It’s also worth noting (though Lemmy is a horrible venue for discourse on the topic) that the prevalence of firearm ownership in the US is itself a function (likely an intended one, by the framers) of 2A.
So many of the measures that could, immediately or eventually, be used either directly or as a legal springboard, to move toward gun restrictions or confiscations see immediate and stiff resistance from the GOP, gun lobby, and most importantly big chunks of the population who are fun owners, who are basically given a personal stake and being incentivized to do so.
So many of the gun control measures being proposed would be dead on arrival due to the dual truths that guns are already widespread in the country and that many such laws would make criminals out of law abiding citizens. This makes it hard or impossible for them to gain any traction whatsoever.
While I agree that the “I need my guns for when the government turns on its people next week” crowd is delusional, I also feel that it’s a chicken/egg situation: part of the reason why that’s an unreasonable threat is because guns are so ubiquitous. The government doesn’t even attempt to go down that rabbit hole partially because it’s such an impossible feat.
I also think that while yes, that doomsday scenario isn’t happening anytime soon, that it certainly could happen, after many decades of gradual change and gradual decline. And while personal gun ownership may not do much good against the government now, in the event that the course of the future took us down that dark route, personal firearms could very well do a private citizen a lot of good then in resisting any opponent, government or otherwise. But of course they wouldn’t be able to get their guns back in that scenario if they allowed them to be taken away beforehand…and prevalence of ownership and political resistance is the best and easiest insurance against all of that.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 year ago
No, it was 100% intentional. All able bodied men below a certain age were legally obligated to muster with their local militia, and they were likewise legally obligated to provide their own firearm. The gov’t had already granted itself the right to raise and equip an army, so the idea that 2A applies to the gov’t being allowed to arm itself is patently ridiculous. No, the idea was that individuals would own firearms, and would undertake some form of training (or regulation) in their use, and that would make them fit for militia duty.
From that perspective, it’s clear that the founders intended the people to have access to and own weapons fit for military service.
I agree that it’s unlikely that the people should need arms to resist the gov’t, buuuuuuuuuuut it’s happened, and it’s happened in recent memory. The Bundy clan had an armed standoff with the gov’t in the 2010s over their illegal grazing on BLM land, and the gov’t ended up being the ones to blink first. (Also, the Bundy’s won in court over that; the gov’t did some pretty egregiously illegal things, and te judge tossed the whole case out with prejudice.) You can also go back to standoffs and insurrections by Native Americans in the 70s, standoffs that the Native Americans ultimately won. Moreover, we have a strong current of fascism running through our current politics; IMO, the idea of willingly giving up arms when the fascism supporters control the House, and have overrun the judiciary is madness.