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SECOND_THOUGHTS

                                              February 23-28, 2013

My preferred take on the second
amendment is that it's all about    The trouble I have
preserving a last ditch defense     these days though:
against tyranny.
                                    If some group like the tea
   The founders were                party took to the streets
   revolutionaries, and             with guns, it's hard to
   they recognized the              believe they'd manage to
   potential need for               shoot the right people.
   other, later
   revolutions.                        If people just don't know
                                       what's going on, what good
   I'm not sure why some               can guns do?
   people find that notion so
   ridiculous: it's all about          If the 1st amendment isn't
   the inevitability of                doing it's job the 2nd is
   corruption, and the                 of no use.
   strategy of checks and
   balances.  An armed
   citizenry is just one of
   the checks.
                                              FAVE_A
     The somewhat archaic phrase
     "well-regulated" (not to
     mention "militia") is always
     good for lots of fun, though.           BALANCE_OF_PRAGMATISM

     At the time the bill of
     rights was written, the
     militia was all able-
     bodied males.

       I've yet to see an
       authoritative
       translation of        Another way of taking the 2nd
       "well-regulated",     is that it's a good idea for all
       but my reading is     citizens to own guns and know how
       well-trained &        to use them, in the event that you
       well-supplied.        need to call out the militia.

            So it's possible that                            'Cause you know,
            this function of the                             no one wants to
            2nd has been superseded                          have a standing
            in a world where no one                          army kicking
            thinks twice about                               around during
            spending half the US                             times of peace,
            budget on a permanent,    But might one          right?
            professional military.    want to hold
                                      the door open             Presuming
                                      to a world                you could
                                      without                   find any.
      The need to exercise            eternal war?
      "the revolutionary
      right" in some future                  We might be better off if we
      scenario-- perhaps a                   were not so accepting of high
      far distant future                     defense expenditures and
      scenario-- is harder                   standing armies.  We might
      to get away from.                      try to work toward a world
                                             where a citizen's militia is
      I realize that this                    relevant again.
      strikes many people as
      completely crazy--                         (Via video games and
      "how can a handful of                      civilian drones?)
      gun nuts stand up to a
      modern army?"-- but I
      think it's a more
      plausible scenario
      that many realize.

      I used to need to point out
      to people that poorly armed
      local guerillas have
      advantages against invading         "Mother Jones" is distributing an
      armies, no matter how large         infographic showing that the number
      and well-equipped.  It seemed       of private guns dwarf the police and
      weird to me that the country        military ones-- you're supposed to
      that lost the Vietnam war           feel like this means there are too
      needed to be reminded of            many private guns, but it could also
      this... apparently it only          be taken as evidence that the force
      took ten years or so to             of arms necessary for a citizen
      forget the lesson.                  uprising is not an absurdity, and in
                                          fact it may already be present.
      I gather that lesson has been
      freshly taught to us again:
      this point doesn't seem to
      come up now.


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