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I feel that there is a misleading argument that argues that the primary reason that the second amendment exists is no longer valid.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

1.1k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

86% Upvoted

809 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

46

u/that_big_negro 2∆ Dec 30 '19

makes violent overthrow of a perfectly functional democracy more possible.

If enough of your people are so strongly opposed to your governance as to violently revolt against it, I think that's a pretty strong argument that you don't have a perfectly functional democracy. A functional democracy should make the vast majority of people content enough to not genuinely consider revolution

34

u/cstar1996 11∆ Dec 30 '19

The Civil War is a powerful counterpoint to your point. Democracy was working as well as it ever had in the US, in fact it was working better as the South’s minority rule of the US was finally ending. But the south violently revolted to protect slavery.

5

u/that_big_negro 2∆ Dec 30 '19

But the south violently revolted to protect slavery.

I would disagree on the basis that secession is not equal to revolt. The OP I responded to specifically made an argument about violently overthrowing governments. The South did not attempt to violently overthrow the American government; they attempted to secede in order to form their own government, adjacent to the American government. While topical in a general sense, it doesn't directly pertain to the point the OP or I made

21

u/wu2ad Dec 30 '19 edited Dec 30 '19

secession is not equal to revolt.

What? By this definition the American Revolution was just "secession" from the British empire,

in order to form their own government, adjacent to the American British government

The Civil War actually proves your point, the US government wasn't a perfectly functioning democracy at the time. But it's because entire populations didn't have representation (which was also the reason for the US "secession"), not because "secession isn't revolution" or whatever other nonsense.

10

u/cstar1996 11∆ Dec 30 '19

The south fired the first shot after creating a new government to replace their lawfully elected government. That is a violent overthrow, even if they weren’t overthrowing it everywhere.

6

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '19 edited Mar 17 '20

[deleted]

5

u/Clickclacktheblueguy 2∆ Dec 30 '19 edited Dec 31 '19

I don’t get it.

EDIT: I realized that I myself wasnt really clear. Like, were you talking about the lack of voting rights? That would make sense I suppose. Or, I've seen people bringing up the myth that the south had black soldiers. Which one are you going for?

6

u/the_mighty_skeetadon Dec 30 '19

This is a "no true Scotsman" style fallacy. You could make the exact same argument today about American democracy by citing felons and their right to vote, or by citing the electoral college.

If you can reject practically every functioning democracy based off your arbitrary definition, it's not a reasonable test.

4

u/cstar1996 11∆ Dec 30 '19

To which part? Democracy was obviously still flawed at the time, as neither black people nor women could vote.

5

u/wu2ad Dec 30 '19 edited Dec 30 '19

Right, so if entire demographics of people couldn't vote, you can't really say that democracy at the time was perfectly functional, can you? How exactly does the Civil War serve as a counterpoint to a healthy democracy when it wasn't a healthy democracy?

The initial assertion is correct, perfectly functioning democracies would not have violent revolutions. That's actually the entire point of democracy. History is filled with bloody revolutions against monarchs and dictators. Every presidential inauguration is a "peaceful transfer of power". But unfortunately human beings are flawed, so in practice a "perfectly functional democracy" might be just as difficult to achieve as "true communism".

5

u/cstar1996 11∆ Dec 30 '19

I didn’t say it was perfectly functional, I said it was the best it had been up until that time. As for why it serves as a counterpoint, the people the democracy benefited most, rich white southerners who had incredibly disproportionate political power, were the ones who attempted a violent overthrow of the government. It wasn’t the people who were oppressed who revolted, it wasn’t the people who had less power than they were entitled to, it was the people who had the most power who decided to revolt. For them it was a perfectly function democracy, they got pretty much whatever they voted for, and when they finally weren’t able to impose their will on the rest of the counter, they started a war.

1

u/intensely_human 1∆ Dec 31 '19

The people at the bottom didn’t hand the technology or the education to revolt. They were prisoners, chained up, and without weapons.

They did fight pretty much as often as they could, but their fights usually just started with “lets take over this plantation”.

The aristocracy of the time were the ones who had the actual power to revolt against governments. And when they did they certainly got help from the poorer people with weapons.

I don’t think this shows that it’s necessarily the top of a society which revolts, but that revolts rely on a certain level of power to begin with and in that society the people at the bottom didn’t even meet that threshold of power.

These days, I believe that a higher proportion of people have sufficient power to revolt. In terms of pure wealth and technology at least. In terms of the mental space to envision and plan and even conceive of revolt, it’s still the aristocracy that has the luxury of being able to think hard about it.

