To compare dead children to the cost of failing to check government power, we can reduce both to life-years lost:
🔫 Current Cost: Child Firearm Deaths in the U.S.
~2,000 preventable child gun deaths/year
~60 life-years lost per death
120,000 life-years lost annually
Over 30 years: ~3.6 million life-years lost
🏛️ Hypothetical Benefit: Preventing Tyranny
Assume a worst-case scenario:
Authoritarian collapse kills 10 million (based on 20th-century examples)
Avg. age at death: ~40 → ~35 life-years lost
10M deaths × 35 = 350 million life-years lost
Estimate risk:
Without civilian arms: 0.5% chance over 30 years
With civilian arms: 0.4% chance
These figures are speculative; there’s no empirical support that civilian gun ownership reduces the risk of tyranny—many stable democracies have strict gun control.
In fact, high civilian armament may reduce stability:
Greater availability of weapons increases the lethality of civil unrest, crime, and domestic terrorism.
Armed polarization can accelerate breakdown during political crises, as seen in failed or fragile states.
States may respond with harsher repression, escalating rather than deterring authoritarian outcomes.
📊 Expected Value Calculation
Without arms: 0.005 × 350M = 1.75 million life-years at risk
With arms: 0.004 × 350M = 1.2 million life-years at risk
Net benefit of arms: ~550,000 life-years saved (generous estimate)
📉 Conclusion
Even with favorable assumptions:
Civilian firearms cost ~3.6M life-years (due to preventable child deaths)
And prevent only ~550K life-years (via marginally lower tyranny risk)
Bottom line: The ongoing cost vastly outweighs the hypothetical benefit, and high armament may worsen long-term stability rather than protect it.
Tongue in cheek of course but it still makes a point. The facts-over-feelings crowd has to show that the benefit of firearms outweigh the very observable negative consequences, and they cannot. So they are arguing feelings, not facts.
To compare dead children to the cost of failing to check government power, we can reduce both to life-years lost:
🔫 Current Cost: Child Firearm Deaths in the U.S.
🏛️ Hypothetical Benefit: Preventing Tyranny
Assume a worst-case scenario:
Estimate risk:
In fact, high civilian armament may reduce stability:
📊 Expected Value Calculation
📉 Conclusion
Even with favorable assumptions:
Bottom line: The ongoing cost vastly outweighs the hypothetical benefit, and high armament may worsen long-term stability rather than protect it.
In 2015 I’d agree.
In 2025? Nah, look at what’s happening around the US.
Dems are losing votes because of the guns issue, drop the gun issue, along with promoting a progressive platform and that’s easily winning elections.
Tongue in cheek of course but it still makes a point. The facts-over-feelings crowd has to show that the benefit of firearms outweigh the very observable negative consequences, and they cannot. So they are arguing feelings, not facts.