What is the argument for preventing tyranny that avoids gun violence?

Proponents of the second amendment hold to the idea that if their guns are taken away, they no longer have power and have to simply trust that their interests will be preserved and tyranny won't take over. But other countries with liberal democracies have similar "power to the people" structures. What is maintaining this state? What is preventing small factions from rising up and taking over? And more importantly, what is the argument that this will not happen in the absence of citizen gun ownership?

Again, I'm not asking whether it works or not, I'm asking for the argument that "bearing arms" is not needed to prevent tyranny. This I have not been able to find.

You may wish to note that removing guns from citizens has been done successfully by other countries (for example, the UK in the early 1900s), without their decline into governmental dictatorship or warlordism

9 Answers 9

First things first… The original intention of the second amendment was to preserve the capacity of the individual states to easily muster militias. It was thought that a balance of power between states would make tyranny difficult to achieve; states would independently arm and then band together to oppose tyrannical rule. This is effectively what happened in the US Civil War, with individual states mustering and training militias and sending them to the Union or Confederacy. Individual citizens were allowed to retain their weapons because (a) the muskets of the time doubled as hunting weapons, and (b) muskets were fairly useless for large-scale attacks unless used en masse. It was the New England 'Minute Man' ideal, where citizens could jump out of bed, grab their muskets, organize in the town square, and march off to battle.

Speaking more generally, US politics was designed to prevent tyranny by spreading power and authority over multiple antagonistic offices. If every public official was greedy about his own power — wanting to expand his own power and prevent others from taking power away from him — it becomes extremely difficult for any tyrant wannabe to gather the kind of power needed to be an actual tyrant. The only real danger is the creation of large-scale factions, but the safeguards against those held fairly well until the beginning of mass media and the information age. The ground's a good bit rockier now…

An individual citizen with a cache of personal weapons is of almost no use against a tyranny. The only purpose of individual guns in that context is pro-tyranny or anti-tyranny terrorism: extrajudicial killings or assassinations, suppression of dissent through intimidation, compelling obedience, punishing disloyalty… The goal would be to organize a resistance (a militia) and create coordinated opposition, but an organized resistance doesn't necessarily need its members to own their own guns.

So the argument against gun ownership as a guard against tyranny is that the very idea is just an opiate. It makes people feel good and powerful to have a gun in their hand — like they are giants who can hold all evil at bay — but it's functionally useless for that purpose, and opens the door to all sorts of derived violence.

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Politics Meta, or in Politics Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

"The only real danger is the creation of large-scale factions, but the safeguards against those held fairly well until the beginning of mass media and the information age." Is that really the case? I was under the impression that US politics devolved into a two-party system remarkably quickly, and obviously against the wishes of the founding father. Is one of two large parties covering the country not considered a "large-scale faction"?

@Muzer: Parties are not generally what Madison would have considered factions. In Federalist 10, a faction is loosely defined as "a number of citizens [. ] who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." That 'adversed to. ' clause is key; it implies a group that is violent, strident, or otherwise disruptive of the kind of peaceful, rational political deliberation Madison was after.

@Muzer: interest groups are normal and natural; communities and groups of every sort have collective rights, liberties, and interests that they want to advance and support, and healthy political parties gain support by keying into those local interests. It's common in healthy parties for representatives to be on opposite sides of issues, because different representatives have different constituents with different interests. But factions don't allow internal divisions. factions are driven to impose their interests without discussion or compromise.

The arguments are really simple:

1. There are plenty of countries that are democracies that have strict gun control that have not been overtaken by tyranny. In fact all democracies apart from America have significant gun control. Clearly "freedom to bear arms" is not actually necessary to prevent tyranny.
2. Even if there were some theoretical chance that gun ownership would prevent tyranny, lack of gun control causes the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people every year, including many children who die in school shootings. These very real deaths outweigh any theoretical arguments about government control.

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Politics Meta, or in Politics Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

This answers ignores deaths that happen during a transition to tyranny, which can be numbered in the hundreds of thousands, vastly outshadowing deaths from gun violence.

There is a chat set up for discussion, see above. I will not be changing the answer as a result if this because the number of deaths resulting from a transition to tyrrany that does not happen is zero.

The Vote

The first and foremost weapon against tyranny is the vote.

The knowledge that abusing power means losing power at the next election will discourage most wannabe tyrants.

But more is needed for this to work.

Respect for the law

If a political leader says "Screw democracy, I'm not stepping down." the people around them must say "No. I'm not obeying you after your term is over." They must be confident that almost everybody else will say the same thing.

If a military leader says "Screw democracy, I control the guns.", their subordinates must refuse their orders. They must be able to trust that the only gun the leader really controls is their own sidearm.

