35 ms·

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegianc

• swarnie_ 7y ago
  Non-American here, i never really understood your second amendment or how you cling to it in the modern age. What are a couple of rednecks with assault rifles (which arguably they shouldn't be able to purchase anyway) going to do against semi-autonomy kill droids being flown from a bunker in the desert?
  • JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > What are a couple of rednecks with assault rifles (which arguably they shouldn't be able to purchase anyway) going to do against semi-autonomy kill droids being flown from a bunker in the desert? The point is to increase the cost of violence against the population. The Swiss bunker / guerrilla strategy. Also, there is no reason to suspect asymmetric vectors like autonomous drone armies would accrue solely to state actors.
    • ixtli 7y ago
      In my experience when these people are made the least bit uncomfortable in any social situation they immediately call the police. They're not who they pretend to be online.
      • CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        Ironic, their first inclination is to call people who have the "murder guns" that they complain heavily about.
        • close04 7y ago
          Because they represent authority and the law just like in any other country. The fact that LEOs carry guns is because they are surrounded by a lot of other individuals who are unable to take smart decisions while wielding a deadly firearm. Your statement is forced just to make the point. I don't think the gun control topic was ever related to law enforcement or military personnel carrying guns. It's more about having guns easily accessible to violent and repeat offenders, mentally unstable people, etc.
          • CompanionCuuube 7y ago
            > Because they represent authority and the law just like in any other country. The fact that LEOs carry guns is because they are surrounded by a lot of other individuals who are unable to take smart decisions while wielding a deadly firearm. Even in locations where firearms are heavily restricted from the civilian populace, the police remain armed. The funny thing is that individuals wanting bodyguards hire armed bodyguards. The fact is that LEOs and private bodyguards carry guns because they are an effective method of stopping an attacker. > Your statement is forced just to make the point. I don't think the gun control topic was ever related to law enforcement or military personnel carrying guns. The lack of relation is purely due to the limits of your rational thinking and ability to apply logical principles. > It's more about having guns easily accessible to violent and repeat offenders, mentally unstable people, etc. The most recent talk by presidential candidates(even if their actual election is gratefully a longshot) has shown that to be a lie.
            • close04 7y ago
              > the police remain armed [...] armed bodyguards The police and bodyguards are there specifically to deal with dangerous situations and attractive targets. You are not authority, not trained, and not a target that attracts attacks. You don't need the gun, you want it "just in case", makes you feel "bigger". What else must you be allowed to use just because someone else is? There are bigger hurdles to clear for many other things that are less critical than obtaining and using guns. Why not have some formal training, medical checks, background checks, exams, etc. for getting/using something close to an assault rifle? > carry guns because they are an effective method of stopping an attacker No, the effective method is to prevent the attack altogether. Something the rest of the western world is far closer to, even without guns. Education is a wonderful thing. It's the inability to educate and prevent this kind of behavior that makes you live in a society where you "have to" walk around armed "just in case". Instead of preventing a fire, you're letting it start and then soaking the house in water. That's just what you do when you failed at every other step and there's literally nothing else to do. > The lack of relation Now you're just hiding your failed argumentation under a layer of insults. Is it working yet? Nobody asks police/military to not carry guns, surgeons to not use scalpels, pilots to not fly planes, or physicists to not fire lasers. Just make sure guns (and all other examples) don't get in the hands of people who can't make or understand a rational argument, let alone take life or death decisions. > The most recent talk The most recent mass shootings have shown that unstable people (especially children) with easy access to guns leads to tragedy. But by all means, if "the talk" said something else don't let reality spoil it. Again, guns are not the problem with the proper brains behind them. Just look at Switzerland or Germany if you need proof.
    • cjslep 7y ago
      > The Swiss bunker / guerrilla strategy. As an American living in Switzerland, this is not a fair comparison. The Swiss strategy involves mandatory service (with the backing of the government), short and long term preparations against an outside invading force (with the backing of the government), highly regulated gun ownership (with the backing of the government). It's always wielded with the backing of the government against an outside force. In stark contrast, the U.S. mindset around gun ownership has always been about wielding the weapons against the government itself. Instead, what this effectively means is that this will be an easily hijacked ideal if, in our politically charged era, portions of the government are viewed as "illegitimate" and one part of the government backs a coup with gun-toting civilians against "the government" (the part not liked).
      • jbattle 7y ago
        So the Swiss have ... a well-regulated militia? Wish we had thought of that!
        • Andrex 7y ago
          It's almost like that language was inserted into the Constitution for some explicit purpose, but then someone (the Supreme Court) forgot about that along the way... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller I think it's weird how American gun advocates didn't get upset when SCOTUS took some white-out to the amendment they claim to hold so sacred.
