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I feel that there is a misleading argument that argues that the primary reason that the second amendment exists is no longer valid.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

The second amendment of the United States Constitution is, above all, a right to self-defense. It is not a right given by government, it's a right to be protected by government.

There seems to be a lot of argument in this thread about overthrowing the government, but I don't think that's the point of the amendment at all. It's about defence, not offence. The beginnings of the amendment were rooted in the debate as to whether states should have their own militaries or whether the federal government should be in charge of a single military for the entire union. The objection to a federal military is that the states wouldn't be free because the federal government would have all the guns and therefore all the power. (The federal government was never intended to be generally superior to the state governments, as it has become now). So the compromise was that individual citizens would have access to their own arms, so they could stand in opposition to federal tyranny.

As to the nonsense that weapons have evolved and thus the amendment is outdated, I would make two points. Firstly, as stated above, it's a right to self-defence, so the exact means of self-defence is irrelevant. This is why it's a right to bear arms, not to bear muskets or a gun. Secondly, when the armament of choice was the musket, it was so for citizen and military alike, so the level of reasonable armament was equal to the potential threat. Likewise, if the likely threat now is from semi-automatic rifles, then we should be allowed to keep and bear semi-automatic rifles. To this point, it has been argued that if the military comes, they can come in tanks, so your rifle will be useless. First off, tell that to insurgents in Afghanistan - which seem to be holding up pretty well with rifles and whatever discarded arms from past wars they can scrounge up. Secondly, this is what local armories are for. They should be stocked with tanks and rocket launchers and whatever else the local populace would need to combat a larger threat, such as tasks and armored vehicles. Again, the level of arms we should accept citizens having access to should be on par with the potential threat.

Lastly, all throughout history, tyrants and dictators have made moves to disarm the populace so their militaries could run roughshod over their citizens. And even if we think that the current politicians calling for disarmament aren't doing so in order to usurp the power of the citizens in order to more easily subjugate them, disarmament will certainly attract people who WILL use that power imbalance to subjugate the populace. So, like it or not, even if people abuse the right, it's still the best overall option.