A well-armed population will keep the government in check

I’m paraphrasing a little, for purposes of framing a discussion. I intend the following as a neutral statement of a position which I have heard several times during heated debates.

One of the more consistent beliefs/rhetoric during the on-going “right to bear arms/Second Amendment” debate is that an armed citizenry can rise up and curtail the actions of a government gone mad or bad. That is, the armed population serves almost as a fourth branch of the Executive and provides a moderating force on any nasty-assed American Presidents who might lead the country away from the Constitution and core American values.
Now we have the case in Iraq that there was a heavily armed population (there are numerous cites floating around – there’s one at the bottom of this article from the Beeb and I’ve seen others). There was also an unpopular Ba’ath government which was oppressing the people. Yet the people didn’t rebel or take to the barricades of freedom. Why not? And what would be different in the USA?

Having an armed population is only part of the equation and (IMO) not the important part; an substantial and organised resistance is essential; armed individuals are too easy for a government to pick off.

I’ve been waiting for this to come up since seeing this Slate article: Iraq’s Rebuke to the NRA of mid March. This was a follow-up article.

I look forward to reading the views of our many erudite gun-rights posters.

Perhaps one day we might stop seeing the government as “them” and realise that they are actually us.

Seems to work that way in Afghanistan, anyway. (Much to the detriment of Afghanistan.)

Is the US the only liberal democracy to have a ‘right to bear arms’? I can’t think of any in west europe (some guns are licensed but with very strict control) but what about the rest of the world?

The Army of Northern Virginia was a good example, for better or worse.

Not really. Most of those guns were owned by either the State of Virginia or the Confederacy.

It has been my position that this is no longer possible. Changes in technology, mainly the wide gulf between military grade and consumer weaponry, have made it virtually impossible for an armed insurrection of a government as long as a standing military supported the government. Uprisings in Iraq were viciously quelled with military force. Perhaps they didn’t have the arms per-capita that the US has, but I’m not sure it would have made a difference. Riot gas is a great advantage that goes wholely to the military. Take a look at the number of policemen it takes to break up a riot. Gas the rioters, automatic weapons, body armor, even if they’re trying to use non-deadly force it is pretty one sided once they reach the state of open conflict. The unarmed rioters versus riot-gear equipped police is a analogy for the situation of a lightly(consumer grade) armed rebellion against the heavily armed(military grade) standing army.

I don’t see force, specifically firearms, being the deciding factor in rebellions of the 21st century. Subterfuge, assasination, propaganda, winning the military away from the political powers or military coup are the only effective mechanisms I can see in a struggle as unbalanced as this. Of course modern leaders seem to understand this and many dictators are military heads and keep the loyalty of the military even at the cost of popular loyalty.

Enjoy,
Steven

For a revolution to succeed it should have the support of the majority of the population, first. Second, in a developed nation, the population must have control over, or the assent of, the army to accomplish a rebellion.

Usually the will of the people generally will match the will of most of the army. In the case of Iraq, for example, the army traditionally was a source for those that wanted to topple the regime. This, I think, will tend to be true in any system where many people hate the leader. Many German officers tried, and failed spectacularly, to kill Hitler. Hitler, unfortunately, had good luck, as has Saddam.

At the most basic level, a man with a rifle who knows how to use it still controls the ground around him, especially in cities. Heavy weapons change the equation, granted. But, look what most soldiers still carry, rifles.

They didn’t revolt because they were afraid.
I have a handgun, he has chemical weapons that can hit me 50 miles from him… I’m not gonna start anything.

Plus, mind control. Uncle Saddam is watching you… He is your friend and leader. If you piss him off, he will kill you.
The pictures of Saddam all over the place are not just vanity, it is oppression.

In America, I’d say only certain groups of people would rise up. A good portion of the population would just keep going to work and hoping this all blows over. Or someone else takes care of it.

Just like in Iraq?

To expound a bit, the presumption of the argument presented in the OP is that a well-armed population will act in opposition to the government, as a check on bad government intentions and, in the worst case, as a source of rebellion.

But a well-armed population means that opponents and supporters of the government will be armed. If a majority of the populace support the government’s policies, henious though they may be (and people tend to support their governments), then a rebellion can’t work - all those armed supporters will stop/work with the army to stop the rebellion.

And if a majority of the populace oppose the government’s policies, then most likely the army will also oppose them, and they will be the source of rebellion.

So armed, not armed, it makes no difference.

Sua

First, it boils down to the difference between militias and regular forces. Mtgman squarely nailed the point that an armed populace with consumer or civilian grade weaponry hasn’t a chance in hell of taking on a modern military force head-to-head and succeeding. More on this in a moment.

In a police state (Nazi Germany, Iraq), some of the very rights we take for granted (that would aid in fomenting rebellion against a dictator) are repressed, or hardly ever existed in any quantity or length of time to have been established within the social consciousness; if they are repressed long enough, people forget that they ever had them, or in the case of never having had them, what they are, or ever were, good for. Re:BytopianDream.

Also: Saddam, like Hitler, has done a well enough job in establishing an “Us” against “Them” mentality within his own population. Shiites and Kurds are oppressed by Sunni Baathists; there are enough Sunni Baathists with enough guns, tanks, bombs, etc., to keep the rest of the population in check, and his own Sunni and Baathists onboard with him in fear or uprisings and reprisals from Shiites and Kurds. Just playing both ends against the middle, a tactic practiced by rulers long before Nicolo Machiavelli codified it in his work, The Prince.