          • jki275 7y ago
            Except that's not at all what happened. The plain language of the 2nd amendment is quite clearly and accurately explained by Scalia in Heller. He took no "white out" to it, he explained what anyone without a political agenda has always known the 2nd amendment meant.
      • JumpCrisscross 7y ago
        > As an American living in Switzerland, this is not a fair comparison As a Swiss American, I agree. Today’s Second Amendment debate is perverted. My argument was to the point of the Second Amendment, its intent. America is currently on an extreme end of the gun-debate spectrum.
  • geggam 7y ago
    Ask yourself how Afghanistan sheep herders fared in the same situation. Against Russia and the US
  • ericmay 7y ago
    The same thing that people in Afghanistan did? It's also not cool to characterize people who have assault rifles or support the 2nd amendment as rednecks. I'm certainly not one. It's actually kind of offensive to even use that term anyway if you ask me.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • swarnie_ 7y ago
      No offence intended, just a stereotypical image i go to when thinking about the US's gun culture and all the problems it brings.
      • wil421 7y ago
        The US is not Texas. The image a lot of my Europeans co-workers have is Texas. Not sure where you are from.
        • runarb 7y ago
          Fun fact, in my language "Texas" means crazy: https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/yall-norwegians-use-the-word-texas-as-slang-to-mean-crazy/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/yall-norwegians-...
      • swebs 7y ago
        I think the problems are unrelated to gun ownership. If you were to plot the percent of gun ownership vs the crime rate among various states or even countries, you wouldn't find much of a correlation.
        • rcruzeiro 7y ago
          But there is a correlation with mass shootings (yes, I know it's kinda obvious since you need guns for mass shootings whereas you don necessarily need guns for most crimes).
  • sudhirj 7y ago
    Same thing the original Americans did when protesting the massively better trained and armed British Army. Keep their wits about them and keep fighting. If anything the war in Afghanistan has proven that technology is no match for resilience and grit.
    • onion2k 7y ago
      Same thing the original Americans did when protesting the massively better trained and armed British Army. Get saved by the French? ducks
      • orbifold 7y ago
        It‘a kind of ironic, the French were so focused on screwing over the British, that they nearly bankrupted themselves and raised a generation of freedom fighting officers. Both eventually led to food shortages and revolution.
        • 24gttghh 7y ago
          >they nearly bankrupted themselves They did bankrupt themselves. The Crown treasury was completely empty in 1788.
      • Ozumandias 7y ago
        Or rely on wars on other continents to drag their opponent's attention away?
      • SkyBelow 7y ago
        Part of the strategy would be to resist long enough for international pressure to aid, be that UN sanctions or be that another country deciding to claim some more land while the US is too distracted to fight back.
    • chrift 7y ago
      I'm confused - are you saying that Afghanistan triumphed?
  • TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
    Asymmetric warfare[1] strategies are incredibly powerful and allow just a couple of rednecks with assault rifles, common chemicals, and vehicles fight successfully against the most powerful militaries in the world. Just look at the war in Afghanistan to see how difficult such warfare can be. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare?wprov=sfla1
    • lostlogin 7y ago
      The same thing has happened in Afghanistan 3 times. Superpowers seem to fare poorly there.
  • _iyig 7y ago
    >What are a couple of rednecks with assault rifles (which arguably they shouldn't be able to purchase anyway) going to do against semi-autonomy kill droids being flown from a bunker in the desert? The common refrain goes “about as well as the Taliban,” who currently negotiating an American withdrawal after 18 years of serious U.S. military attention.
    • MagnumOpus 7y ago
      > “about as well as the Taliban,” So you mean that living standards drop back by 100 (or 1000) years? But seriously - asymmetric warfare works best against scrupulous adversaries who claim the moral high ground and stop short of "salt the earth" warfare. China doesn't, the CCP won't mind starving out an entire city or state to get them to stop resisting, just like the Soviets didn't.
      • lostlogin 7y ago
        The conduct of the alloed troops in Afghanistan can’t really be called scrupulous. One of the examples in the below link has troops mutilating corpses and collecting severed fingers. And on the flip side, the Russian troops there were badly equipped and half starved at times too - Boys In Zinc by Svetlana Alexievich is a depressing series of accounts from there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:War_crimes_in_Afghanistan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:War_crimes_in_Afgha...
      • onepointsixC 7y ago
        Two other super powers have tried in Afghanistan without any "moral high ground" and the results have been the same.
  • pnako 7y ago
    Same things rednecks from Vietnam, Afghanistan or Yemen would be doing. The second amendment is not exclusive to America. The flag of Mozambique even has an AK-47 on it, for pretty much the same reason. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" said Mao.
