Trump admin bans Bump Stocks

[Belsnickel]

(05-20-2019, 05:28 PM)fredtoast Wrote: You are a bigger history buff than I, but from what I have read the founding fathers always talked about the militia being organized and fighting FOR the government instead of rising up against it.

It was impossible for us to have a tyrannical government under the Constitution so I don't see how they could contemplate 2nd Amendment Constitutional protection having any meaning in regard to fighting tyranny.  If there was a rise of a tyrannical government then any Constitutional amendment would be meaningless.

Indeed, the amendments would then become meaningless and there would be cause for revolt. It would be a good thing that up until that point the citizenry had been allowed to remain armed, would it not?

Look, I will not disagree that one large component of the 2A is to allow for protection of the country in case of war. The founders feared a standing army because of the risks to liberty that it brought with it and so a militia was more acceptable. They also, though, saw the need for an armed citizenry because with it is an inherent equality of the people. They came from a society in which only the more well off were allowed to be armed, and that was used as an oppressive tool against the lower classes. An armed populous is a way to ensure the democratic representation of the people, at least that was the thought process during the time.

Now, with a standing army and a militarized police force, there is even more reason for the citizenry to be armed. Not less. The government having the power of life and death over its citizens is not a democratic ideal, it should be the other way around. Giving up the right to firearm ownership for security/order is something more in line with conservative ideology, even, when looking at the original and modern dilemmas of government.