3 ms·

> we decided to have a highly unequal society and then arm them with the means for violence. "we" did no such thing. It always interests me that certain topica

> we decided to have a highly unequal society and then arm them with the means for violence. "we" did no such thing. It always interests me that certain topically defined discussions happen without any notion of class. the US was defined by a group of people wanting to get away from the oppression of their own class, but who were in another country. they used among other things, guns to do it, and expected that the cycle would continue. the guns are there because underlying even our modern, advance systems of government lies the primeval bedrock of force. who has it and whos willing to use it, which group vs which group. the encoded right of all people to the backstop of force for their beliefs is an acknowledgement of that fact. I'd love to see more of a requirement of training and social interaction to own any semi-automatic weapon as a means to dampen the unfortunate side effects of gun ownership in America today, but let's not pretend the 2nd amendment comes out of a unified (vs adversarial) view of how to run a society.

itsanaccount 3y ago
the original comment i was replying to seems to have been completely deleted so i was re-parented to the remaining comment? odd
mempko 3y ago
Remember though, the 2nd amendment was pushed by James Madison who represented a slave owning state. During that time, the south had 'well regulated militias' which served as slave patrols, capturing runaway slaves and stamping down slave revolts which were common in that time. The southern states feared a strong federal government because they feared they will lose their slave holding powers, including losing the ability to have these militias controlling the slave population. You always have to read content in it's historical context. In other words, the kind of 'oppression' the wealthy class feared was the ability to lose their primary business of owning slaves.

itsanaccount 3y ago

the original comment i was replying to seems to have been completely deleted so i was re-parented to the remaining comment? odd

mempko 3y ago

Remember though, the 2nd amendment was pushed by James Madison who represented a slave owning state. During that time, the south had 'well regulated militias' which served as slave patrols, capturing runaway slaves and stamping down slave revolts which were common in that time. The southern states feared a strong federal government because they feared they will lose their slave holding powers, including losing the ability to have these militias controlling the slave population. You always have to read content in it's historical context. In other words, the kind of 'oppression' the wealthy class feared was the ability to lose their primary business of owning slaves.