Guns, Tyranny, and Thinking Deeper

Well, now it’s out in the open. John Davidson, writing in The Federalist, asserts that the Second Amendment is not really about self defense or hunting. “The right to bear arms stems from the right of revolution.” Davidson and many others want to have recourse if and when tyranny rears its ugly head in America. 

I’ve heard hints of this before, as recently as last week. I responded with typical liberal talking-points, like “How is your little AR-15 supposed to protect your neighborhood against the full force and might of the U.S. Marines for God’s sake, against helicopter gunships, missiles, drones, and tanks?!” A fair question, but a rhetorical one, and one that I now think misses the point. The simple truth is that an armed population is much harder to control and subdue than an unarmed one. I think gun-control advocates often miss this. I did.

I also missed the historic truth that gun-control laws, especially the issuance of permits, has always been an avenue for discrimination against people of color. On the other hand, I also don’t think gun-rights advocates have actually thought through the implications of this “guns are for defending against tyranny” argument. 

Here are two such implications:

(1) Defining tyranny objectively is impossible. To the African-American community of the 1930’s, the American government was about as tyrannical as one can imagine. Is anyone arguing that Black people back then had a Second Amendment right to take up arms against the U.S. Government? If not, why not? What kinds of arms would they have needed, and how many, to prevail in that fight? 

As I watch the Trump administration blatantly violate the constitution’s emoluments clause, slander federal law enforcement agencies, undercut states’ rights, tromp on Americans’ private property rights along international pipeline routes, and sound increasingly like an authoritarian regime, I smell the approach of tyranny. At what point does the Second Amendment give me the right to take up arms in defense of basic American values of equality, liberty, property, and local control? Specifically, how does one determine that tyranny has arrived? What triggers a constitutionally legitimate revolution? Is there such a thing?

(2) When tyranny has indisputably arrived, the fascist dictator will not come to personally shoot dissidents. He will send law enforcement officers, our neighbors and friends in blue, to do that work. Using firearms to “defend against tyranny” means shooting at police officers. Sure, some officers may join the resistance, but the history of fascism makes it clear that law-enforcement officers will NOT KNOW who the good guys and bad guys are. They will do as ordered because it is their job to enforce the law of the land, however unjust or oppressive. And if they refuse, they and their families will suffer. 

If the tyrannical regime is concerned enough about local armed resistance, the regime will send in U.S. military troops instead of police. In that case, our patriotic gun-owning resisters will be shooting at neighbors and friends in camouflage fatigues with the American flag on their shoulders. Again, history is informative: the resistance will be crushed in short order. Taking up arms against tyranny equates to shooting at police officers and American troops in a short and pathetic suicide mission. 

What a quandary! Deterring oppression requires an armed populace, but actual armed resistance is ineffectual and morally indefensible. As is often the case, the solution is to quit thinking in either/or terms and try on some both/and approaches. Here are two possibilities, each with drawbacks and needing more thought, but a start:

1- States or counties could form "militias" (not standing armies, just part-time reserves), train and arm them, and issue military-style weapons (even automatic ones) to select individuals who have been properly trained and vetted. “Proper training” and vetting could be defined by third-party national organizations, similar to how Red Cross and American Heart define certification for CPR, and could include safe storage, a vow to never use them except in war, etc. At the same time, such military-grade weapons would be banned for personal use. The militias would be under the exclusive control of local government. 

2- A private third-party organization could be responsible for keeping a database in which all firearms (all types) would be registered by serial number. That organization could even be a cooperative whose voting members are gun owners themselves, the vast majority of whom are responsible law-abiding adults. In normal times, law enforcement would have access to specific records in the database with a warrant or other documentation of lawful purpose, but the cooperative would have the exclusive right to limit or cut off government access at any time, or to create policies limiting access to certain purposes or documentation. Guns not in the database would be “illegal” and possessors of them would be subject to prosecution and confiscation. 

I don’t pretend to have ready answers to the question of how to address gun violence in America, and I don’t believe there are any easy answers, especially when we consider the impacts of systemic racism on people of color when any new laws are implemented. However, I am certain that the status quo is immoral and politically unsustainable, and I doubt very much that either/or thinking will move us forward. Both “sides” have legitimate concerns. We need new ideas that can slide between the sound bites and talking points to forge both/and resolutions. 

I'd love to hear your thoughtful ideas in the comments. As always, argue to learn rather than to win.