A little over a year ago Gabrielle Giffords was shot by a deranged man in Tucson, Arizona, kicking off a firestorm of debate about political rhetoric and, that perennial favorite, guns. At the time, I wrote a blog about how the right to bear arms, which was intended as a check against tyranny, can actually promote tyranny at a personal level (as exercised by gunman Jared Loughner over Giffords and the other victims last year). But I wrote that article before the Arab Spring, and I think with that history as a lesson, revisiting the topic is worthwhile.
Let me rehash my main point from the other blog:
When passed, the 2nd Amendment was intended to guarantee the freedom of each state through the maintenance of a militia, and…to protect the ability of a citizenry to rise up and overthrow a tyrannical government….But gun rights advocates tend to ignore one very important difference between then and now. War is no longer fought the way our Revolution was fought. In the late 18th Century, wars were still predominantly fought by men on foot, the primary weapon being the rifle. Without men and rifles, wars simply could not be won. And when rebellions were squashed, the government required men and rifles too. So as long as you could overwhelm an armory here or there and get some cannons, a group of citizens trying to overthrow a tyrannical government would be fairly evenly matched with the government in terms of weaponry.
Today, the same is not true. The primary weapons of war are no longer guns – they are missiles, jets, bombs, tanks, helicopters, etc. Sure, guns are still important, but when it comes to overthrowing tyranny, guns are not going to do much against nuclear weapons. Military technology has come so far since the Revolution that the 2nd Amendment provides much less protection from tyranny today than it once did. And since we are not about to let people start buying jets, nukes, and other weapons of war, we need to recognize that the argument that more guns help protect against tyranny may not be tenable today.
I would like to first point out that the comparison with nuclear weapons was probably unnecessary, since there is no precedent (or expectation) of a government using a nuclear weapon to put down internal rebellion. However, my main point still stands, and I believe it has been strongly reinforced by the events in the Arab world over the last year.
Evidence from the Arab Spring:
1) Overthrowing tyrants today often depends on undermining the tyrant’s legitimacy.
- The forces that toppled autocratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt came down to protest by the masses undermining the rulers’ legitimacy, forcing them to make concessions and eventually step down. In both of these cases, weapons were of practically no value in comparison to the force of public pressure. In fact, the largely peaceful protests probably helped the movements bring about change as quickly as they did because the government was unable to justify military crackdowns in the face of overtly non-military threats.
- Rebellion has always been about political grievances, but today, ideas and information have an amplified power thanks to modern technology which can spread the grievances far and wide, infecting huge numbers of people internally and around the world. A government cannot rule effectively, even through force of arms, when such grievances infiltrate their own militaries (as happened in Egypt). The ability of regimes to contain information and control discourse is waning rapidly, and it has changed the way rebellion occurs in much of the world.
2) Small arms cannot topple a murderous regime on their own.
- In Libya, military pressure was necessary to overthrow Col. Qaddafi. However, even in this case, the force of arms needed to end Qaddafi’s rule went well beyond small arms. A no-fly zone and NATO attacks involving thousands of bombs were essential to ending the Qaddafi regime. Even if every rebel soldier had an AK-47, Qaddafi would have retained power without the intervention from an outside force bringing substantial firepower to the conflict. And why exactly did NATO get involved? Again it comes back to public pressure and Qaddafi’s eroded legitimacy. Outside intervention is only possible (because, again, of legitimacy issues on the world stage) when a local majority calls for it. But today, outside intervention is probably the only way by which governments willing to kill thousands of their own citizens can be overthrown – a right to bear arms will have little impact.
- In Syria, we are seeing exactly the same situation. Assad and his army have too much firepower for the local rebels to effectively challenge him. This is why some are now calling for outside intervention. Of course, world politics and other factors (like the size of Syria and the distribution of population within it, as well as the lack of unity among the rebels) call into question how effective even outside intervention would be in this case. But the point is, small arms are not good enough for overthrowing tyranny. In Syria, the presence of small arms will only have the desired effect if they allow the rebels to hold out long enough to either turn the military against Assad or bring outside military intervention. In both of these scenarios, however, small arms only act as a means to achieve the more important goal of undermining Assad’s legitimacy and bringing international pressure to bear on the regime.
Living in the country with the most powerful military ever known, Americans should not deceive themselves into thinking that if everyone owns a pistol or shotgun that we could stand against a murderous regime. So I don’t buy this argument, which I hear so frequently. There are other reasons to think the guns may be beneficial. Many claim that guns in the home provide protection against thieves, and at the very least, the evidence I have seen suggests that increases in gun ownership in the US does not increase violence. However, there is reason to question US gun policy because of the flow of weapons abroad, particularly automatic weapons which end up in the hands of drug cartels and other violent groups. Actions taken in the US inevitably have an impact abroad, and we ought to consider these effects more than we do currently (as a nation). But this issue is too lengthy to get into right now. So in summary, I believe the evidence shows that the right to bear arms is of little importance today when it comes to protection against tyranny. This was a valid concern when our country was founded, but technology has changed the face of rebellion. Small arms cannot defeat a military, but public opinion can.
Filed under: International Affairs, Politics and Current Events Tagged: 2nd Amendment, Arab Spring, Assad, Egypt, guns, legitimacy, Libya, Qaddafi, right to bear arms, small arms, Syria, Tunisia 
