Oh really?   Huh.

Still Harry Reid is a corrupt dick.

The only reason he's is stil in office is because the republicans ran a woman who freaked out even some republicans.

4th I also find it very silly how naive you are that A North Korea style government couldn't exsist over here should we relenquish or right to bear arms AND what do you think would happen to a dictator like Kim Jong Un or any of the other regimes you mentioned actually allowed their citizens/subjects to bear arms? Something tells me their regimes wouldn't last very long. Even in places where they have managed to gain access to firearms i.e. Syria the government uses chemical agents and other heavy arms to suppress them.

It's not only an increasingly overbearing government, but the fact that there is also increasing sectionalism (though in a mass media and communications world, it's less geographical and more cultural) to the point that our entire politics is based around trying to win control of said overbearing government just to spite the other side and force them to eat as much shit as they can over the next four years. At some point after the Civil War, the Tenth Amendment and the idea of states rights became demonized as a stalking horse for racists and neo-Confederacy, which is sad because it's the solution to so many of our problems. Not that I'm sure these people would go for it, anyway, because they are obsessed with spiting each other too much to want to get out of each other's hair and just live their lives. They want to slash the hated Other's throat, and drink his blood, and howl in victory... politically speaking, of course (for now).

Of course in a full fledged rebellion there would be no shortage of weapons. In a country that is swimming in guns like this one, even a full on repeal of the Second Amendment would never dry up the supply completely. But most decent people - which is to say most people - want to obey the law. The point of gun control is to make it such a hassle that those people won't even bother with them at all. A little "common sense" gun control here, an arbitrarily banned scary-looking type of gun there... oops, another shooting. That didn't work, so we'd better ban more stuff... It's not a serious attempt to stop mass shootings. No sane person can think such haphazard legislation is going to do that. It's an attempt to kill the Second Amendment by 1,000 cuts because they don't dare to take it on head on.

And the problem is that there's no telling just if or how or when things might progress from our cold Civil War to a low-grade not-so-cold one. I wouldn't necessarily expect it, and I certainly don't assume it's going to happen, but it's always a possibility and such things usually happen sooner than people think is even possible. It's completely unthinkable right up until it happens. As Ukraine is learning the hard way, no good comes from being disarmed. That goes double for being disarmed by people who hate you. It only invites aggression.

So basically your argument is that the right to bear arms is trumped by the superiority of firepower of the federal government? Or is it your assertion that the federal government SHOULD possess the ability to summarily exterminate its citizens with "extreme pejudice?"

Le sigh...

Switzerland actually gained independence in 1648, at the end of the 30-years-war

but i do see what you're going for.

My take on that is that it is terribly naive from a foreign policy perspective (that the founding fathers would think that way), but they seemed to be terribly idealistic in terms of foreign policy in the first place anyway.

Ukraine has plenty of guns, though. Legally or illegally (not sure what their laws are, but a fair few have commented on Ukraine's relatively high gun ownership rate). Crimea i'd argue is more a case in point on my side: if they had tried to shoot back at the Russians, it would have given them excuse to kill or arrest anyone who looked at them funny.

This story perfectly highlights how and why the right to bear arms is necessary to a free society. Most often those who oppose gun ownership or support extreme limitations on gun ownership often scoff at the notion that we need to be armed to protect ourselves from our own government and yet here you have our own governement with its armed bureaucracies (even bringing in Army Rangers!) harassing a citizen and his family, confiscating their livelihood and supressing and attempting to reduce the areas in which citizens could protest their actions peacefully.

The 2nd Amendment isn't about hunting or firing for sport or even so much about self preservation during the perpetration of a violent crime but to ensure that the people could outright and swiftly defend themselves against a tyrannical government.

Kudos to this rancher and all those who showed up to support him.

Ukraine has plenty of guns, though. Legally or illegally (not sure what their laws are, but a fair few have commented on Ukraine's relatively high gun ownership rate). Crimea i'd argue is more a case in point on my side: if they had tried to shoot back at the Russians, it would have given them excuse to kill or arrest anyone who looked at them funny.