But respect for the law is important in another context. If a politician is caught breaking the law, the voters must stop voting for them. If a political party has several bad apples, stop voting for that party. This is the only way to keep them honest. (Note to Americans: You have more than two parties. Just saying)

If voters let politicians get away with minor crimes, they will commit greater ones.

Freedom of the press

If a leader does something the voters would not like, it is important that the voters learn about it.

This is the mission of the Media. Exposing the misdeeds of the powerful is their contribution to keeping the system working.

Laws like the Freedom of Information Act are important. Government secrets are BAD for democracy. Whenever somebody talks about "National Security" there is a very good chance they are actually covering up something the voters would not like.

Media these days means more than it used to. There is still TV and newspapers, but in addition individuals can make contributions through blogs, vlogs or similar.

Respect for the truth

This section is the weakest link in most democracies.

There is an awful lot of lies around. Politicians lie. Media lie. It can be very hard to sort out the truth in all this noise.

Most importantly, people must stop believing everything they hear. Just because the politician you already like says something, doesn't mean that it is true.

Check your facts. This can be hard, but if you aren't certain, at least don't repeat rumors.

Then people must use their main weapon, the vote. If politicians lie, stop voting for them. If media lies, stop watching/reading them.

As I said, this is where most democracies struggle the most. Please do your part to help your country. Vote well.

Separation of powers

Americans are fond of pointing out how separation of powers protects them against tyranny. There is some truth to that. During the Trump term, we saw several times how the other powers stepped up and stopped him one way or another. Good work! I gained a lot of respect for SOP in those years.

Nevertheless, I would like to claim that if the system needs SOP to be stable, it is too fragile in the first place. It is a good last resort, but it shouldn't be necessary.

Thank you, this answer seems to best understand my question and best provide the answer. (And maybe from an actual European?) It seems three of the arguments you list here are what I might see as "constitutional" and two of them as "cultural". Both fill in the blank for "in my country we don't need armed citizens because we have _____."

How is tyranny avoided in countries with gun control?

People in that country support democracy, and that includes a majority of the generals and soldiers who have the weaponry to overthrow the democracy if they chose.

If a President who lost an election ordered the army to gun down the opposition party, they'd (probably) refuse. Similarly, if the leader of the armed forces declared that he wanted to overthrow the government and install himself as leader, his subordinates would (probably) refuse.

If the people lose faith in democracy, this system might fail, but that could happen in a country with no gun control too.

In fact one might mention that is precisely what Gen. Milley did in the US, telling Trump to take a long walk off a short pier when bringing in the army was suggested to quell civil disturbances.

But other countries with liberal democracies have similar "power to the people" structures. What is maintaining this state? What is preventing small factions from rising up and taking over? And more importantly, what is the argument that this will not happen in the absence of citizen gun ownership?

This collection of questions really brings up a line of inquiry that won't fit in a comment, but you're looking at "state formation", "pluralism", and the state monopoly on violence.

Normally the answer to "What is preventing small factions from rising up and taking over?" is "the state monopoly on violence": if you try a coup, you encounter a superior force which takes it back.

The next question is "so, given that superior force, what's stopping them from taking over?", and you're looking at the classic military coup. Solutions for addressing that usually involve splitting up the military, police and security services such that they act as separate factions. It is then much rarer for them to all cooperate to overthrow the rule of law.

Underpinning all of this is the centrality of legal fairness as the means of arbitrating between interest groups, including those that aren't armed but instead control production, infrastructure, property etc. People support the liberal state regardless of the detail of which party faction controls it, because the state protects them fairly in a way which autocracy won't.

It should be noted that an individual with a gun is not going to last against the state. Resistance/insurgency is going to involve factions. The word for an armed political faction that's outside the rule of law is "terrorist". Well, until they win and get to rewrite history. And winning requires a very large amount of political support. Which, if you're in a democracy, is much more effectively used peacefully.

I think the key phrase here is "superior force". The phrase "monopoly on violence", taken literally, would mean that nobody else has any recourse to violence, which is exactly what 2nd Amendment advocates claim to be rallying against; but the reality is that private gun ownership is insufficient recourse against the state, so doesn't effectively change the "monopoly" being talked about.

I don't think the OP is asking about a coup. They're worried that the elected officials will band together and become a tyranny. E.g. Hitler and Putin were both elected democratically, and many people worried that Trump had similar visions.

@Barmar all those still count as "coup", by staying in power through extralegal means; a coup by the current rulers may also be called an "autogolpe". Carrying out an autogolpe incurs the same questions about police and military loyalty. Are there good examples of popular non-elite insurgency against an autogolpe?