    • lostlogin 7y ago
      Those places are not examples I’d like to follow. I’m struggling to think of a first world country with a law that’s similar, is there one?
      • pnako 7y ago
        Canada. Although it's not in the constitution AFAIK. In Europe that would be countries like Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland (interestingly, those countries are well-known producers and exporters of firearms).
        • lostlogin 7y ago
          Thanks. It is interesting as those place have a similar right, but it doesn’t seem to be about protecting oneself from ones own government, but from other governments. Have I got that right?
  • powvans 7y ago
    Your estimate of "a couple of rednecks" is off by orders of magnitude. There are millions of AR-15's in private hands in the United States. Those are just a fraction of the 300 million privately owned guns in the US. This country is armed to the teeth.
    • rplnt 7y ago
      Still wouldn't do anything to a malicious government controlling the army. And for overthrowing government you don't need to be armed - see dozens of examples all over the world - the army is made of citizens as well after all. So, no, it doesn't make any sense in the current age to say you own guns to protect yourself from the government.
      • kube-system 7y ago
        > the army is made of citizens as well after all. That's probably not the case for HK.
      • ekianjo 7y ago
        > Still wouldn't do anything to a malicious government controlling the army. Except that an army cannot fight on 10 fronts at the same time. When you have a whole country turning against you, you can't be there at every single place every second with a regular army. On the contrary a regular army would be beaten up in no time. You also have to take in account that it's much more likely there would be rogue generals turnings against the power in place so general + armed people is a good catalyst.
        • amanaplanacanal 7y ago
          Look at politics in the US. It would never be the whole country against a dictator. A much more likely scenario would be something like 50% supporting the dictator and 50% rebelling. I don't know how it would play out, but I know it would be ugly. The reasonable course for most people would be to flee.
        • rplnt 7y ago
  • WillPostForFood 7y ago
    It is more complicated than that. In addition to citizens having guns, each state controls a their own portion of the military, called the National Guard. That includes an army and an air force with modern military weapons.
  • TallGuyShort 7y ago
    So we should be able control Afghanistan and Iraq pretty quick then, eh? There have actually been recent cases where federal agents were held off by armed citizens and later deemed to be in the right by the courts. It's not hypothetical.
  • LandR 7y ago
    Not American, but I think maybe the point is the minute the government has to resort to taking up arms, or using the military against it's own people then it has already lost. At that point the country is effectively done, it's a failed state.
    • jbattle 7y ago
      Abstractly speaking, this represents a sort of a mutually-assured-destruction dynamic between the government and the governed, forcing each to compromise with the other. As an American, the thought of an actual armed uprising feels so outlandish in 2019 that I'm pretty certain that no one in government takes it seriously (c.f. the steady erosion of civil liberties)
  • billmalarky 7y ago
    You should read up on how the cuban revolution was executed. You don't win revolutionary wars through brute force, you win them by getting public opinion on your side, which makes the current government in place illegitimate.
  • ixtli 7y ago
    From experience, people who are able to live their lives casually collecting weapons here are also able to live pretty disconnected from the reality of these types of situations. We're long, long past a world where a rag tag band of ideologically enfranchised citizens could oppose the police. The fantasy of standing up to The Gubment comes from two things: 1) a rambo fantasy. a serious overestimate of your own skills where now YOU are the one in charge 2) a supposition that "if it ever came to that" the military and the police wouldn't actually pull the trigger. We know this is nonsense from historical analysis. From the other side you can look at how the Vietnamese people defended themselves from invasion and if you really think those conditions exist here then you've never been to, say, arizona where this sort of thinking is prevalent. Edit: I wanna be clear that i don't think this is a good thing. I wish there was some way citizenry could hold their government to account directly like in the 1700s but I think we live in a different world now. One where people enjoy not having a random street war kick off on a tuesday when they'd rather be at a coffee shop.
    • sokoloff 7y ago
      3) a supposition that "if it ever came to that" a meaningful subset of the military and the police would join (and lead) the revolution.
      • jacobush 7y ago
        This is the most often overlook aspect. Yes, the government might even lob a few nukes at its own territory of push came to shove, but that would only increase the defections. A US civil war would be incredibly messy, but it would not be easy to predict any sort of outcome. Everyone would interpret for themselves what "sworn to the constitution" meant for them and pick a side. There would certainly be more than 2 sides too, given how different the 50 states are.
      • ixtli 7y ago
        yeah thats basically what i was going for here. ammo-fetishists and people who cant tell the difference between reality and movies are rampant in america, imo.
    • 7y ago
  • ekianjo 7y ago
    kill family members of the people in power?
    • geggam 7y ago
      Imagine a person in power with nothing left to lose. Doesnt seem like a person who would make rational choices.
