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The 2nd isn't really to protect you from the combined might of an oppressive nation-state. If it gets that far, its really already too late. The 2nd is to prote
by noonespecial 12y ago
The 2nd isn't really to protect you from the combined might of an oppressive nation-state. If it gets that far, its really already too late. The 2nd is to protect you from Bob down at the police station in Podunksville deciding that he might like to have a go at running the town his way and helping himself to your stuff. Its the safety valve on the local-est kind of corruption.
- dragonwriter 12y agoThe 2nd was initially more to assure the states the means to protect themselves against encroachment by the central government (and thereby dissuade such encroachment), a concern that was within vivid living memory for the framers, and was of particular concern to skeptics of the centralization that the Constitution represented compared to the Articles of Confederation. Like all of the Bill of Rights, it was about constraining the Federal government, not the Podunksville Police.