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I used to have a single shut-down in 2nd amendment arguments. When my opponent would claim that the 2nd amendment gives civilians the power to overthrow a government, my favorite response was to compare poorly armed and trained americans to essentially the Taliban, and follow that up with: and then the US would drone/bomb you to oblivion with their air force superiority, like how Israel dominated the no-air-force Middle East in The Six Day War

Looks like the joke is on me, now: People now actually have an option of building their own Air Force. Greaaaaaat,

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The argument you're describing is missing the point. Historically, most government abuse occurs at the local level and this is where a personal right to bear arms becomes relevant. Decades ago, a gun could prevent a lynching by a racist sheriff. Today, perhaps it prevents a rape during a rural traffic stop.

Government is a diverse collection of entities. It's a mistake to assume that resisting the government means overthrowing the entire federal system.

If you're interested in hearing more on this subject I recommend reading "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible" by Charles Cobb.

"Guns rights" for minorities in America has rarely ever been about personal protection or what not, it has been about keeping those in power in power and keeping the.

Large swaths of American history of American history are likely being ignored with assertion like "gun ownership could prevent a lynching". Take pre-Civil War laws making gun ownership of African Americas (free and enslaved) illegal, the continuation of those laws under "Black Codes" in both the North and South post Civil War, and the extension of similar acts post Civil Rights Act with laws like California's 1967 Mulford Act.

I agree those are examples of maintaining (often racist) power systems. But what you're providing aren't examples of gun rights, they're examples of gun control initiatives -- which are the opposite of gun rights.

This extends beyond such obvious examples as the Mulford Act (California's foray into gun control, banning open carry in response to armed protest by Black Panthers). Gun control often focuses on removing access to arms by any poor and disenfranchised groups. So called "Saturday night special" legislation seeks to ban cheap guns, with disproportionate impact in disadvantaged communities.

Access to arms has historically been a key element of people maintaining their freedom from government abuse. Your examples of gun control indeed do undermine this freedom.

The history of gun control in the US is deeply tainted by racist motivations.

Yes, and the foundation for much of it the NFA, could be kicked over tomorrow. Its precedent is really weak (miller) or as you point out racist/financially disadvantaged.

If a civil-rights activist can threaten a racist sheriff, what's stopping a criminal from threatening a good one?

But even without the Second Amendment, the criminal could still get a gun. The difference is, with the Second Amendment, the civil-rights activist can also get a gun.

Some other countries allow private ownership of firearms without a Constitutional amendment, so latter case is theoretically possible with or without the 2A.

Not much of the current personal arms policy debate in the US is about whether we should strive to make it impossible for criminals or civil rights activists to get a gun. It's about the margins of ease, how that can or should vary by person, how capacity or type of weapon matters, legal exposure of different kind of carrying, and other matters that could reasonably fall under "well-regulated."

For example, some people think a recent domestic abuse record should trigger a very high level of scrutiny for firearm purchases (or even continued possession). This isn't the sort of rule that would prevent anyone from committing a crime with a gun, perhaps not even an impenetrable wall for those with such records. But it increases the practical difficulty and compounds the crime (and risk) for certain cases.

Margins matter -- seatbelts can't save all lives but they absolutely produce a safety margin.

Ugh, historically the civil rights activist is the one who would have been denied that right...

If the state outlaws civil rights activism, then civil rights activists will be outlaws, irrespective of firearm liberties.

And indefensible law does not make having defensible policy unreasonable.

America has a lot of gun availability and yet getting shot isn't the most common cause of on-the-job death for a police officer. In fact, law enforcement isn't a particularly dangerous line of work.

I think a better question would be asking how arming either police or civilians changes the policing dynamic. These types of questions also need to be set against the larger cultural context of how a society keeps control of its policing activity.

I feel like you learned the wrong lesson from Afghanistan. Not only has it been the longest military conflict in American history we also lost and are too proud to admit it, so we are just stuck in an infinite war.

If there was a credible war between the American government and the citizenry I don't think it would be as one sided as you think it would be.

It's not about the civilians being able to overthrow the government, it's about the government not being able to overthrow the civilians. When wrongthink starts being criminalized, would you prefer to be defenseless in your home, or have some - feeble sure, but some - means of protecting yourself? Or would you rather just prefer to think wrongthink will never be criminalized?

