# Private firearms as bulwark against despotism in history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 24, 2008, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950 "2008-09-24T06:04:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/21 "2008-09-26T01:34:13Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > A lot of Americans defend the principle of gun ownership on the grounds that guns in the hands of private owners serve as a check on government power and prevent a despotic government from coming to power. I have a historical question: have there been cases in history where privately-owned weapons have been instrumental in defeating a despotic government, or preventing one from coming into power? I don’t have a dog in this fight; I am asking out of curiosity. Look at it from the other point of view as well. Keeping weapons out of the hands of the citizenry helps the despotic government immensely. Take 1939 Germany for example. When they started kicking down doors, how much different would it have been if the inhabitants of the house had been armed? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/22 "2008-09-26T01:53:37Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > Re: the American Revolution. > > To what extent were the soldiers armed with private weapons, and to what extent were they armed with weapons purchased by the Continental Congress (or whoever footed the bill for outfitting the militias)? This is an aspect of the American Revolution I haven’t read much about. [Michael Bellesisle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arming_America:_The_Origins_of_a_National_Gun_Culture) contends private firarms ownership and proficiency were rare in America before the Civil War and, during the colonial period, no guns were being made in America. His research is highly controversial and has been discredited in some respects – even led to an ethics investigation by Emory University – but nobody has discredited the general picture AFAIK. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/23 "2008-09-26T02:00:21Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > A population with no firearms can easily cause the collapse of any small government by just not collaborating. If everybody stays home what is the government going to do? Wait for them to get hungry and go back to work. For obvious reasons, a [general strike](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike) has a short half-life. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/24 "2008-09-26T02:34:20Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Look at it from the other point of view as well. Keeping weapons out of the hands of the citizenry helps the despotic government immensely. Take 1939 Germany for example. When they started kicking down doors, how much different would it have been if the inhabitants of the house had been armed? Defending your house with firearms against the police or army is a losing proposition. They will win every single time. They were only going to arrest you and now they have killed you with good reason. It never works. If the police are after you then the only way is to hide so they can’t get you. The notion that you can singlehandedly fight off the police is silly. And if you are talking about a civil war that’s a totally different situation. Many armed citizens would be supporting the “oppresive” government and many in the military would not. Insurgents in Iraq are not fighting the Americans with small arms. They are fighting with road-side bombs. Civil disobedience and unrest from huge numbers of population are more damaging to a government’s stability than a few armed citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/25 "2008-09-26T12:42:59Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > Americans like to think of the American revolution as a bunch of poor Americans defeating the Brits all by themselves but that is very misleading. Both France and Spain sent a lot of money to help the revolution thinking it was a good way to weaken England. In succeeded to a certain extent but it backfired later when Spain’s Latin American colonies went the same way and when the French masses took their king to the guillotine and shortened him a little. > > The notion that many Americans hold that private ownership of firearms will prevent an authoritarian government is just silly. The gun owners are the first ones to support an authoritarian government when the country “needs saving”. Just look at the present situation in America where the infringement of freedoms is supported by the right wing gun owners and opposed by the generally anti-gun liberals. > > No government can govern if it does not have enough support from the people. To think Hitler or Franco somehow ruled their countries against the will of the great majority is just silly. They had ample support among a great part of the population. It was _much_ easier to own a gun in Spain in Franco’s time than it is now. Spain was a rural country where people went hunting often whereas now it is a much more urbanized country and all gun permits have been very restricted. > > I believe Irakis under Saddam Hussein had more freedom to own firearms than they do now under the new & improved “democracy”. > > A population with no firearms can easily cause the collapse of any small government by just not collaborating. If everybody stays home what is the government going to do? Shoot them all? And then what? > > The notion that guns protect the people from oppressive government is just a silly justification gun nuts like to believe. The fact that TSA hasn’t treated you with the courtesy you think you deserve doesn’t justify any of your conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/26 "2008-09-26T12:56:07Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Look at it from the other point of view as well. Keeping weapons out of the hands of the citizenry helps the despotic government immensely. Take 1939 Germany for example. When they started kicking down doors, how much different would it have been if the inhabitants of the house had been armed? The only difference would have been the amount of civilians murdered. Armed citizens against the might of the 3rd Reich? They would initially probably kill a few hundred soldiers but then they would be wiped out or brought to very fast capitulation. I took the combined power of a lot of countries using airbourne and artillery might to take down the 3rd Reich. People standing in their hallway with a 10 year old rifle or the like would have been cleaned up very very quickly. