the right to bear arms and how it can be used to defend from big government

[Mr Khan]

badgenome said:

I don't think that their possession of weapons played a role here, but I will say this.

DevilRising said:
1. They would have lost, and lost bad. In fact, if it weren't for a concern over the loss of life to agents and innocent locals, and worrying about election season coming up, the government should have just carpet-bombed the whole lot of them. The point being, they were a bunch of hill-billies, up against trained government agents, with the fucking US ARMY on standby. Tanks, rockets, bombs, actual training, actual educations, you name it.

This sort of bloodthirst is a fine illustration of America's cold Civil War and why no one should ever give an inch regarding the Second Amendment.

Moreover it's why the whole "free militia to protect FREEDOM!" part of the second amendment is silly. The crime prevention people have facts to back them up, the militia folks, not so much.

If the army fails to put down an armed rebellion of US citizens, it will be because the army itself refuses to do so (which happens a decent amount in dictatorships anyway. It's why the August Coup failed in the end of the Soviet Union: the Army refused to kill the Moscow protestors of the coup). And in that case, it is likely that the reason the army backs off is because the rebels have enough moral gravity to not merit being gunned down, but it is the moral standing of the rebels' cause, and not the mere fact that they are armed, which could force the state to back off.

It is equally paranoid to assume that it will ever reach the point where we would need such a rebellion in the first place. It's not entirely outside the realm of possibility, yes, but so far out there that, if we ever reach that point, we'll likely have long since disposed of the second amendment anyway (and like burning phoenix said, regardless of the laws, people will find guns if they really need them, hence the basis of the arguments against gun control. That cuts both ways: if a rebellion really needed arms, a way would be found).

The power fantasies of the militia men are just that: rank delusions. Victories against tyranny are won in the court of public opinion, and not by snipers hiding out in the hills picking off G-men one at a time. Ironically, it's one of the ways in which the fringe right mirrors the fringe left, as the militia wingnut fantasies match the fantasies of left-wing "professional revolutionaries", of dedicated guerillas such as Kim, Mao, or Ho Chi Minh.