I believe The Clash puts it best:

    When they kick at your front door
    How you gonna come?
    With your hands on your head
    Or on the trigger of your gun

    When the law break in
    How you gonna go?
    Shot down on the pavement
    Or waiting in death row

    You can crush us
    You can bruise us
    But you'll have to answer to
    Oh, guns of Brixton

The Clash - The Guns of Brixton

Death by cop. That's one way to go.

P.S. Wrongthink has always been criminalized

True. War on drugs was really a war on anti-Vietnam mentalities, but 1A means you can't say that's what you're doing (yet).

Do you want every police encounter to turn into Ruby Ridge?

A non-insignificant number of people would consider criminalizing drugs criminalizing wrongthink.

The criminalization of drugs was put in place to target hippies and minorities. So... yes.

"We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

- John Ehrlichman, Nixon's Aide during time of the war on drugs.

https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

Aside:

Liberty - the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

What the hell ever happened to "give me liberty or give me death"?

The key word is oppressive. I don't believe not allowing people to own weapons of war is oppressive. Especially so to their (non-)victims.

The "oppressive restrictions" was actually regarding drugs, not guns.

Cracking track, so may as well listen to it, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcW8VNwYvL0

The 2nd amendment does not give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government, it prevents the government from restricting the right to bear arms because bearing arms is necessary for a free state.

The people, in a Democracy, are the arbiters of power and the government serves the people. If the government does not serve the people, the people have an a priori right to reform that government.

>The 2nd amendment does not give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government, it prevents the government from restricting the right to bear arms because bearing arms is necessary for a free state.

Why is the right to bear arms necessary for a free state if not to give the citizenry the ability to overthrow the government? It's not as if indian raids or an invasion from Spain or Britain are causes for concern, nor does the second amendment make up for the lack of a standing army anymore. Overthrowing the government is the only thing left that it's good for, as far as a free state is concerned.

>If the government does not serve the people, the people have an a priori right to reform that government.

What other means of "reform" does the second amendment offer the people, than revolution by force of arms?

it's probably not possible for armed citizens to actually overthrow the US government without support from the conventional armed forces. but it's not necessary to completely overthrow a government to extract concessions. a credible threat of widespread chaos and violence might tip the scales against a very unpopular policy.

> it's not necessary to completely overthrow a government to extract concessions. a credible threat of widespread chaos and violence might tip the scales against a very unpopular policy.

And how often does that actually succeed? The American Civil War caused the South to lose out on slavery, at great cost to its economy; while The Troubles didn't induce the UK to give any concessions it wasn't already willing to give beforehand.

Most insurgencies ultimately fail in their aims, and this is already when we're talking about insurgencies against weak governments and civil societies where monopoly of force is close to nonexistent in the first place.

> while The Troubles didn't induce the UK to give any concessions it wasn't already willing to give beforehand.

You're saying that the Brits would have agreed to let Northern Ireland vote to join rejoin the rest of Ireland at some point in the future WITHOUT force of arms? I don't believe you. And yes, that was included [0] in the Good Friday Agreement.

And even if most insurgencies fail, "let's not do that because it might provoke an insurgency" is valuable all on its own.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement#Status_o...

Scotland got its devolution referendums and independence referendums without severe political violence, so I suspect that the British would have been willing to let such a vote happen if the Sunningdale agreement had lasted longer.

An alternative interpretation is that Scotland got its independence referendums because London had seen how much of a clusterfuck the "no, let's ignore the desires of this not-a-colony" route could end up being.

>while The Troubles didn't induce the UK to give any concessions it wasn't already willing to give beforehand.

If you look farther back in Ireland's history, it seems like Ireland's independence from UK was achieved mostly by violent resistance. After there was too much violence, England finally decided it wasn't worth it, and came up with an agreement allowing most of the island to become independent, with the exception of a handful of northern counties.

while The Troubles didn't induce the UK to give any concessions it wasn't already willing to give beforehand.

Quite the contrary. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were not a unilateral insurrection, but an emergent response to aggressive incumbent paramilitarism when confronted with demands for greater civil rights for the minority population. Military strategists favored withdrawal of the occupying forces; political hardline thinking won out, but was unable to win a conflict of attrition and eventually settled for power-sharing and de-escalation. At the present Northern Ireland is as likely to see reunification with the rest of the island as continued membership of the UK.