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/27 "2008-09-26T13:08:18Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Look at it from the other point of view as well. Keeping weapons out of the hands of the citizenry helps the despotic government immensely. Take 1939 Germany for example. When they started kicking down doors, how much different would it have been if the inhabitants of the house had been armed? I’ve got to disagree with this, too, **Clothahump**. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising, while not 1939 Germany, remains an excellent counter-example of the limits of militia-type resistance to an effective government. In many ways, I think it can be seen as an ideal for an _ad hoc_ force with limited supplies. No pure militia or civilian force is going to have the munitions or logistics to supply more than a firefight or two on hand. To a certain degree one can use the old Deer Gun philosophy: This is only good for killing someone to get their sidearm, and then side arm is only good for killing someone else for getting their long arm. But planning on resupply from the dead of the enemy is a losing proposition. Even granting the supposition that the [German death toll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_ghetto_uprising#Death_toll) was higher (say ten to twenty times more than the official report) the disparity of casualties is pretty bleak. I don’t agree with all of **sailor** ’s conclusions, nor even all his assertions. But I do agree that the idea that citizen militias can effectively defend against a unified government determined to crush them is silly. This doesn’t invalidate the argument that having an armed populace is a check against governmental abuse. To be an effective check doesn’t require that the militia can achieve a military victory - simply having the potential to make that victory too costly politically is all that is necessary for the check to be real and effective. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/28 "2008-09-26T13:23:08Z")
The Jews of Europe during the Holocaust didn’t need guns, they needed an army. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/29 "2008-09-26T15:59:55Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > It wasn’t just privately owned guns in the American Revolution though was it? The French delivered troops. Did they also supply guns? I’m hardly an expert on Revloutionary History or anything, and I’m unaware of the armament contributions made by the French, but I do know that the efforts of [the Dutch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint_Eustatius) were considerable. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/30 "2008-09-26T16:06:54Z")
Don’t forget that regimes like the Nazis, the Russian Bolsheviks, the Chinese Communists, the Khmer Rouge, etc, etc started out as armed private groups, so it cuts both ways. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/31 "2008-09-26T17:07:26Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > The fact that TSA hasn’t treated you with the courtesy you think you deserve doesn’t justify any of your conclusions. What’s _that_ got to do with anything? Or is it that you have no logical and reasonable and convincing way to contradict a post you want to disagree with? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/32 "2008-09-26T17:17:48Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > I don’t agree with all of **sailor** ’s conclusions, nor even all his assertions. But I do agree that the idea that citizen militias can effectively defend against a unified government determined to crush them is silly. Since that is what I am saying I am not sure what it is you disagree with. > [@](#): > > This doesn’t invalidate the argument that having an armed populace is a check against governmental abuse. To be an effective check doesn’t require that the militia can achieve a military victory - simply having the potential to make that victory too costly politically is all that is necessary for the check to be real and effective. When the police come to get you they do not need a firefight. They grab you off the street and you are never seen again. Or they kick down your door in the middle of the night and grab you before you even have time to react. And they get people one by one, they do not publicize a date when they will come to get their opponents. In Franco’s Spain it was quite easy to have guns and it did not help at all. Police would get who they wanted and guns would have been no help except that it was a sure way to get yourself killed. The only way to avoid the police getting you was to hide or go abroad. Franco’s regime was much more troubled and weakened by strikes and other non-violent means like demonstrations and propaganda. A civil war is one thing. Opposing a government in control by yourself with a handgun is lunacy. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/33 "2008-09-26T17:32:30Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > When the police come to get you they do not need a firefight. They grab you off the street and you are never seen again. Or they kick down your door in the middle of the night and grab you before you even have time to react. And they get people one by one, they do not publicize a date when they will come to get their opponents. > > In Franco’s Spain it was quite easy to have guns and it did not help at all. Police would get who they wanted and guns would have been no help except that it was a sure way to get yourself killed. The only way to avoid the police getting you was to hide or go abroad. Franco’s regime was much more troubled and weakened by strikes and other non-violent means like demonstrations and propaganda. > > A civil war is one thing. Opposing a government in control by **yourself** with a handgun is lunacy. Emphasis added. That’s the point where I’m trying to show some of my disagreements with you. I get the impression from your posts that you believe that the private ownership of firearms is useless as a check on the government because an individual will never be able to hold off the government with a handgun. The way I see it, the purpose