Is this a dumb question, or is there a real contradiction here?

[Ohioboy]

If the 2nd Amendment exists to help the citizenry fight against a tyrannical government, why are so many 2nd Amendment supporters in favor of a strong military? I'm not trying to generalize here, but just about every 2nd Amendment supporter I know wants the military to be as big and bad as possible, all the while thinking he'll be able to take it on barricaded inside his house some day.

[Voltaire2]

1. They intend to use them to kill all the libruls

in a “cut down the tall trees” Rawanda style civil conflict.

[liberal N proud]

2. The 2nd Amendment was really aimed at building a militia, not owning a personal arsenal

By militia, they were thinking in terms of the national guard which is controlled by the states.

The NRA and gun industry have twisted it's meaning.

[unblock]

4. Their argument is that the original intent of the first part of the 2nd amendment was

was to make the second part be interpreted exactly the same as if the first part had never been written.

That’s right, the framers carefully debated and chose every word in that very important document but decided to include a few completely useless words just to mess with us.

[unblock]

3. The military cant be used domestically

And for some reason they think a tyrannical government will go down in defeat by a handful of yahoos with a few assault rifles rather than violate that sacred rule.

[Phoenix61]

5. They have failed to understand that no matter

how big and bad the gun they own is, if the government wanted to "take control" it would be completely useless against the tanks, planes, grenade launchers etc that the government would deploy against them. They are dumber than a box of rocks.

[friendly_iconoclast]

6. Why, then, hasn't our military taken control of Afghanistan?

[Phoenix61]

7. What exactly does that have to do with

what I said. Comparing a war zone to a high-school doesn't make sense.

[friendly_iconoclast]

8. The Taliban never had *any* tanks or planes-- but they're still there, and still a threat

https://news.google.com/news/search/section/q/Taliban/Taliban?hl=en&gl=US&ned=us

That's after sixteen years of fighting the US+NATO+FSM knows who else, all of which have
"tanks, planes, grenade launchers etc"

[Ohioboy]

12. You make an interesting point. However

I don't think our military hasn't taken control of Afghanistan because of resistance; I think it's because of the way we fight wars these days. There are rules of engagement, and we don't go to war to gain territory or totally defeat our enemies anymore. I'm sure with the might of the American military we could make Afghanistan the 51st state if we wanted to, but that's not the goal. We always seem to fight wars half assed, as a third party that goes in, routs one side of a dispute and funds and trains the other side, hoping they can carry on the battle for us. We get into wars, not to win them, but for things like keeping the flow of oil going to the world market.

[Generic Brad]

9. The same people endorse free speech but want us to STFU

Yes. There is a contradiction. That's all they have.

[TheBlackAdder]

10. Military, ex military, paramilitary and those from overbearing households embrace fascism more.

It's something that they are used to. They are used to living in a rigid environment or nanny state.

They are actually fearful if there are too many free decisions, options, and variables in life.

[X_Digger]

11. Why do you think that such a conflict would be symmetrical?

It doesn't matter how big and bad your tanks and drones are if you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. Especially not in your own country.

See e.g. Vietnam or Afghanistan.