      • HBKXNCUO 7y ago
        The other politicians who haven't lost their families yet might.
        • geggam 7y ago
          Might scorch the earth because their families could be next too. Ultimatum style anything always creates unpredictability
          • HBKXNCUO 7y ago
            War is always a gamble.
  • geggam 7y ago
    As a note there are 20 million ex military in the US, most of which are armed. So the US civilian population has an out of shape military with small arms at around 10x the size of the standing military.
    • moate 7y ago
      That's assuming they side with the civies and don't rejoin the standing military. Truth is, we have no idea what a US civil war might look like. There would be military defections as well as citizens joining the government. With no understanding of what the factions would look like, it's difficult to forecast blindly (not that you couldn't make projections based on certain groups leading the antagonists side and how the public at large might react).
      • geggam 7y ago
        It would be bloody, beyond that no idea. A demonstration like happening in Hong Kong likely wouldnt ever happen. I use the nevada rancher incident as an example. Govt agents backed down from armed "militia" to avoid the bloodshed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff Govt agents
        • moate 7y ago
          I like to believe that the US government wouldn't fire the first shot, that it would be citizen aggression against them that would spur them into action. But who knows. In the Bundy incident(s) no shots were fired. I believe that's because as much as the Bundy group believe their own bullshit (about land rights and white supremacy and whatnot) they also know that this is a fight about taxation currently and that they can keep enough support on their side by making that the principle issue. The government isn't going to go in hot to collect taxes, because jesus christ that's a terrible look for them and they don't want another Waco. The whole incident involve those yahoos is a mess, but a really great example of a militia strong arming the feds (it sucks that the feds screwed the pooch in the trial of the 2016 standoff and let them get off because of procedural misconduct).
  • SkyBelow 7y ago
    You don't use it to go after the drone, you use it to go after soft targets. It is also a matter of scale and depends upon how the lines get drawn in the conflict. If the scale is just a couple of rednecks, then you aren't looking at an actual use case. Try a couple million rednecks instead.
    • raisedbyninjas 7y ago
      You kinda need to go after the drone though. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/mass-surveillance-tech/592117/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/mass-surve... With persistent surveillance, some will be reluctant to take up arms knowing the feds could capture you later at a time of their choosing.
  • saalweachter 7y ago
    The historical context is somewhat divorced from the modern interpretation (and in other respects, intimately connected). The thing to keep in mind is that the U.S. Revolution was not what we would call today a grassroots movement. It was based in the pre-existing State-level representative governments. It wasn't a mob of people spontaneously deciding to take to the streets and push the bastards out, it was a functional system of government deciding to shave off the layer above. When the States decided to switch from a looser confederation to form a more perfect Union, they wanted to keep that option open to repeat the process -- it was not originally about John Doe using his musket to chase off the local tax collector but about the State of Virginia using its own Army of Virginia to drive out anyone trying to interfere overly much in its business. Incidentally, most States still have standing forces that report to the Governor.
    • pjc50 7y ago
      > State of Virginia using its own Army of Virginia to drive out anyone trying to interfere overly much in its business This didn't go so well for the slave states.
  • jimktrains2 7y ago
    > Non-American here, i never really understood your second amendment or how you cling to it in the modern age. There is a substantial portion of the US that hunts or otherwise use guns as protection (for them and livestock) from animals. Additionally, there are many parts of the US where police may really be 30+ min away. The 2nd Amendment was arguably about having volunteer state militias where the citizens supplied their own guns, but because of quirks of history and grammar, that isn't the only reason gun ownership is allowed. Americans, on the whole, are also pretty distrusting of government, even in the best of times.
  • jack_h 7y ago
    > ... assault rifles (which arguably they shouldn't be able to purchase anyway) ... Assault rifles are select fire, that is capable of automatic fire. These are legal to own/transfer provided they have been previously registered with the ATF and made before 1986. They also tend to be quite expensive, tens of thousands of dollars, and the process to get one is rather lengthy, usually the better part of a year. This is primarily governed by the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Firearms Protection Act of 1986. You may be confusing the phrase "assault rifle" with "assault weapon" which is often used in politics and media. Assault weapons are semi-automatic, but what is and is not an assault weapon tends to come down to jurisdiction and a combination of features (pistol grip, stock configuration, etc). Regardless, these are much more readily available and considerably cheaper. Laws governing firearms in the US are actually quite complicated, and the terminology is also pretty verbose. Hopefully this helps.
• kristiandupont 7y ago
  If HK'ers had a similar right to carry guns, do you honestly believe that they would be any better off right now?
  • mc32 7y ago
    It’s uncertain what the eventual outcome would be, but one thing is for sure, it would increase the threshold before the tanks rolled in.
