My only post about guns: Gun rights are NOT like other rights. [View all]

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I am not fundamentally opposed to gun ownership. My dad owns plenty of them. In my extended family many people have guns.

That said, I don't think the right to have a gun is in any way a prerequisite for having a "democracy" or a "free state", as some apparently do.

There is an international consensus of what rights are essential for a place to be considered a "free state". Such are freedom of speech, freedom of the press, an intact and fair electorial process, habeus corpus, and so on.

The "right to keep and bear arms" is not on that list. It is specific for the US. It could vanish tomorrow, and that would be of zero relevance to the question of whether the US is a free state or not. Some countries have strict gun control and are still democracies.

So my point: I don't think it makes sense to put the right to bear arms on the same level as other rights. It is a right that by historical coincidence exists in the US, but not one that is in any way relevant for the integrity of the democratic state, as is for instance freedom of speech. Furthermore, I do not think that private gun ownership is, or has ever been, a deterrance against tyranny.