Eh? How long does Mace stick around?
[shrug] The Second Amendment is in there because (a significant number of) the Framers were small-d democrats in a rough-and-ready sort of way but they didn’t really believe in democracy as distinct from liberty, they didn’t trust it. By now we should have learned that their mistrust was wise in some respects but deeply unwise in most respects.
America is getting to be an old country with a past that contains both good deeds and mistakes. Some would say we are old enough to know better than to make the mistakes we are currently making.
I’m not one of them. If anything, the current state of the country – and the world in general – makes me believe that there are things that can be taught, but more things that have to be learned first hand. I don’t like it, but I believe it.
I’ve always found that oddly contradictory, as armed revolution is treasonous and illegal. There is no provision for legal armed revolution, yet that’s often the foundation gun owners fall back on. Why not just have an amendment for radical governmental change? Like “If more than X% of the people vote a certain way, they get to replace Z amount of laws instantly, without Congressional oversight, with Z new laws, to be effectively immediately”? The guns thing seem unnecessarily complicated, like a James Bond villain’s death chamber
Actually, a couple of states have the Right of Revolution written into their constitutions.
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New Hampshire**
Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
And don’t forget the 9th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which basically says just because a right isn’t mentioned doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
It’s my understanding that there were numerous attempts to redress the grievances that the colonists had with the Court. They were all spurned, or downplayed, and it was only finally when the colonists took up arms that they were treated seriously.
So the founding fathers had a clear concern that, in the future, attempts to redress grievances would similiarly be downplayed by a president/legislative body in the future.
Thus the enshrining of the one tool that (at that point) had never failed to gain the attention of the powers that be… taking up arms.
IANA(P)H, however.
y7xzh1, do you have any questions on our responses?
Anyway, the situation can also be summed up this way. It’s a complex interplay of law, history, and culture. In a nutshell (with some exceptions, of course):
- It is legal to have a gun in the United States.
- People in the United States have always had personal guns.
- It is socially acceptable in the United States to have a gun.
It belongs in the constitution because it is symbolic and demonstrative of the flow of power which the constitution represents. It is indicative that limited power is granted by the citizenry to the state; and that the citizenry retains the power to overthrow that state.
It’s very different to what preceded it - the British constitution, where the flow of power is significantly less clear. There are hints (such as in the Magna Carta) of government being by consent, it is made explicit in the US system of government. It makes complete sense to put such a consideration in a constitution.
Widespread disarmament of the people only creates a situation where the strong may prey on the weak. People like to talk about “gun crime” (or the more weaselly “gun violence” which also includes defensive use of firearms to stop/prevent crime… think about that the next time you hear about “reductions in gun violence”) as if getting rid of guns would get rid of crime.
Not at all. Criminals have the luxury of selecting victims that they expect to be able to overpower and control regardless of the level of force available to them. A 20-year-old street thug doesn’t need a gun to attack a 80-year-old grandmother, but she might need that gun to defend herself.
Also, government agents are just people, too. When it comes to concerns about crime sprees or insane mass murderers, these concerns are equally valid and do not just go away because someone is wearing a soldier or policeman costume. Also, the departmental training for these organizations is often laughably abysmal and the individuals may have no personal interest in firearms and thus not get practice on their own time. Regular gun owning civilians are usually higher skilled and better trained than police in the United States.
Which brings us to the principles expressed in our 2nd Amendment’s prohibition on infringement of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
It’s part of the system of checks and balances. If a tyrant should threaten the security of our free state, we may regain it by force of arms if necessary. So a goodly number of would-be tyrants content themselves with petty corruption and abuses of authority because they know that if they tried anything more there would be push-back.
This has been so effective a system at keeping politicians responsive to the will of the people that I’m only aware of one example in the past 200 years of the US where the people have had to restore their government by such means. Knock on wood.
Many viewed the original constitution as fatally flawed and only supported its ratification due to the commitment to make some changes, thus the first 10 amendments. No guns, no constitution.