Flyers

Flyer “Intention”

Flyer “Original”, 2018

Scaled Overthrow

Part of the intent of the 2nd amendment is fighting bad government. This doesn’t mean contending with the US airforce. It means the capacity for enough people to fight and overthrow local government, and local governments to unite to overthrow regional governments, and regional governments to unite and overthrow the US federal government, if such is necessary to get rid of bad/tyrannical government. That is to say, the 2nd amendment is intended to translate the dire will of the people unto government.

The intent of allowing a chain of overthrow means that each level should have the capacity to overthrow the level above. If enough citizens got together, they should be able to overthrow the city government. If enough cities got together, they should be able to overthrow the state government. And if enough states got together, they should be able to overthrow the federal government. Consequently, to allow this, the level below should be allowed the arms necessary to counter the arms held by the level above. For instance, if a local government has tanks, the citizens should be allowed anti tank weapons.

Unwarranted Fear

There are all sorts of things that can be acquired and used for the purpose of destruction and terror – Cars, pressure cookers, toxic substances. If someone was creative and motivated enough, they could do a lot better than a gun. Instead, the issue is the uncreative, psychologically unstable person on medication (like SSRIs) who, { either through video games, or from the spectacle of mass shooting that media has provided, or from government agents }, gets the idea to go on a mass shooting. It is the sick, anti family, unconnected, medicated culture which provides the type of person that goes on a mass shooting, and it is the absence of widespread gun carrying that allows mass shootings to be successful.

In considering a limitation on the Second Amendment, If you look at something like an RPG that might be used in a militia against bad government, it has little practicality for psychotic mass shooters. Even something like a full auto machine gun has limited utility in most mass shooting scenarios. The rate of fire on machine guns is so quick, the magazine is quickly expended. Consequently, a mass shooter would have to spend a considerable amount of time switching magazines rather than firing on individual targets, and would also have to carry a considerable number of magazines. Perhaps useful for indiscriminately firing at a crowd from a distance, but not useful for the short range usually involved in mass shootings. In the scenarios where a full auto machine gun could be useful, a bomb, or multiple bombs, or various gases would be even more useful.

The fear of the more destructive weapons that might be used in a militia is unwarranted due to cost and practicality. The most effective weapon for a mass shooter is a high capacity hand gun.

Practical Limitations

The limitations to the right to bear arms can be based on:

• What is useful for self defense
• What is useful for a militia, as a force multiplier
• What is the location

That last one, location, is the mitigation against the modern danger of terrorism, and it is already actualized. Sports stadiums don’t allow weapons in. This is practical for both preventing drunks from shooting people and preventing terrorists from shooting people. However, it creates the situation where if someone did manage to get a gun in, that person would be uncontested except for the unreliable event security. A better solution would be to allow people in with personal protection hand guns. In this way, terrorists would be killed, and drunks or those incapable of managing their right to bear arms would also be killed.

Gun Culture

When you have a high prevalence of carrying guns, you get some results:

• People who do not have the maturity to bear arms either get killed and exit the gene pool or learn not to bear arms. That is to say, the culture auto corrects any pre-existing deficiencies in responsibility of bearing arms
• Criminality of various sorts becomes fatal. Consequently, you both immediately reduce crime and remove criminals from the gene pool.
• People rely less on police for their protection. Consequently, they stop being bootlickers.
• Police become much more respectful of the public. If you watch interactions between police and the public where the public is armed, the police are much more respectful. Even though it is entirely unlikely a normal citizen would use a gun on a policeman, the option and the threat keeps cops in line. There is a saying – an armed society is a polite society. This applies to police and public interactions as well.
• Citizens become more likely to stand up against bad government. When it is only police that are armed, the police become the god to fear in the community. If, in a town meeting, everyone was armed, if someone who had the support of the town was speaking out against the bad government, that person would be less likely to be ejected by police from the event at the request of the bad government. Not only would the police be less likely to want to confront a popular opposition, but the opposition would be less willing to comply.

There is a proposal I hear from some people that we should only give the right to bear arms to those who have been certified after instruction. The problem with this is in creates a barrier to entry, which greatly reduces the number of people who will cross that barrier, regardless of how easy it is to cross, and that will prevent the emergence of a gun culture.

Notes

For the discussion at the time of writing the Second Amendment, see Document 6, House of Representatives, Amendments to the Constitution, 17, 20 Aug. 1789Annals 1:749–52, 766–67