Arm the Hippies

I honestly believe that one of the biggest problems with the two party polarization of United States politics is the political polarization of weapon training and ownership. This does not come from a strong belief in the sanctity of the second amendment or that guns are evil or good in of themselves; instead I believe that, in a democratic society, linking ownership and knowledge of how to use weapons to one end of a political dichotomy is in of itself dangerous.

In a democratic society, the vote works because it is a simulation of who would win if we had a civil war over the given issue at that time. The political campaign and voting process measures manpower, funding streams, ability to organize, zeal, rhetoric, apathy, and many other determining factors that are also applicable in a civil war scenario. As long as this simulation model is accurate, the democratic process stops us having to physically fight to impose our will on the rest of the population. We measure with a vote who would win and the issue is decided with little to no actual bloodshed.

This all breaks down when the training to use, and ownership of, weapons is entirely on one side of the political spectrum. This makes the entire simulation invalid. It makes it so that if there ever was an issue that the armed party was ruled against in the voting process, and they felt strongly enough about it, it would no longer be in their interests to abide by the democratic results.

I don’t know what issue would be polarizing enough to lead to such an outbreak of violence, but if the polarization of weapon ownership and training continues as it seems to be going, it would most likely be a rather swift and one sided revolution. This is especially true with the fact that a large portion of the military and law enforcement personnel in the U.S. also feel pushed towards the gun-toting end of our political dichotomy. In a civil war scenario, which side is the side of serving your country and neighbors can become rather muddled.

I don’t know what issue would be so divisive that one side would be willing to use force on the other, but the historical evidence is overwhelming that one will come up eventually. Eventually, if we continue this way, there will be some issue that the party with guns feels strong enough about that a large portion of them will feel that it is worth a cost in human lives to see it done their way. When this happens, if the vote does not go their way and it is obvious that use of force will go their way, blood will spill. It will be a disaster. It also will have been entirely preventable.

Just as there are American conservatives that abhor weapons, it is important that we recognize that having armed liberals is important to keeping everyone safe and our system on course. Really, I feel much more comfortable with people who hate weapons and abhor violence owning and knowing how to use them than people who have a fascination and love of weaponry. I don’t see passing laws requiring all citizens having weapons training going through, or going over well even if passed; but I would argue for a need to encourage people, especially those who would never want to use a gun, to know how if it is ever needed.

Disarming the population would not be actionable or practical even if it were preferable. If one side of our political system is heavily armed, it is unsafe in the long term for the other side to remain unarmed. It creates the situation where violence does become an easy answer. Violence is much harder to leap to when your opponent may be able to defend themselves than when you have every reason to believe they are helpless.

In all fairness, it is true that having both sides armed will not stop a civil war. My argument just is that having only one side being armed makes it too tempting for the other side. It makes it tempting enough that over a long enough time scale it seems to me to be inevitable.

Arm the hippies to make it possible that they won’t have to fight.