MAGAt fools too dumb to understand the 2A was meant to put down insurrectionists like themselves

[f_townsend]

Last edited Mon Jun 12, 2023, 05:09 PM - Edit history (2)

as well as to put down domestic usurpers like Donald Trump (in addition to warding off foreign invaders).

Put down domestic insurrections, not perpetrate them. To squash domestic usurpers, not instill them to positions of power. To protect our elected government, not to overthrow it.

Supreme Court justice Joseph Story, commenting on the 2A in 1833:

https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIs10.html

§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.

The highlighted part echoes the actual (and only) purpose of the "well-regulated Militia" mentioned in the 2A, and earlier, in Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15/16 of the main body:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 15:

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

MAGAts don't know their American history.

What happened in 1787, pre-Constitution United States, when thousands of angry Massachusetts farmers and Revolutionary War veterans formed their own militia to overthrow the (somewhat tyrannical) MA state government? Did the Founding Fathers, who the right wing claims to venerate, approve of the attempt, which was called "Shay's Rebellion"?

Answer: NO. The Founders were almost all unanimous: put the rebels people down -- hard. Outrage and fear over Shay's Rebellion was what prompted Washington to leave retirement and return to public life and attend the Constitutional Convention, where he presided. In many ways, though there were many reasons for its existence, the Constitution came about and was ratified for the proximate reason of putting down domestic insurrectionists who wanted to overthrow a "tyrannical government".

And what happened in 1794, the United States seven years after the Constitution was ratified, when thousands of angry farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania formed their own militia to overthrow the (not tyrannical -- at least not to its own citizens) brand-new federal government and the "tyrant" President George Washington? Did the Founding Fathers, who the right wing claims to venerate, approve of the attempt, which was called the "Whiskey Rebellion"?

Answer: NOT at all! The Founders were almost all unanimous: put the rebels people down -- but...carefully (Washington's directive to Alexander Hamilton, who wanted to see heads roll). This was met with the complete approval of the American people.

Trump and his MAGAts are what the Founders warned us about -- and what the 2A, arming the well-regulated state militias, loyal to our elected government, was designed to put down.

[GenXer47]

1. mmm not really

2A was primarily to put down slave revolts. Dr. Carol Anderson, Emory:

"The language of the amendment, Anderson says, was crafted to ensure that slave owners could quickly crush any rebellion or resistance from those whom they'd enslaved. And she says the right to bear arms, presumably guaranteed to all citizens, has been repeatedly denied to Black people." from NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment

But I hear ya. Chicken-shits bought their guns and immediately flocked to the dictator. This how the SS started in Nazi Germany. Secret police weren't police at all. Just psychos with guns, secretly appointed by Hitler.

[f_townsend]

2. That was one of the unofficial reasons for the 2A's being

as slave revolts, as far as the South was concerned, fell under the category of "domestic insurrections".

[pandr32]

3. This view may be widely believed, but is not factual.

https://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=13815
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/the-1619-distortion-of-the-second-amendment/

[2naSalit]

4. K&R

[CanonRay]

5. It was meant to keep slaves in line n/t

[f_townsend]

6. Read post#2 n/t

[CanonRay]

8. Exactly

[ITAL]

7. Hell

Shay's Rebellion was arguably the reason for the Constitutional Convention period, not just the 2nd Amendment. Many in power saw the powerlessness of the Federal government during the crisis as proof that a new constitution had to be written. The Articles of Confederation made governing almost impossible already, but it had thrown into stark relief its uselessness in dealing with an internal rebellion.