People need to wrap their heads around this immediately

[Diablo del sol]

They won’t come out and directly, but the message is clear. Their need for guns is for one reason. To protect themselves from a tyrannical government.

Their definition of a tyrannical government, anyone elected who is not a Republican.

[GoldandSilver]

1. Yep...

Anyone that does not agree with them. Fascist mf’ers.

[central scrutinizer]

2. When the second amendment was drafted

The average farmer with his muzzle loader was the equal of a soldier. Today, you would need a nuclear tipped cruise missile in a silo in your backyard.

[Rebl2]

3. Yep

[Rhiannon12866]

4. So they prefer an autocracy??

That's what TFG was proposing with his "Lock Her Up" chant - jailing his political opponents just like his mentor, Putin.

[Claustrum]

5. Actually, a lot of them do come out and say it.

Remember the kidnapping plot for governor Whitmer? Numerous death threats to democratic congressmen?

[Demobrat]

6. I don't believe protection has anything to do with it.

I think it’s all about intimidation and instilling fear. Aggression, not protection.
They can’t get respect so they settle for fear.

[Quakerfriend]

7. They especially want everyone to fear being

‘replaced’ by brown and black people.

[2naSalit]

8. Except these areweapons of aggression.

[LymphocyteLover]

9. Bingo

Republicans are also creating a failed state that fosters the installation of a RW dictator should they have power again

[Lithos]

10. the whole point of the Second Amendment

was to allow a local citizenry to arm and protect themselves from a Slave revolt. The basis comes from concerns of George Mason and Patrick Henry who worried that Federal government's response would be too slow. It was one of the bribes used to bring Virginia into the fold. At the time Madison wrote it, only white men could carry arms and having arms was the only mechanism which white men could defend themselves. In a pro-active sense it signaled to the slaves that any attempt to assert anything above and beyond the status quo would be dealt with harshly.

In a sense, this function of maintaining status quo has now been largely supplanted by the increasingly militarized police force. All that Scalia did was create a diversion and throw a bone to the paranoid in society.

I read somewhere here on DU that the 2nd Amendment should have been scrapped when the 13th and 14th Amendments were passed and I agree.

[Frasier Balzov]

11. Freedom.

Freedom to settle any grievance.

Freedom to express displeasure with anything crossing your path.

Freedom to solve your personal problems, up to and including ending your own life.

[TigressDem]

12. Militias are NOT supposed to be citizens against the government according to the CONSTITUTION

2nd Ammendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.


Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 and 16 OF THE CONSTITUTION defines what a well regulated Militia MEANS



(Clause 15 – The Militia)

[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

(Clause 16 – The Militia)

[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

From the U.S. Senate web site:

Under these provisions, the right of the states to maintain a militia, including what is now the National Guard, is always subordinate to the power of Congress. In 1795 Congress first gave the president authority to call out the militia to suppress insurrections. Presidents employed this power to enforce federal law during desegregation disputes during the 1950s, and later during the civil disturbances in various cities during the 1960s