A Primer on Guns and Freedom

This meme got me to thinking...

But in reality...

The Bolsheviks took over Russia, backed by armed peasants. Mao took over China, backed by armed peasants. Castro took over Cuba, backed by armed peasants. Ho Chi Minh took over Vietnam (and defeated the US), backed by armed peasants. Meanwhile... Communism ended in East Germany without a shot being fired. Communism ended in Poland without a shot being fired. Communism ended in Hungary without a shot being fired. Communism ended in Czechoslovakia without a shot being fired.

Even the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union took place with more whimper than shout (or shots).

This is typical of the simplistic and misleading argument linking guns and freedom. In fact, outside of the US, whose revolution was led by the greatest collection of intellectual elites ever to rebel against central authority (a foreign authority, I might add) one would be hard pressed to find a violent revolt by armed citizens that delivered more freedom than existed at the time of the revolt. The end of apartheid in South Africa, British colonial rule in India, the end of Jim Crow here in the US all came about through long and painful, but largely peaceful pressure to end suppression.

Bottom line, the argument that our guns will somehow secure liberty and democracy, especially in the oldest and most successful democracy on earth, is dangerously misleading at best, and an outright lie at worst. And meanwhile, tens of thousands of our fellow citizens die every year in deference to that lie.