    • kristiandupont 7y ago
      I might be misreading what "increase the threshold" means, but it seems to me that if people were armed, the tanks were more likely to roll in quickly, not less.
      • mc32 7y ago
        I see it the opposite way, the tanks become a last resort. They have to use hard power rather than alternatives.
        • chrift 7y ago
          If citizens had guns, they would be less likely to stick soldiers in front of them without some sort of heavy armour between them. I.e. a tank
        • orf 7y ago
          You’d think that an armed protest group would mean that the government reacts with _less_ force? Rather than simply deploying an appropriate amount of force to stop them? Because the simple fact is that the government will win in the game of “who has more guns and power”, just as it would in the USA, and there is no way a government would set a precedent that all you need to make it capitulate is wave a gun around. I’m not saying that the outcome would be the protesters would not be successful, in saying that the government would roll in the tanks immediately and without hesitation.
• ajross 7y ago
  If there were guns in those protest groups, the military would have long since rolled in and simply seized the territory in a routine urban invasion. No, you can't fight the People's Liberation Army with your tricked out semi automatic .223, no matter how many drum magazines and bump stocks you attach to it.
• emptysongglass 7y ago
  This is absurd. Any chance a rebellious citizenry had armed to the teeth evaporated with standing armies. Gun owners of the US cling to this ideal even while experiencing the worst spate of mass shootings in its history. There is no solution to this other than disarming.
  • bhupy 7y ago
    The US (with its standing army) has been at war in the Middle East for nearly 2 decades now with insurgents. The argument is not that a rebellious citizenry will necessarily win a war, it's that it will draw out a bloody civil war so long and so expensive as to be a form of mutually assured destruction, the risk of which acts as a check in and of itself.
  • Clubber 7y ago
    I'm sorry, but you are absolutely delusional, or refuse to observe world events in history and going on right now. You need to stop looking at this emotionally and start using reason. Who killed more people, Stalin or all the US mass shooters combined? Edit: He is delusional and his ideas aren't based on any understanding of current events or history.
    • wbronitsky 7y ago
      Wow, what a needless, toxic comment that attacks a person when it could easily attack an idea. It is amazing to me how prolific these types of arguments have become on this platform. I don’t understand why we continue to push arguments that equate to “you disagree with me and therefore are an idiot who cannot see what is right in front of them”
    • josephdviviano 7y ago
      By this logic, do you think all of the other western democracies that do not have a right to bear arms are at risk of producing a Stalin?
      • Clubber 7y ago
• Fezzik 7y ago
  I always find this sentiment a little silly - if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces? And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion. I truly do not get it.
  • bhupy 7y ago
    The US (with its support of the military) has been at war in the Middle East for nearly 2 decades now with insurgents. The argument is not that a rebellious citizenry will necessarily win a war, it's that it will draw out a bloody civil war so long and so expensive as to be a form of mutually assured destruction, the risk of which acts as a check in and of itself.
    • josephdviviano 7y ago
      The fact is that the dictator would still win. The rebellious citizenry would live a life of absolute misery, just as those in the middle east do. The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles, not computer-guided missiles. If there was ever a true US dictator, the 2nd amendment would mostly be used by the oppressed to rob, attack, and oppress one another.
      • oblongx 7y ago
        or like you know, protect themselves from others...
      • PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        There's an interesting sci-fi dystopia in there, maybe. Everything up to light machine guns are available with no restrictions to anyone who wants to buy them. The government constantly talks up the sanctity of the right to bear arms, and the importance of being prepared at all times to defend innocents against <insert scapegoat group here>. The dystopian military enforcers wear bulletproof powered armor, and private ownership of any weapon that can pierce that armor is a "grievous threat to public order," punishable by summary execution.
• heavyset_go 7y ago
  The second amendment didn't stop Kent State from taking place.
• tekkk 7y ago
  It's admirable that Americans hold their 2nd amendment to such high-degree. If only your politicians and people in power weren't such crooks you wouldn't have to fear in the first place. I live in a country near Russia, yet I don't feel a need to keep an assault rifle in my home. I think the reason you are clinging onto your 2nd amendment is mostly purely sentimental, the legacy of your ancestors and their glorious resistance repeated through years of US history lessons. The fact is, you are mostly safe from your "overlords". There isn't and I think won't be any need for a revolution fought with guns. Your rights and freedoms are slowly dwindled away without you even noticing while you are still hanging onto your rifles like shooting down your fellow Americans would make a difference. It's make-believe, but I guess it makes Americans feel a little special to know that if you elected some dictator you would have a chance to stop them. Your political rulers know far and well that civil war is the last thing anybody wants. Your judicial and political system in place should, before any Hitler came to power, stop them and prevent coup d'état from happening. It's worrying that we, people living in highly progressive and democratic societies, would have to fear a dictator suddenly coming to power and having to protect ourselves against it. Why anyone would follow such psychopaths and throw away democratic society with free will? But I admit, humans are highly illogical and emotional creatures, that are deep down still driven by the primal urges that are the same as they were thousands of years ago. Just because we dress in fancy suits and dresses doesn't mean we aren't capable of what the Nazis did less than hundred years ago but I'm hopeful that we as species are still slowly progressing.
