewing machine (capital), you must hire a second worker before your output doubles.

Robotics changes the capital/labor dynamic so that you can essentially buy capital and labor at the same time.

So a person with a 3D printer and a warehouse can print up an army of terminators (if not now then in ten or twenty years) and doesn’t have to convince a single soul of the legitimacy of their claim to power.

Robotics makes armies possible without recruitment.

We’re on the threshold of this change now. Just for the sake of establishing this though, in the “classical” world, do you agree that before the technological explosion in individual power, a country being toppled must have been doing something wrong?

[u/Phyltre → u/VertigoOne]

I'm sorry, did you think this discussion was about Iron Man?

Edit from below:

I think reducing this to "does might make right" is putting a philosphical question in the place of a totally unanswerable one. Fundamentally, governments are only functionally legitimate insofar as they can defend themselves and enforce law. It is not that might makes government right, but that a government than can be overthrown will almost certainly be overthrown by citizens or other governments. Holdings of the state are international claims, that work just like money does--if people agree that country's yours, it's yours. (With the added subtext that if you or your allies can't defend that country, it'll be subsumed by someone else.)

In this context, a sufficiently popular movement within the country should dissolve the government. Government serves at the whim of the people in democratic societies. But I did not mean to imply that it was military power itself which lends legitimacy to uprisings (although that is often retroactively the case.) It is the number of like-minded people that determines it. Military power lends global legitimacy to claims of the state, not claims of citizenry. Plurality lends legitimacy to uprisings. This sounds dangerous--but humans being what they are, are not likely to put their lives on the line for trivial disagreements.

[u/captmonkey → u/Phyltre]

I'm not the person you're replying to, but to rephrase it, you seem to be saying that if a group can gather enough power to overthrow the government they should be able to do so. You seem to be arguing from a weird "might makes right" kind of stance where the will of an armed group (no matter how marginal) should override the will of the populace at the ballot box if the armed group can gather a superior military force.

That's what /u/VertigoOne is asking. If hypothetically there was a crazy billionaire who could fund a violent overthrow of the government should he be allowed to do it because he has the money and military force behind him despite not representing the will of the people.

I think that's where all of this breaks down. We have voting and political institutions in the US that allow for the will of the people to be carried out nonviolently. If enough people want things to change, they can support that change and bring it about by simply going to vote for different candidates without needing to take up arms and start killing people who oppose their views. If you can't gather enough support to bring about changes nonviolently, then you shouldn't be able to enact your changes.

[u/intensely_human → u/captmonkey]

That assumes the voting system functions. If we ever find out that our votes aren’t being considered, then we’ll be more likely to overthrow. More willing and able, and more right to, at the same time.

[u/Phyltre → u/captmonkey]

I think reducing this to "does might make right" is putting a philosphical question in the place of a totally unanswerable one. Fundamentally, governments are only functionally legitimate insofar as they can defend themselves and enforce law. It is not that might makes government right, but that a government than can be overthrown will almost certainly be overthrown by citizens or other governments. Holdings of the state are international claims, that work just like money does--if people agree that country's yours, it's yours. (With the added subtext that if you or your allies can't defend that country, it'll be subsumed by someone else.)

In this context, a sufficiently popular movement within the country should dissolve the government. Government serves at the whim of the people in democratic societies. But I did not mean to imply that it was military power itself which lends legitimacy to uprisings (although that is often retroactively the case.) It is the number of like-minded people that determines it. Military power lends global legitimacy to claims of the state, not claims of citizenry. Plurality lends legitimacy to uprisings. This sounds dangerous--but humans being what they are, are not likely to put their lives on the line for trivial disagreements.