I still maintain that a militia, fighting as a militia, can succeed in an armed insurrection, or at least set the stage for an armed uprising, with civilian grade arms. It’s a matter ot technique.

If you want to get brother bear, you don’t go into his den, smack him on the nose and wrestle him with yor bare hands. You instead set out a honey pot, find yourself a good hidey-hole, pull your trusty bolt-action high-powered rifle in after you, and exercise a little patience. Brother bear will soon enough come to you. On your terms. At the time and place of your choosing.

History is replete with examples of effective militia uprisings, but history doesn’t stand still; lessons of the past can provide good examples, but adopting outdated doctrines and applying them to modern warfare will get you on the losing side only slightly less quickly than showing up in your skivvies empty handed.

“Win the Hearts And Minds of the People.” That includes any military force backing any nominal dictator. It didn’t and couldn’t work in Iraq because all of the military forces (the really effectibe ones) backing Saddam were the “ruling elite,” with everything to lose by switching sides, added to the typical Arab/Muslim attitude of “Inshallah.” If it’s God’s will, it will be done. In the mean time, I’m just gonna sit it out and wait for a sign from God.

I think people seriously underestimate social and cultural differences when accounting for the different behavioral patterns of other countries; we tend to sort of culturally anthropomorphize other cultures to our own, and then scratch our head in wonder at the “wrongheadedness” of those other societies and cultures.

It’s just the modern version of “conversion by the sword.” It’s as equally wrong to pursue. But when the modern “heathens” have guns, tanks, bombs, perhaps even chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and are willing to use them against us “infidels,” then conversion by the sword (to open, Democratic forms of governments and societies) is only one of many unattractive options.

Because a hefty chunk of the Arab/Muslim world seems permanently stuck in the middle ages. Not all, by any means. Probaly not even an overall majority. But enough so that there are ready recruits for all of the Osama Bin Ladens out there, willing to strap a couple of kilos of C-4 to themselves, scream “Allah Akhbar!” and take out a dozen or so of us Western Infidel Devils with them.

Or, hijack a couple of jetliners and ram large-ish buildings in major metropolitan centers.

The real failure in the logic of this war is that, for every ten-or-so Arab/Muslim people who embrace our conversion, there will be an eleventh ready-and-willing to kill for and die in the process of fighting us to the bitter end. If history is any guide, we can’t win. Just look at Ireland, or the Basques.

Mtgman nailed the head. The gov’t is always better armed than the citizenry. It seems to me that the only thing that keeps gov’t in check are laws.

It’s hard to argue that the conditions of the 18th century in which the 2nd amendment was written were NOT quite different than they are today. However, there is a process for ammending the constitution and the anti-gun folks would be well advised to stick to that process. Doing an end run around the ammendment process makes me very unsympathetic to their cause.

And I find the Iraq analogy to be pretty unuseful. It’s not like there was some wonderfully stable democracy that slid into totalitarianism while the well armed polulace stood idly by.

I think an armed populace could make a big difference in fighting police or paramilitary units which support any regime. Sure, armed citizens can’t fight armored divisions on even terms, we can all agree on that. But, patrols of footsoldiers, loyalists, police, or paramilitaries kicking in doors will fall in a hail of citizens’ bullets, just like soldiers’ bullets.

What if the majority of the Iraqi people were taking up arms against our troops right now? How would that change the occupation equation?

John, yes indeed, end runs around the Constitution, such as enshrining only one half of a single-sentence amendment and dismissing the other half, make me very uncomfortable indeed.

The individual-vs.-collective interpretation of “the people” as used in the Second Amendment was settled by the Supreme Court several generations ago in favor of the collective one. Those of you who don’t like it, or for some reason think it has not been decided, can try the amendment process as you described.
So where are we on the scorecard of actual real-world examples of government tyranny being successfully resisted by a well-armed populace? If it’s the American colonies and Iraq, the score is 1-1; what else do we have? If we’re invoking the 21st century’s uniqueness, it’s 0-1 so far, right?

Really? That’s news to me. Perhaps you would care to back up that claim?

U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990): Decision written by Chief Justice Rehnquist
“‘the people’ seems to be a term of art used in select parts of the Constitution…refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connections with the country to be considered part of that community.”

“The Second Amendment protects ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms’”

U.S. v. Cruikshank (1875): Decision by Chief Justace Waite

“The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed;”

It seems to me that the question is settled in favor of the individual rights argument. Other Supreme Court decisions indicating that the Second Amendment protects an individual right include Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA v. Casey (1992), Albright v. Oliver (1994), Moore v. East Cleveland (1977), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) and Poe v. Ullman (1961).

For a more extensive listing see http://www.saf.org/2ndAmendSupremeCourtTable.html
For texts of Supreme Court Decisions see
http://laws.findlaw.com

A well-armed population wont keep the goverment in check if things aren’t that bad. Even if the Iraqis knew that they could succeed in a rebellion they had no reason to believe that they could replace Saddam’s goverment with a better one.

Armed rebellion could just replace a Saddam with another Saddam.