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I think that the second amendment has been seen by different folks at different times as having different purposes. They include people who like guns as 1) toys (target shooting etc.), 2) hunting instruments, 3) a means of personal and home protection, and 4) that other, more ominous purpose, the means of implementing the “right of revolution”. What that Nevada Senatorial candidate called “second amendment solutions”. That is, some believe that one reason for the existence of the second amendment is so that an armed citizenry can resist an oppressive national government.
Now maybe there is something to that. But I just want to point out that it’s been tried. The only major attempt in our history to implement a second amendment solution occurred in 1861, when approximately one-third of the country rose up against a federal government. They were led by a widely praised general and they reportedly fought very well. Afterwards, they called it “The Lost Cause.”
Now to get a good idea of the prospects of someone succeeding with a modern “second amendment solution”, remember that when that first one started the federal army contained only about 16, 000 men. These days almost half of all of the annual military expenditures in the entire world are spent on the US military and they are widely regarded as being somewhat better than pretty damn good. So, if you think that the second amendment is some sort of pathway for someone to successfully rebel against a federal government controlled by whatever group it is you are most worried about, I think you should take a chill pill. Basically, you would have no chance at all. Unless you are going to go guerilla, which is to say, turn terrorists. If that is the case, then you probably shouldn’t admit it.
We have seen the way to resist tyranny in the modern world. It is the way of Ghandhi and Martin Luther King.
So I think that we should just say that, whatever we think its original purpose may have been, we should now think of the second amendment as being for purposes 1, 2, and 3 and forget about number 4.
So why am I talking about this? Because - #4 - is the phony reason that is used to justify the sale of AK 47s, extra large clips, and all that other military paraphernalia whose only purpose is to kill a whole lot of people before you can be shut down. It is time for all of that to go.
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DROWSY DON (CARTOON)
6 hours ago
I would agree that reason 4 is not a viable argument for having (or allowing) ARs and high volume clips or magazines.
ReplyDeleteThere is, however, another argument that can be made for ARs and that would be a collapse into lawlessness. In 2010 we saw riots in Greece, France, and England. Could it happen in the US? Well, I believe that all of us would be critical of our law enforcement agencies it they did not conduct riot training so most, if not all, of us consider this a real threat. While I feel reasonably comfortable that the US will not, in the near future, have a collapse into lawlessness at the national level a collapse at a local level is not an unreasonable event. In LA in 1992 53 people were killed and 1000s injured in a riot that lasted 6 days. Had I lived in LA I would have felt very uncomfortable defending my family with a single shot 22 or to state it another way, I would have desperately wanted an AR with a lot of ammunition.