> I guess this what the second amendment was made for.
Eh, it's probably part of what it's intended for, but private ownership of small arms is, at best, a minor factor in whether revolutions succeed. Having the majority of your own, or a foreign, military on your side, is much more important. Or, if your military sits it out, widespread private ownership of small arms isn't really that big a factor anyway.
... now, if you're an unpopular faction trying to take over, and the military sits it out, that's another matter. Then having guns is very useful. Or if you're trying to destabilize things with guerrilla tactics and terrorism so the government becomes unpopular and successful revolution is feasible.
TL;DR: "We need guns to protect us from tyranny" is a well-loved, but poorly-justified, case for the second amendment.
> Actually even this is not enough; there are so many countries that fulfill these criteria and are still terrible.
Relative deprivation drives revolt. Guarantee every Somali exactly $2,500—no more, no less—a year and 99.99% of the population will deify you. Do the same in the US—let's say it's even PPP adjusted—and you'll be dead inside a month, and they may make a national holiday to celebrate the wonderful event that was your assassination. I suppose very very slow changes might not have this effect, but I don't think the effects of climate change will be that slow.
> Why would those in power ever allow a change to a voting system which effectively maintains their existing power structure?
The "American revolution" itself was arguably better called a "war for independence" precisely because it had little effect on who was on top in American society—so, given that heritage, I'm going with "no, definitely not".
That's an excellent point and I forgot about the role of military faction support plus civilian looting of military arms caches and theft of military vehicles in many revolutions.
I agree that the war for independence should not be called a revolutionary war for the reasons you stated. A revolutionary war has not happened yet in North America.
> it had little effect on who was on top in American society
> > it had little effect on who was on top in American society
> I'm not sure what this means
Rich, politically-influential leaders before the war were largely still rich, politically-influential leaders afterward. The colonies became independent, but, aside from those who resisted independence (and hell, even some of those), colonial leaders stayed on top. The Constitution itself [edit: and, even more so, the Articles before it] was structured in support of preserving that order, even. The injustice the war sought to remedy was remote rule by fiat, not, to a substantial degree, the social or political order of the colonies themselves.
This is not, however, to say that the development of a large, democratic nation-state was not significant—but a revolution of social & political power structures in the Americas, it was not.
It'd be like if the French Revolution had skipped the beheadings and property-seizures and rolled directly into having a governing body comprising almost entirely high-level aristocrats, based on a constitution protecting aristocratic interests, with the king continuing to enjoy all his land and maybe a couple of his sons serving at the highest level of government a few years later—we'd scratch our heads in puzzlement at anyone calling that a revolution, unless maybe a failed one. A re-organization or, if you like, evolution, of government, sure, but not much of a revolution.
Eh, it's probably part of what it's intended for, but private ownership of small arms is, at best, a minor factor in whether revolutions succeed. Having the majority of your own, or a foreign, military on your side, is much more important. Or, if your military sits it out, widespread private ownership of small arms isn't really that big a factor anyway.
... now, if you're an unpopular faction trying to take over, and the military sits it out, that's another matter. Then having guns is very useful. Or if you're trying to destabilize things with guerrilla tactics and terrorism so the government becomes unpopular and successful revolution is feasible.
TL;DR: "We need guns to protect us from tyranny" is a well-loved, but poorly-justified, case for the second amendment.
> Actually even this is not enough; there are so many countries that fulfill these criteria and are still terrible.
Relative deprivation drives revolt. Guarantee every Somali exactly $2,500—no more, no less—a year and 99.99% of the population will deify you. Do the same in the US—let's say it's even PPP adjusted—and you'll be dead inside a month, and they may make a national holiday to celebrate the wonderful event that was your assassination. I suppose very very slow changes might not have this effect, but I don't think the effects of climate change will be that slow.
> Why would those in power ever allow a change to a voting system which effectively maintains their existing power structure?
The "American revolution" itself was arguably better called a "war for independence" precisely because it had little effect on who was on top in American society—so, given that heritage, I'm going with "no, definitely not".