"terrorist" is not the word for "an armed political faction that's outside the rule of law", despite that word being oft used in propaganda by opposing governments. "Terrorist" means someone, outside the law, who seeks to create terror as a political tool (or creates terror for terror's sake). In contrast to sabotage, despite both often using similar methods. The word for members of armed political factions outside the rule of law are insurgents if the armed faction is seeking to overthrow the existing government, "rebels" or "resistance" whether armed or unarmed, or vigilantes if

they are merely seeking to protect themselves and their neighborhood from perceived threats if it is perceived the government is failing to do so. Armed factions operating outside the rule of law can also be smiled on by the government, and can even be state-approved terrorists operating within that same state, outside the rule of law. Terrorists don't have to be rebels, armed rebels don't have to be terrorists, and rebels don't even have to be armed. ('Armed factions' may overlap with the term "Militants" or "Paramilitary" depending on how they are organized and what their methods are)

1. Elect leaders that protect your interests. If that fails, 2) fall back on strong institutions that can't be easily taken over by one person. If that fails, 3) fall back on an armed populace that will ultimately decide what they want using violence. Ultimately when all else fails, hard power is directly linked with the threat of physical violence. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.

First of all that entire argument has it backwards. Like 1) it almost doesn't matter how people got into power, what matters is what they do and can do with it and whether there are any ways to stop them if the people don't consent. So the idea of putting ones trust in "leaders" is already tyrannical.

In an ideal (representative) democracy there are no leaders and people holding office would not be considered leaders or to hold any intrinsic power by themselves. All power that they have comes from the people and I don't mean that in a spiritual sense or by means of elections (though that might be a factor in expressing that), but in the sense that it is the people who follow or refuse their orders, so it's only when the interests of the people and the leaders align that they posses any form of power.

So if the population goes on a general strike, the government would be completely powerless.

Same goes for 2) strong institutions which hold intrinsic power. If they are no longer in need of the consent of the people and accountable to them, then you have a sort of systemic tyranny already. And a rivalry between institutions is a dangerous game to play because the most likely outcome is that 1 will win or that they conspire and either grant each other niche tyranny, which doesn't prevent tyranny but just increases the number of tyrants. Or they could even work together and against the people as they hold more power in fewer hands already.

Like at the time when the idea was conceived that was still probably some form of progress to have multiple tyrants that can be played against each other over one that is all-powerful, but if you've got the choice no tyrant is actually still better than more tyrants.

And 3) individual gun owners are probably the most apparent form of tyranny. Seriously do people actually expect that a tyrannic government sends them a nice invitation for an ordered armed brawl under fair conditions? Or that gun violence will happen in official duels?

No if you individualize than the individual gun owner will decide what's right and what's wrong with no interaction with other people, which is the purest form of tyranny. Also people with bigger guns, better training or just the element of surprise will have more power that is unrelated to consent or the strength of their actual argument, again very tyrannic. Not to mention that while they might lack the strength to impose a new order they might nonetheless through terrorism force the collapse of the old order. Like the police can't investigate every murder if there are too many of them, so you end up with a situation of lawlessness and the rule of criminal syndicates, while the police is busy solving petty crimes. Which makes both the criminal and the official institutions kinda tyrannic and outside of them it's still a situation of hostility rather than the rule of law.

And if you organize resistance, then it's actually not as easy as it sounds, but also it's not even a safe bet that this organization, though it may happen, is a force for good. Like instead of organizing a militia to overthrow the government and restore democracy, they might actually bond behind a leader and install a tyrannic dictatorship, rather than rebelling against the government at all, they might even drink the kool-aid and purge a scapegoat minority. Not even that unlikely if a system fails to serve all, it might focus on serving a majority meaning minority groups are the first to notice that failure and their vocal dissent against an actual injustice and potentially existential danger can be framed as an us vs them narrative. Or they could form some mob or kleptocracy where factions steal from unfactioned groups and try to assert dominance. So it could end up in organized crime either developing into a system of competing warlords or a new but more authoritarian government.

And that's before you contemplate that the original idea is somewhat older than official professional police and military forces and involves the idea of militias that is armies that are organized when necessary out of regular citizens with their guns, which are either stored at home or at some central depot.

Similar to medieval armies where the lord would simply ask peasants into duty and they either took their tools as weapons or were supplied with spears or whatnot.

Though as that concept has long been abandoned and the internal and external protection has been relegated to the police and military organizing an armed rebellion against them has become a lot more difficult and is likely less successful.

So probably the more effective means of a democracy to strike back is economic equality. If the state takes most of it's power from the economic sector and that comes down mostly to the contributions by loads of citizens rather than a selected few, than all they'd need to do is not contribute. They might on top of that create some havoc and show their violent resistance to up the cost, but even if they can't win with that, the state will definitely lose either way as a worker on strike doesn't work and a dead one doesn't work either. So as no police and military can maintain their power and arsenal without a capable economy providing them, there's some level of dependency that will show sooner or later.

So unless you have a government that doesn't rely on it's citizens all they have to do is voice their dissent to decrease any power that a government has by a major factor. They might try to overpower that in the short run, but it will only get worse in the long run.