  • filoleg 7y ago
    I dont feel the need to own an assault rifle in the present time in the US, but I feel like you are misrepresenting the point. You have to be prepared for the worst times, not the good times. When the worst times roll, it will be too late to worry about it.
• camgunz 7y ago
  > This is why we have the second amendment. It's not why we have the 2nd Amendment. 2A applies only to militias, and the Constitution explicitly gives Congress power over State militias to suppress insurrections: "The Congress shall have Power To... provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions" [1] Further, the Militia Act of 1792 allows the president to commandeer them as well, and this was famously used by George Washington himself to quell the Whiskey Rebellion. 2A is just a relic from a time when the US had neither the resources nor the political will to create and maintain a standing army. It's been co-opted very recently by the Right to rile people up and drive them to the polls (while incidentally enriching themselves), but it's completely outdated. The only reason anyone thinks otherwise is that Scalia legislated from the bench in Heller to resurrect it. [1]: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-8- https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...
  • ChrisLomont 7y ago
    >2A applies only to militias This is untrue, and the Supreme Court has ruled several times on it. The states, which mostly modeled their Constitutions on the Federal ones, have a significant majority of them giving the people explicit individual right to bear arms. Or read the Federalist Papers, or look at common law leading up to the constitution, or realize that the Bill of Rights was added at the states request to protect individual rights, not collective govt sanctioned rights.
    • camgunz 7y ago
      > This is untrue, and the Supreme Court has ruled several times on it. This is a pretty weak appeal to authority. My rejoinders are Dred Scott and Korematsu (or anything about the idiotic "right to contract"). The Court isn't always right. > or realize that the Bill of Rights was added at the states request to protect individual rights, not collective govt sanctioned rights Well, 9A protects individual rights not enumerated, but 10A protects State rights not enumerated. States were entirely consumed with their own rights; that's why we've had to apply the Bill of Rights to States via incorporation & 14A. > Or read the Federalist Papers Madison does talk about the right to bear arms in the Federalist Papers [1]. But he was talking explicitly about States vs. the Federal government. He also later saw how bad militias were at being an army (a point Washington argued over and over again) in the War of 1812 and changed his position in favor of a strong, standing, Federal army. Let's pull some quotes here (emphasis added): > The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. > That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray both... > that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm... > Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. > To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. > Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. > Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. First, Madison repeatedly emphasizes local and State governments as a key component of repelling tyranny. But he also exclusively conceives of such resistance solely through the local and State militias. 2A is absolutely not about individual rights. No Founder ever talked about it in this way. It's about militias. [1]: http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/FEDERALI.HTM http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/FEDERALI.HTM
• wnevets 7y ago
  > This is why we have the second amendment. Citation needed.
• thfuran 7y ago
  No, we have the second amendment so that Whiskey Rebellions won't get too out of hand, let alone succeed. The militia that the second amendment arms reports to the government and one of its primary objectives is to quell insurrection.
• everyone 7y ago
  There are plenty of examples of the US army (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), and US controled dictators forces (Cuba) being beaten or stalemated by guerilla forces. Depending on how widespread and committed a revolution was, they could have a very good chance imo. Also if the revolution is extremely popular, then elements of the army will side with them.
• dragonwriter 7y ago
  > This is why we have the second amendment. No, we have the second amendment as a safeguard against the government, at the state or federal level, relying on a separated class of professional armed personnel for internal and/or external security, with the idea that by retaining the capacity for the mass of the citizenry to be mobilized for that function, political pressure from the citizenry will be sufficient to avoid professionalization of more than a small cadre. In this way, tyranny would be prevented because you can't have a tyrant supported by the armed forces against the general citizenry when the armed forces and the general citizenry are exactly coextensive, and the armaments of the armed forces, while standardized by government, are held by the citizenry at large. The second amendment was not created so that the amateurs with small arms would serve as a counterbalance against professional, better equipped troops of the standing army and internal security services. That's just a more recent rationalization by people who like to play with guns and fantasize aboit fighting off tyranny, but who either fetishize the professional forces and their separate authoritarian culture that the founders feared, or who just can't be arsed to do the boring work of a militia that is the primary security services of the state, or—frequently—who have both of those features simultaneously.
