“Guns are useless. Obviously, the original purpose of the right to bear arms was to protect the citizenry from being under the thumb of the government with its federal army. Today’s army will not be kept at bay by mere guns.”
I agree that if the federal government decided to declare war on the citizenry, a shotgun is of little use against a tank. I also believe that such an eventuality is exceedingly unlikely, since the army, FBI, police, etc. 1)grew up amongst the people and are recruited from amongst the people, 2)except for active-duty military personnel, live, play, worship, etc. daily amongst the people, and 3)have families and friends amongst the people. In other words, contrary to the rhetoric of militia types, “THE Government” is not some occupying force from somewhere else.
But there’s another government-related reason for people to be able to arm themselves,and it’s both more subtle and potentially more insidious than a government gone mad. A person has to be able to defend themself against criminals because law enforcement cannot be everywhere and cannot reasonably guarantee protection from crime.
I am not making an emotional “crime is out of control and we can only rely on ourselves” argument. Most police officials work hard to protect the public, and feel a moral duty to do so. Many criminals ARE caught or even prevented from carrying their plans to fruition by diligent police work. But even an efficient and diligent law enforcement agency cannot be everywhere and cannot prevent a determined criminal. To make a concrete example: if someone broke into your house, and you immediately called 911, the operator immediately answered, the call went out to a police car within a minute, and the police unit arrived at your house as quickly as possible, the intruder could still stab you and be gone before the police arrived.
The legally-enforcible protections of our Constitution are prohibitions and limits on what the government can do TO people. With a handful of very limited exceptions, the Bill of Rights is not, and was never envisioned to be, a prescription of what the government must do FOR people. I’m not spouting “Bill of No Rights” rhetoric here: the courts have ruled time and again that law enforcement agencies have no legally-enforceable Constitutional duty to protect citizens from crime.
And I’m not questioning the correctness of that rule. If the courts recognized a right to reasonable police protection that was enforceable through a Section 1983 (civil rights) suit, every victim of a crime could sue the local police, and expensive expert witnesses would be needed to prove in each case that the police failure to prevent the crime was reasonable. Needless to say, it’s very hard to prove the reasonableness of an absence of action.
The insidious part comes in because a police department can’t be sued for not protecting someone. While most police are honorable and diligent, if for some reason an individual law enforcement official or agency were to dislike or disfavor someone for whatever reason, and decided not to diligently protect them when they called in an emergency, there would be no legal recourse.
In summary, for the right to life, liberty, and property to be meaningful, people must be able to defend themselves directly, without having to put ALL reliance in the police. And a right to self-defense means little without a corollary right to have a reasonably adequate means of doing so.