This is going to sound fussy but it's a really important point to understand. This is not the case of a bunch of farmers rebelling against a king, or a duke staging a coup. The people reforming the government is akin to the CEO of a private company firing their mid-level managers. That's the right of the people, and the members of the government serve the people.

The reason why the right to bear arms is important to a free state is because both sides of a negotiation must possess power. Kent State was a tragedy, but it's aftermath happened in a court room with lawyers and journalists. Tienanmen square on the other hand saw a government run over it's people with tanks and then pretend it never happened.

When one side of a power dynamic has no power, the opposite side can do whatever it wants - install a president for life, promote the president to a position without any checks, directly compromise basic human rights for short term political wins, and so on.

A "revolution by force of arms" isn't very likely, but a large well armed group of protestors is a great way to convince a government to show up in court and use words and lawyers instead of tanks.

this seems like a weak argument to begin with when, after eighteen years of war with the US, the taliban still controls a significant part of the country. not sure what the current status of the accord is, but earlier this year the US was negotiating a peace deal with the taliban rather than the "legitimate" afghan government.

"Bombing to oblivion" might be a less attractive option when directed against things that produce the wealth to support an advanced air force in the first place.

Also, as a counterpoint, Vietnam did get bombed to oblivion and persevered through it.

He has to have at least 6 various ATF licenses to arm, and load, weapons on his planes. Incidentally, if we were going to let civilians arm themselves, imo that's the only way to go about it - make it an extremely licensed, yet free, process.

But you're still not wrong - I have the same opinion. In any case 2nd amendment arguments on fighting the USA are moot - the 2nd amendment doesn't legalize fighting the USA. Guns or not, if the USA decides you're the enemy, you're automatically a terrorist regardless. And terrorists have not had any issues getting guns.

This contributes to my concerns about mechanization and AI. Previously, in the case of insurrection a (perceived to be overthrow-worthy) government might eventually have to convince air force pilots to bomb their own countrymen, possibly relatives. It radically changes the equation, shifting power towards insurrectionists with mere rifles.

Automated drone strikes makes it easier for a totalitarian regime to wage war against its own people.

Fighting a war abroad and inside your own borders is very, very, very different. An air force isn't that useful against a political faction at home.

It's extremely useful when you are vastly outnumbered in the opposing population and much of the ground forces would rather desert than execute their own people. See Syria.

The only reason it worked in Syria is because of Foreign support. And because a large faction of the population decided that actually they were fine with Assad.

If you were vastly outnumbered and tried to wage war against your population they can just strike. And just like that all your advanced weapons won't be able to be maintained.

If you want to force people to work on your factories, bombs won't be very useful, but guns will be.

Or you could compare them to the partisans that conducted sabotage against the Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe, for instance. The military would grind to a halt without a functioning supply chain, and it's very difficult to protect all of the links in that chain against an armed and hostile population.

Many more of those links would be physically inside the US than were inside Afghanistan.

Besides which, the Taliban has arguably won in Afghanistan by virtue of simply continuing to exist. Hostile military occupation is unsustainably expensive, doubly so when the terrain in question is unfavorable.

Anyway, you'll probably see the same thing play out here in the coming years.

The Chinese and the Russians seem to have figured out how to own the US without having to deal with an insurgency. What are people going to do, seize the Walmart?

If Americans want to be well armed, they need to start visiting the library instead of the gun shop.

>poorly armed and trained americans

poorly trained is true, but Americans own almost 90 times more firearms than the US military. there are 1.2 guns for every person in the US.

Would the Holocaust have been quite as terrible if every citizen (Jewish included) owned a gun, and it wasn’t just the bad guys backed by the government who were armed?

Also, to talk about how it’s hopeless to have a gun versus a drone — there aren’t enough drones, and Vietnam is a great counter-example for “tech always wins.”

>Would the Holocaust have been quite as terrible if every citizen (Jewish included) owned a gun, and it wasn’t just the bad guys backed by the government who were armed?

Maybe, maybe not. The Nazis weren't just "bad guys backed by the government who were armed," they were a political party, which included much of the German populace, who supported its anti-Semitic ideals. It's possible more guns would have ended the Holocaust sooner, but it's also possible they would have just made it more efficient.

I imagine that any German, if they desired to commit genocide, could join the Nazis and acquire a weapon. Those who disagreed with the party in power could not.

Citizens being armed would both change the calculus of a genocide, making it harder to execute and possibly preventing it.

If attempted anyway, it would be much messier for the Nazis.

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