• adamsea 7y ago
  Ensuring all citizens got a great education would do so much more than guns to prevent tyranny. Especially since most forms of power and dominance are subtle and maintained through law, propaganda, systems of communication, and with economic power.
  • pageandrew 7y ago
    four boxes of liberty. can’t give up the last, even if the first three work very well
• coryfklein 7y ago
  I laugh at this as well. Most of today's gun owners clutch their weapons as a bastion against attempts for their liberty, while simultaneously crying that for decades the government has done nothing but just that! Sure the OP scenario of sudden-dictator is bizarre, that's not how it works. If the U.S. ever falls to dictatorship, it will be like a frog boiling in water, and there will never be a single trigger point to erupt the populace into violent revolt. Just look at what we have today! The majority of gun owners are the staunchest supporters of our most authoritarian president ever. You don't need to worry about a violent revolution when the gun owners are "voting" for you already.
• nicwolff 7y ago
  > This is why we have the second amendment. It's not. The same "militia" that justifies the second amendment can be federalized by Congress per Article I to "suppress insurrections" (or since 1792 by the President).
  • dsego 7y ago
    There is an episode on the TV show Designated Survivor where the state guard refuses to federalize.
• 4b11b4 7y ago
  The 2nd amendment was never created in order to "rebel" against the government. Think about this: it was the goal of the founders of the Constitution to create a new system which would be fair and just and work well. Checks and balances exist in the three forms of government. If you were creating a new system, would you include a clause that says: just in case I'm getting this wrong, let's make sure it's an unalienable right for people to have weapons in case they need to kill me? The 2nd amendment was actually put in by pressure from slave owners, who needed weapons in order to police slaves. After slavery was abolished, people kept the order of slavery by using tools (guns). The common "idea" that the 2nd amendment was created for "freedom" can be traced back to a guest post in NRA newspaper written by a teenager which was then promoted heavily by the NRA. source: https://news.streetroots.org/2019/05/31/thom-hartmann-why-we-have-2nd-amendment-and-pervasive-gun-violence https://news.streetroots.org/2019/05/31/thom-hartmann-why-we...
  • eee_honda 7y ago
    >If you were creating a new system, would you include a clause that says: just in case I'm getting this wrong, let's make sure it's an unalienable right for people to have weapons in case they need to kill me? I didn't grow up in the US, but being exposed to US political discourse, I always took for granted this right wing talking point (though I thought it was ridiculous from the outset). Thank you for providing clarity and a decent looking source on something that, as you point out, makes no sense once you think a little longer about it.
  • blockmarker 7y ago
    >just in case I'm getting this wrong, let's make sure it's an unalienable right for people to have weapons in case they need to kill me? That supposes that the Founders would forever rule and be unified, with no possibility of anyone else ever ruling. That obviously is idiotic.
• cryptozeus 7y ago
  do you mean imagine as in how in "May 1970, the month in which four students were shot dead at Kent State by national police"
• cwkoss 7y ago
  I think it is unfortunate that so many Americans don't know about the history of the Black Panthers. In US public school system, we are taught that the Civil Rights Act was won through peaceful marching - this is not the whole story. Black Panthers carried guns to protect protests, and having guns created a situation where cops could not rush in and beat dissent into submission. There is a strong argument that without the second amendment, the Civil Rights Act would not have been passed, and we would still be living in an institutionally segregated society. I don't own a gun and don't feel I need one because I'm a privileged urban white. Gun control has historically been used as a tool to disarm Black Americans: the NRA supported gun control in response to the Black Panthers! (https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-...) Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.
  • homonculus1 7y ago
    >Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police. Not to detract from your excellent point but when it comes to personal defense against crime, this applies to everyone who doesn't have private security. Even if the police are 100% on your side, they can't help you if they aren't at your side. When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.
    • cwkoss 7y ago
      I agree. Similarly, most people who live in rural areas also have a need for guns to protect themselves adequately - from animals as well as malicious people - as police and other state protection can be an hour or more away when they try to respond rapidly. I prefer to focus on the Black Panthers use case because there is an interesting cognitive dissonance in the modern left in that anti-racism and gun control are both promoted by the same ideological groups. Tends to be more persuasive in my liberal social bubble as I see a growing lack of empathy for rural Americans. My personal litmus test for gun control legislation is: "Would this law meaningfully decrease access for a black single mother who is a victim of domestic violence and does not have confidence in a timely police response?"
• jhowell 7y ago
  How is the right to bear arms going to help me if the government decides to use RPGs, helicopters, aircraft or submarines, or take away communications? Seems like a thin firewall.
• jolotriage 7y ago
  In the US, a police officer would be justified in killing this protestor for the same action or less. Freedom to physically attack police is something we don't have. I don't think the second amendment enters into the equation.
• seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  This is why we have checks and balances, a strong constitution, strong interest in rule of law, and an effort to have fair elections. The second amendment hardly helps that much, as if shooting those we think are wrong* is going to do anything good (or trying to go after the military, who is much better trained and armed than we are). * e.g. would Trump supporters be justified in going after progressives with their guns if they thought they were harming the country? Or vice versa?
• 0xADADA 7y ago
  Police shoot & kill unarmed people in the United States every. fucking. day. 2019: Jeremy Connolly, Wallace Wilder, Bobby Ray Moore, Raymond Lewis Williams, Channara Tom Pheap, Dennis Carolino, Chad Michael Breinholt, Riley Eugene Peay, Michael Tuck, James Crowe, Amari Malone, Michael Lopez, Jared R. Nelson, Schaston Theodore Lamarr Hodge, Mike Parsley, Uzzle Jerome, Rashad Cunningham, Jovany Mercado-Bedolla, Jamie Fernandez, William Lloyd Jones, Thomas Michael Reynolds, Cole Steele Jessup, Charles Roy Pearson, Anthony Wayne French, Jerry Orlando Weaver, David Ingle, Scott Souders, Aaron Luther, Cole Steele Jessup, John Michael George, Freddrick Andrews Hadden, Manuel Charles Carter, Mark Johnson, Jose Mendez, Jason Xavier Salas, An unidentified person, Kevin Jenkins, Toussaint Diamon Sims, Detravian Allison, Donald Babbit, Allan George, William Biggs, Kaizen Crossen, Derrick Davidson, Marvin Alexis Urbina, James Lee Kirkwood, Riche Antonio Santiago, Marvin Urbina, Robert Clay Wilsford, Connor Betts, Aigon Andrew Wallace, Cortney Ronald Staley, John Clark, Oscar Ventura-Gonzalez, De'Von Bailey, Deshon Downing, Mario Benjamin, Delano Williams, Lenny Blaine Griffin, David Willoughby, Eric Toon, Margarita Victoria Brooks, Andre Leach, Jamaal Simpson
  • nkurz 7y ago
    Your formatting makes it look like you are giving examples of unarmed people who are shot by the police, but your list doesn't reflect this. Here's what I found looking at the first three names: Jeremy Connolly: Armed with a knife. "The KBI says police shot Connolly after they found his 71-year-old grandmother, Linda Kromer, stabbed to death inside his home in the 2000 block of Harold Avenue. Officers heard noises in the basement and found Connolly in a bedroom with the door closed. He was armed with a knife." https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Man-dies-from-injuries-in-officer-involved-shooting-in-Salina-558595581.html https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Man-dies-from-injuries-in-... Wallace Wilder: Probably not armed. "Wallace Wilder died Wednesday afternoon after being shot at his Gordo apartment in Pickens County. He had long ago been diagnosed as a bipolar schizophrenic and even was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity in a Tuscaloosa County killing in the 1980s..." https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/08/man-killed-by-alabama-police-was-mentally-ill-and-police-knew-daughter-says.html https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/08/man-killed-by-ala... Bobby Ray Moore: Armed with a gun. "Authorities have identified a man they say was killed after pointing a loaded gun at San Joaquin sheriff's deputies in Stockton." https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/stockton/man-shot-and-killed-by-deputies-in-stockton-who-allegedly-pointed-gun-at-them-idd/103-205a7914-5c89-4e76-a32b-e73ab99af3c6 https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/stockton/man-shot-a... While we do have a terrible problem in the US with police shootings, it's unhelpful when misleading claims like this are made. Where did you get this list of names? Did the source claim that all were unarmed?
• grecy 7y ago
  I find it sad that in the year 2019, in what is ostensibly the best country in the world, and is by a very long way the richest country in the world that an apparently significant majority of people still think it possible they will have to actually go to war with their own government, and they need to keep guns for that outcome. Brutal, bloody, horrible war where literally tens millions of people will die in agonizing pain. Why the hell is "the best country in the world" thinking about and holding onto it's gun for this?
• bdamm 7y ago
  This is silly, guns can't protect the population against the modern government. It would start by running a disinformation campaign to turn citizens against each other, then would purge large swaths of the resisting power structure using slaughterbot-type approaches. Areas of significant political resistance would be wiped out using chemical weapons, or even nuclear weapons. The weapons of the U.S. Military turned against the population of the U.S. would be efficiently horrific at reducing resistance. Oh, you think the U.S. Military wouldn't do that? Nazi Germany is calling and they want their history lesson back.
• bsder 7y ago
  Drones are probably more effective than guns nowadays. Because of drones, you have to re-secure an area over and over and over while the attacker can move around.
• dang 7y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21125050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21125050 and marked it off-topic.