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.
SPRUNT@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s a good argument, but it’s entirely flawed because American policy is that the children have no worth until they pay taxes.