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This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.

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Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works

Anon breaks up (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 weeks ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works

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[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

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.