of having private weapons isn’t so that an individual can hold off the government, but so that small groups of individuals can hold off the government _for a time_. It becomes much harder for the police to kick in a door while one is asleep if one has gathered five or six like minded intransigents, so that someone is always awake in the residence. It’s still an ultimately losing proposition, but there’s a difference between “losing proposition” and “useless,” in my mind, at least. The other disagreements I’ve had with some of your posts have all been fairly trivial, and nitpicky. And not really germane to the points in question. Which is why I’d not gotten into them. I figured that my support for your central thesis would show that the disagreements I have don’t change my fundamental agreement with some aspects of your conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/34 "2008-09-26T17:37:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Michael Bellesisle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arming_America:_The_Origins_of_a_National_Gun_Culture) contends private firarms ownership and proficiency were rare in America before the Civil War and, during the colonial period, no guns were being made in America. His research is highly controversial and has been discredited in some respects – even led to an ethics investigation by Emory University – but nobody has discredited the general picture AFAIK. Yes they have. Repeatedly. Consistently. Bellesisle is a fraud, and your own Wiki link takes us to a peer review bit here: [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=268583](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=268583) > [@](#): > > The picture of gun ownership that emerges from these analyses substantially contradicts the assertions of Michael Bellesiles in Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (Arming America). Contrary to Arming America’s claims about probate inventories in seventeenth and eighteenth-century America, there were high numbers of guns, guns were much more common than swords or other edged weapons, women in 1774 owned guns at rates (18%) higher than Bellesiles claimed men did in 1765-1790 (14.7%), and 87-91% of gun-owning estates listed at least one gun that was not old or broken. Back to the OP. Private ownership of firearms provides a starting point for a revolution, that can later be augmented through the acquisition of arms from friendly foreign powers. Someone who owns a hunting rifle and uses it is more likely to be able to pick up a military rifle and quickly adjust. That hunting rifle ownership also provides the backbone of a guerrilla force that again can be used either as a support force or as the framework for eventual regular troops. I would rather start a revolution with people who own arms that with people who have never touched a firearm. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/35 "2008-09-26T17:38:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Michael Bellesisle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arming_America:_The_Origins_of_a_National_Gun_Culture) contends private firarms ownership and proficiency were rare in America before the Civil War and, during the colonial period, no guns were being made in America. His research is highly controversial and has been discredited in some respects – even led to an ethics investigation by Emory University – but nobody has discredited the general picture AFAIK. What are you talking about? Everything a plagiarist says is questionable. Everything. As a result, there is nothing credible to begin with, so how do you start to discredit it? Some of your stuff is off the wall. This might be the first time I’ve ever seen a discredited plagiarist cited as an authority in any respect. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/36 "2008-09-26T17:55:04Z")
Stephen Ambrose by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/37 "2008-09-26T18:10:23Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > What’s _that_ got to do with anything? Or is it that you have no logical and reasonable and convincing way to contradict a post you want to disagree with? It’s that you’ve made an extremely similar rant in the Pit thread about TSA. Some of your ranting points are, to all practical purposes, identical. I repeat, TSA being rude to you validates none of what you’ve said in either thread about the US being a police state or the calumny you’ve heaped on gun owners. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/38 "2008-09-26T19:14:14Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > Armed citizens against the might of the 3rd Reich? They would initially probably kill a few hundred soldiers but then they would be wiped out or brought to very fast capitulation. Tell that to the various resistance movements who tied up significant forces. Just having to deploy forces is a significant drain. More recently, look at the IRA. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/39 "2008-09-26T23:54:31Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > It’s that you’ve made an extremely similar rant in the Pit thread about TSA. Some of your ranting points are, to all practical purposes, identical. I repeat, TSA being rude to you validates none of what you’ve said in either thread about the US being a police state or the calumny you’ve heaped on gun owners. What does what I said in another thread about the TSA have to do with what I said in this one regarding firearms? This is just stupid. Are you trying to hijack the thread or what? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2008, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950/40 "2008-09-27T00:07:27Z")
I think bombings and sabotage would be much more important in a modern revolution than small arms fire (with the ultimate goal not being wiping out the enemy completely, as that is impossible, but just making it not worth their while to keep fighting anymore.) Nevertheless you still need guys with guns to guard the hidden bases where the ordnance is being built, and you need guys to go scout out areas (who would need to be armed.) I don’t think that guns would be the tool that directly won the insurrection, but without them you’d be much more vulnerable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/private-firearms-as-bulwark-against-despotism-in-history/464950.md?page=3)