Guns vs. Tyranny
There's a lot of talk lately about guns being necessary as a defense against tyranny, complete with comparisons to Stalin and Hitler and such. The "Right to revolution" is also mentioned sometimes. But in a democracy, how is this actually supposed to work?
We see situations (such as the Middle East) where fledgling democracies aren't working because the response to your candidate losing an election is violence. Clearly some people on the right-wing fringe in the US are convinced that Obama is destroying the nation, etc. etc. So what does the "right to revolution" mean for them?
There's also mention of resisting authority. Someone on my FB wall just posted something that showed the WW2 internment of Japanese-Americans as an example of why the populace needs guns, but didn't really elaborate on that. Does any citizen who disagrees with a law have the right to use guns against authority figures trying to enforce the law?
Even the founders, who had lived through and participated (and led) a revolution, were still fairly decisive in putting down rebellions and civil unrest early in the US' existence. When the Whiskey Rebellion happened, the founders didn't think "Well hey, they've got a right to revolution."
(Not to mention that we clearly don't recognize a right for the Taliban to revolt in Afghanistan.)
So what does it all mean? An actual codified, lawful right to revolution makes no sense in a democracy, but I'm unclear about what else it can mean.
We see situations (such as the Middle East) where fledgling democracies aren't working because the response to your candidate losing an election is violence. Clearly some people on the right-wing fringe in the US are convinced that Obama is destroying the nation, etc. etc. So what does the "right to revolution" mean for them?
There's also mention of resisting authority. Someone on my FB wall just posted something that showed the WW2 internment of Japanese-Americans as an example of why the populace needs guns, but didn't really elaborate on that. Does any citizen who disagrees with a law have the right to use guns against authority figures trying to enforce the law?
Even the founders, who had lived through and participated (and led) a revolution, were still fairly decisive in putting down rebellions and civil unrest early in the US' existence. When the Whiskey Rebellion happened, the founders didn't think "Well hey, they've got a right to revolution."
(Not to mention that we clearly don't recognize a right for the Taliban to revolt in Afghanistan.)
So what does it all mean? An actual codified, lawful right to revolution makes no sense in a democracy, but I'm unclear about what else it can mean.