Guns, Butter, and Led Zepplin

[kandrathe]

Sometimes it's hard to understand the purpose of the 2nd amemdment to our Constitution, and people like to toss out these red herrings. The right to bear arms is not a crime thing. We don't have the right to bear arms to defend ourselves from burglers or muggers, and we don't have the right to go hunting.

The United States formed from an armed insurrection against British tyrrany, and an armed populace (and a French alliance) was the means by which that was possible. The struggles against the British lasted for 40 years, until the clash of irregular militia against professional soldiers at the Plains of Chalmette, near New Oreleans, in 1815.

It is a stretch to imagine any uprising today standing up against a modern army's firepower, but unlike Tiananmen Square an unarmed protester facing down a tank in most struggles is a casualty. Yet, we are still witness that some struggles for liberty are able to survive in the age of modern warfare at a terrible cost to their peoples.

"We the people" means something in the USA, even though we the people have allowed our liberties to be eroded by federal beaurecrats and liberal hand-wringers. Yes guns are misused and there are gun accidents, and there are murders, and there is gun crime and domestic violence. Guns are not unique in their lethality, but guns are an expeditious tool for killing people. The right to own and use them is not for their misuses, but to empower the people to defend their own liberty.

So, until we develop a way to empower people to defend their liberty with merely rhetoric, weapons will be required. When and if the eventual tyrrant comes to ursurp our democracy, I'd rather have a really big gun than a pitchfork.