It's a fantasy Americans seem to uniquely believe in that arming the populace is a good deterrent against bad government policy.
If it actually worked, one would expect the US to be two separate nations now. After all, what was the Civil War if not a mass of Americans deciding extra-legally that the laws should not apply to them and taking up arms to break free of government oppression and form a government more inclined to protect their freedoms?
And yet, after a bloody conflict that claimed more American lives than World War II, the country is still one nation and Americans still cling to a strange belief that private gun ownership protects against tyranny (as if a tyrant wouldn't bring their own guns to bear against the citizenry, like Sherman burning towns south of the Mason-Dixon to hamstring the morale of the rebels).
It's not perfect. But what it means is that if you're going to impose a policy that unpopular on half the population, you may have to go as far as the Civil War did, including accepting that many of your own people dying. That's... somewhat daunting.
And a tyrant, while perfectly willing to bring their own guns to turn on citizens, would have a military that might not be willing, especially if they didn't agree with the tyrant. (The Civil War wasn't just the US army against the citizens of the south. It was the army members from the south against the army members from the north.)
It's far from perfect. It demands a tax in blood during peacetime as a faulty guard against tyranny in time of civil war (to say nothing of the fact that---as the Civil War indicates---there's no particular guarantee that the armed civilians will be defending particularly virtuous rights against government interference; it was, after all, the state's rights to nullify laws curtailing slavery that was the crux of the conflict).
You think your AR 15 is going to stop a guided missile launched by an 18 year old with a joystick on a destroyer in the middle of the Atlantic? I think we've all played the AC-130 mission in Call of Duty by now. We are way past the days of a militia dealing with the U.S. government.
But back in 1776 when you and uncle sam had the exact same musket, sure, that was the last chance.
Instead of praying for mercy, Americans can vote for good leadership, be active in their local, state, and federal government, hold each other accountable, and take responsibility for living in a representative democracy.
It is, ultimately, these things that make for a free and stable society, not the proliferation of firearms. When you elect a tyrant, all the private firearms do is ramp up the bloodshed the tyrant will bring.
If only democracies could be trusted to not elect tyrants. Unfortunately, there are many, many examples to the contrary. That fact was one of the primary motivators for the Bill of Rights. You are right that there would be bloodshed when facing a tyrant (certainly more than if there were no way to fight back). In my mind, better that than the gas chambers. Let’s not forget that Hitler came into power by popular vote.
I've heard argumentum-ad-Hitler used as an example of why private citizens should be armed.
What I've never heard is a strong argument that a German citizenry armed as the US is armed now wouldn't have simply resulted in faster, gas-chamber-free deaths of minorities in Germany and German-occupied territories, as the government in charge gave quiet assent to extra-legal killings enacted by private citizens against "undesirables" and the citizenry bought into the mythology of the ubermensch.
After all, the hypothesis of the equalizing effect of private firepower assumes that "good guys" have the guns.
Then given the proliferation of firearms in the US, the firearm-related homicide and injury rates should be lower than in countries that ban firearms (not absolute instances; lower rates, if more guns makes it marginally less likely that any party shoots).
Then at what ratio of armed citizens do the benefits you anticipate kick in? 60%? 80%? Should we all expect to show up to church strapped with a 9mm, just in case?
Can you provide an example of a country where such a high ratio of armed citizenry has worked out well? There should be a positive example we can turn to. The US isn't it by the numbers.
I never claimed gun ownership reduced gun violence overall, but excluding suicide it doesn’t seem to increase it either.[1] At the macro scale, I only mean to say it makes hostile government action less likely. Likewise, at the micro scale, I only mean to say violent confrontation between individuals is less likely when both parties are armed than when only one is armed. This much to me seems self evident (and underpins the macro thesis as well). At the micro scale, I might agree that there would be less gun violence if neither party were armed, but mass confiscation will never happen in the US. It would be ineffective given the lack of a central registry and it would likely incite civil war. In that light, even barring the macro thesis, it strikes me as prudent to be among the armed. With, of course, basic safety training.
I don't actually think mass confiscation would be necessary. Offer nationwide buyback and severely curtail manufacture and first-sale, and the equations change wildly. America is hyper-capitalist and capitalist incentives tend to work on people.
It's win-win; those who want their guns more than the money can keep their guns.
