Dear pedantic shits saying it's a Sig Sauer MCX, not an AR-15, and not an assault rifle: FUCK YOU

[RiverNoord]

231. I've got a friend who is very liberal in every respect except...

that he's a gun nut. He recognizes the dissonance (he just likes working on guns - he's a physics guy who is really intrigued by the physics of guns...), but he does argue the same point - 'someday might need to protect ourselves from a government that's become tyrannical.'

The Constitutional basis for the right to bear arms is not something like 'to maintain the potential for an armed rebellion against a government entity within the United States.' That would be absurd - possibly the most significant event leading to the Constitution (as compared to the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation) was the experience of 'Shay's Rebellion.' It brought about the near-collapse of several New England States in 1786 and 1787.

Here's General George Washington's take on it (he would later state that his primary basis for attending the Constitution Convention was the experience of Shay's Rebellion):

"I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned in any country... What a triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious."

Samuel Adams had this to say:

"Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death."

And the one opinion of the near-civil war at the time that finds its way into gun-nut publications and discourse? Thomas Jefferson:

"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government. God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion."

(Of course, the thing about rebellions is that their success usually results in a collapse of the existing government and its replacement by the successful rebels. His take on Shay's rebellion would logically lead to the end of the United States of America as a result of insurrection at some point - so... not a model for the nation that came into being with the adoption of his (with a few edits) Declaration of Independence.)

Instead, the basis for the Second Amendment's right to bear arms is stated as a 'well-regulated militia,' which is the complete opposite. Literally. Here's one of the powers of Congress declared in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:

"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions"

So militias are for stopping rebellions, not starting them.

And... Article 2, Section 2's 'commander in chief' clause contains this:

"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;"

The Constitution is very clear about the right to bear arms not providing for defense against a tyrannical government, but rather a means for defending against insurrections against the government and having local defenses against potential foreign invasion.

The argument that the right to bear arms is necessary to facilitate protection against a government become tyrannical actually represents a complete scorn for the Constitution and the Second Amendment.