[_menelaus]

Yes, because the idea is to establish an armed populace before society succumbs to tyranny, not in response to it. The central tenet is that even if a society is run by Quakers now, it won't always be, because in the absence of proper inputs societies tend to decay to their stable basal state which is despotism. When that happens, the population must be armed in order to revolt and restore a democratic system. I would even say its better to arm the populace while the government is still Quaker because that would establish the proper cultural mores surrounding gun ownership in an enlightened environment - e.g. knowing that gun ownership is a responsibility and right, connecting it with ideas of liberty and civic duty, viewing them as a last resort, learning about guns from your father and not your homie on the corner.

You need to have the population armed beforehand. Its not practical to try to dynamically adjust how armed the populace is in proportion to perceived governmental Attila-ness.

To your last point, an armed populace makes revolt feasible, and there is a spectrum here. The key is that the oligarchy will need to convince the army to stay on its side and punish the revolting populace. The more sacrifice and violence that is required, the harder it is to keep convincing them. Also, look at the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan: an armed, hostile populace is just much harder to control than an unarmed one. It dramatically increases the cost of every excursion from a military base, the number of soldiers required to subjugate an area, etc, and the grand lesson from those conflicts is that boots on the ground are still needed to control an area, and that technological solutions like drone strikes still don't scale well enough and aren't cleanly targeted enough to change that. Perhaps that will change in the future, but I actually suspect that the prevalence of consumer drones will maintain the power of the public to resist the military. Look at Ukraine and Russia; the dominant weapon system now is the consumer drone, eclipsing even artillery, which has democratizing implications for the future of the tug-of-war between societies and their governments.

[WhyOhWhyQ]

Well it's been interesting talking to you. In good faith, I honestly cannot conceive of how arming the population prevents tyranny though. You give the example of Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably you're saying the tyranny was the US occupation? Weren't these groups armed not before, but as a result of first (I believe) soviet and then American occupations?

Are there examples in modern times of a stable society consisting of a heavily armed population such that as a result of this tyranny has been curbed? Americans are the most heavily armed population in the world and it seems that tyranny is measurably setting in right now. The stability seems like it was higher in the beginning of the 20th century too. The 60-70's and now are the most unstable periods I believe, and the number of guns has only increased. So I don't think the US would be a good example.

In good faith, I cannot see how arming civilians reduces tyranny in modern times, unless your model actually is Afghanistan and Iraq. In those cases it's not that all civilians are armed. There are armed groups. That's not a world I want to live in though, anyways.

[_menelaus]

Yes, the tyranny in Iraq was the US occupation, though I am merely using it as an example that an armed, civilian populace can resist military control, not commenting on the morality of the occupation.

FWIW, Iraq was already well armed before the occupation, and looting of state arsenals in the chaos of the invasion amplified this. Afghanistan was a similar situation but armed networks were already organized moreso before the US occupation.

I don't think there are examples in very modern times of an enlightened, armed populace revolting against tyranny. The most recent I can think of is the Irish war of independence. They had low gun ownership, but correctly recognized the attainment of arms as of utmost importance, and it was through arms that they obtained liberty. I also still think that the American revolution is a fair example because the fundamental dynamic is still relevant. The Algerian war of independence comes to mind as well, which was more recent, though they were neither enlightened nor well-armed at the outset. Generally an enlightened society will produce a democracy which will take centuries to decay to the point of warranting revolt, and we are still in the first generation of these.

To your point about the US, merely having an armed populace does not gradually move society away from tyranny. The mental model myself and the founding fathers have is that even in the case of an armed populace, democratic institutions eventually decay to the point that the government is corrupt, despotic and intolerable. Its just entropy, as happens to our bodies. The population then revolts, and installs a democratic government, which then starts to decay again, and the cycle repeats. The fact that America is moving in a bad direction is confirmation of this tendency to decay, and not in any way antithetical to my stance. Eventually the decay surpasses a threshold which triggers the guns to come into play and reset the system.

And its been interesting talking to you too.