The Second Amendment is about the right of the people to bear arms against an oppressive government
January 14,2013
Vostra Guida
The Second Amendment is NOT about hunting or sporting. It is about the right of the people to bear arms against an oppressive government. We may not have one today, but if you ban guns that can be used to fight against an oppressive government one day, what will you have to stop tyranny if/when that day comes? The attitude that the people could not take on the U.S. military (or whatever portion of it that remains loyal to a future tyrannical government) is not a sound argument. According to the New York Times “at any given time in the past decade, less than 1 percent of the American population has been on active military duty..” That leaves quite a large percentage of the population able to fight (if they are allowed to have guns, of course). And history is repleat with examples of technologically inferior militia defeating an apparently overwhelming and technologically superior force (our own American Revolution for example). In the end, we don’t know what enemy the people might have to face one day, but we cannot voluntarily diarm ourselves and give up the right that the founders saw as fundamental to the survival of the government for the people and by the people:
Americans have the right and advantage of being armed ― unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” (The Federalist, No. 46 at 243- 244)
“It is not certain that with this aid alone [possession of arms], they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to posses the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will, and direct the national force; and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned, in spite of the legions which surround it.” (The Federalist, No. 46)
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government” — Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
“Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the *real* object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?” — Patrick Henry, speech of June 9 1788
“To disarm the people… was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” — George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788
“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms…” — Samuel Adams, in “Phila. Independent Gazetteer”, August 20, 1789
