If you think things are bad now, then, brace yourself: it is about to get a whole lot worse. If you are alarmed at the speed with which the Trump administration has set about dismantling every institution of American government and every pillar of the international order, you must understand that this is not just the initial burst of activity, the “shock and awe” phase after which things will settle down: if anything, the pace will continue to accelerate.
The world has never before been faced with such a threat. The United States has handed the nuclear codes to a madman, a criminal, a would-be dictator and a moron, all in the same person. Whatever the purpose to which he directs these powers – to impress his dictator friends, to further enrich himself and his cronies, to seize absolute power or just to watch the world burn – we must hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
They already have it.
The 2nd amendment.
Ah yeah, my semi automatic hunting rifle is really going to stop the armored military and the drones, and the mass data collection. Me and 1000 other people sure will make a difference right up until they shut off the internet and mow us down.
Tanks, jets, and rocket launchers are good against other armies. They’re pretty shitty against anonymous civilians. It’s why the US lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And in the US, the civilians would have 2 other advantages:
Only if your army isn’t willing to go on a genocide.
We live in a budding techno-fascist police state. Your argument depends on anonymity. That is almost completely lost on the modern America. Hong Kong is one if many examples over the last 15 years. They’ll find you. They’ll disappear you. Sure. Buy yourself a gun and load up on ammo. It will do you lots of good when they break your door down if you actually prove to be a credible threat.
People don’t have to be part of an organized, traceable resistance when everyone has guns and the targets aren’t military in nature.
United Healthcare lost its CEO to a random dude lone gunman while he was walking down the street.
The idea is to make everybody a potential threat to those who abuse power. But one side of the political spectrum decided that guns are bad and disarmed themselves, so 90% of the guns are owned by fascists.
The US has way better surveillance of irs own cotizens than it had of Afghanistan. They will send Homeland Security after any militia before it becomes a credible threat to them.
If the end result is the same, fighting is the only choice.
Search for “Winter on Fire”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w
can’t get it without logging in
I agree that a full scale war against the US military using small arms is probably not likely to go well for those attempting it, but assassinating a president is a different thing altogether. America has assassinated many presidents.
Luigi mangione is being tried as a terrorist with the maximum sentencing of the death penalty
Just sayin’
What Luigi did was just.
However, the 2A is specifically, ahem, targeted at removing government.
The 2A was about maintaining state militias to catch runaway slaves and to suppress slave rebellions. The south wanted it, the north didn’t care. At the time the amendments were being written, here was little to no discussion of the idea that an armed citizenry would be able to resist state tyranny. They had just fought a revolution and had a very clear idea of what it took to break away from England. It was a lot more than farmers with hunting rifles or posses of slave-catchers.
I’m not saying that armed resistance is not necessary. I’m just saying the 2A was never really for that. But there are many examples of barely armed citizen’s movements overthrowing governments. Without compliance, without legitimacy, their power can be broken.
I’d somehow never heard this argument before, so I found some random article about it: https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2023/06/slavery-militias-and-methodologies-thoughts-on-carl-boguss-madisons-militia
I can’t speak to the quality of the source above, but they argue that your basic thesis is true, but is not the full story. All the former colonies (including non-slave states) wanted militias instead of a peacetime national military, which was as much or more of a driver for adoption of the 2nd amendment than the idea of using militias for appearing slave rebellions.
But that’s just literally the first article I read about it, so I dunno.
The other data point that’s useful is that, in the Continental Congress and in the political debates that led to the writing of the Constitution, there were constant complaints (mainly from the southern states) that northern states were negligent in maintaining the readiness of their militias. After the Constitution was written, this continued, and was one of the main reasons that US military leadership was predominantly southern: they got early military experience in their state militias.
The GOP shows that yes, you can say the quiet part aloud and still have supporters
I agree that what he did was just, the government which is supposed to uphold the 2nd amendment does not was my point.
Yeah lol that would never happen.
If americans can’t even form strong, lasting peaceful protests how could they form an armed resistance against literally the most advanced and powerful military in the world? Even US police is equipped with military APCs - what is your glock gonna do about that?
The 2nd amendment never made sense in the contemporary world. The casualty rate would be 1 to HUNDREDS just through sheer technological and skill difference and no uprising can possibly sustain that.
Removed by mod
Yeah but this sort of cartoon type of dictator is not realistic.
They always have some public support and as long as you lie and control some useful idiots it’s never going to be an ideal rise up people think it would be. It’ll be chaos with some resistance that’ll be marked as terrorists and nothing will be clear enough for “taking down some baddies with me” scenarios.