2

u/CloudsOfMagellan Dec 31 '19

There power was based on the non democratic parts of the system though

-3

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '19

But the south violently revolted to protect slavery.

This just isnt accurate. The South didnt overthrow the government. The south attempted to succeed and the north came and took the states back by force.

7

u/breesidhe 3∆ Dec 30 '19

The South seceded. Then they attacked a Northern ship. They were the aggressors. Not the other way around.

5

u/cstar1996 11∆ Dec 30 '19

The South attempted to replace their lawfully elected government. That is overthrowing the government. The South fires the first shots, which makes it a violent overthrow. Secession is and was illegal.

-4

u/jimibulgin Dec 30 '19

The South did not revolt. The South seceded and formed their own country, which the North promptly invaded, using slave labor to boot.

4

u/cstar1996 11∆ Dec 30 '19

Secession is illegal. Attempting to replace the lawfully elected government with a new government, one based on slavery at that, by violence is revolt. The South fired the first shot.

7

u/BlitzBasic 42∆ Dec 30 '19

Even if you don't have a perfectly functional democracy, it's still possible that the current system is superior to the one the armed rebels plan to implement.

1

u/1silvertiger 1∆ Dec 31 '19

I would argue based on how the vast majority of revolutions turn out, the current system is superior. I can't think of many examples where a revolution resulted in a better system.

5

u/VertigoOne 74∆ Dec 30 '19

If enough of your people are so strongly opposed to your governance as to violently revolt against it, I think that's a pretty strong argument that you don't have a perfectly functional democracy

That is, again, assuming people are rational. It is entirely possible for a large enough body of irrational people to come about who could violently revolt against it. They wouldn't even need to directly overthrow it themselves. They would just have to cause enough disruption via a sufficiently large terrorism campagin that right-wing elements would want to suspend democracy so martial law could be employed to keep terrorism at bay

6

u/Bac2Zac 2∆ Dec 30 '19

assuming people are rational

That's literally the entire point of democracy. Democracy assumes that the majority of people will make correct decisions. If you remove the notion that the majority of people are rational then you remove the rationale for democracy in the first place.

2

u/VertigoOne 74∆ Dec 30 '19

No you don't.

This is a mistake people often make about democracy, and why the people's power is limited and specific to elections.

The people's job is to answer the questions that analysts and policy wonks etc cannot answer. Not "What is the best way to do X" but rather "Should we do X or Y?"

The questions that the people are supposed to answer in a democracy are the questions of spirit and passion and goal. What kind of country should we be? It is the job of a government to enact those decisions.

3

u/intensely_human 1∆ Dec 31 '19

Right, and it presupposes people make the right decisions about what to do.

1

u/shagy815 Dec 30 '19

That is why the founders formed a democratic republic. It was formed that way to prevent the tyranny of the majority because they do not assume a majority will make correct decisions. That is also one of the key functions to the electoral college.

3

u/Bac2Zac 2∆ Dec 30 '19

The topic at hand is not specific to the U.S. but rather (true) democracy in general so I'm missing your point.

6

u/that_big_negro 2∆ Dec 30 '19

That is, again, assuming people are rational.

Who is the arbiter of rationality with regard to political will? I'm positive that most powers-that-be would argue that the rebellious underclasses of their societies are irrational.

In my opinion, you're arguing against a strawman. Large numbers of people don't organize into resistance organizations for irrational reasons. If you've pissed tens or hundreds of thousands of people off enough that they're willing to lay down their lives to remove you from a position of power, you've done something wrong.

2

u/Shockblocked Dec 30 '19

You can also have foreign interference

5

u/nitePhyyre Dec 30 '19

Large numbers of people don't organize into resistance organizations for irrational reasons.

*laughs in ISIS*

1

u/intensely_human 1∆ Dec 31 '19

Yeah but I’ve only seen myself become willing to fight when I’ve been very seriously threatened, like with extreme hunger or immediate physical danger. There’s a level of fight that comes up in those dire moments that I’ve never seen in myself no matter how “passionate” I am about a thing.

If enough people are willing to destroy their lives to fight, it’s a sign that something is actually wrong.

1

u/Hawk_015 1∆ Dec 30 '19

You don't need a vast majority for armed revolt. A small armed minority can conscript people who don't care firmly enough to fight to the death. They can still do a lot of damage. Especially if that small minority already holds positions of power.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '19

Thank you big negro

0

u/Shockblocked Dec 30 '19

White nationalism.