The Right to Rebel
Posted on August 20, 2014 — 2 Minutes Read
Roughly 20% of all nations have included the right to resist in their constitutions, there is little written however on how the people can acquire the means to do so. When things go beyond reason, arms is perhaps the only talk. The legal arms-bearing entities in a nation, which usually consist of the law enforcement and national defence, often report directly to the established government. Little chance do the people have going bare fists against bullets and tanks. In the United States, the Second Amendment of the Constitution allows its people to keep and bear arms. This amendment is commonly thought to be for securing the right to self-defence and defence of property i.e. the right to resist abuse. Akhil Reed Amar, a law professor at Yale University, suggested that it was nonetheless to allow the local militias to keep check on a federal military establishment. This provides the people a means to rebel the authority with their hands and arms, blood and sweat, should the federal government abuse its power. Its checks and balances function aside, this amendment is at the same time a double-edge sword and has been at least partly responsible for the high rate of gun violence in the United States.
The world is quite different today. Law enforcement agencies in most countries do a decent job of protecting the people and their properties. The need to keep and bear arms for purpose of self-defence and defence of property is declining. Most democratic governments also have a rigorous system of checks and balances to prevent abuses. The chance that arms becomes the only talk is slim. Yet gun violence remains high and will certainly be reduced if the right to keep and bear arms was off limits to civilians and the handful of villains among them, It will nonetheless mean that should the time come to rebel an abusing government, the people will likely have to go bare fists. Perhaps there is a middle ground between the extremes, what if the people, by giving up the right to bear arms, attain the right to, with a consensus, command the law enforcement or the armed forces, to rebel the established government on their behalves? The nuts and bolts will have to be rigorously and thoroughly figured out to avoid replacing one evil with another, but maybe blood doesn’t need to be shed after all.