The Constitution of the United States of America was written to be the backbone of a new world community that brought together a set of otherwise independent states. These free individuals, who had organized themselves around certain geographic areas, had agreed that binding themselves together to share resources, and have shared services was of mutual benefit to everyone.
The Constitution is the written agreement that was made amongst these otherwise independent states. The purpose was to establish rules, or laws, which could be used to define the relationships between each of the states. If New York had a beef with Virginia, there was now a group of people who would help manage that kind of issue.
The logic goes something like this:
1) I start as free man
2) I agree to be a citizen of the geographic state I am in, and thereby agree to comport myself and my business in agreement with the laws and protocols of that state
3) I agree to be a citizen of the federal union, and thereby agree to comport myself and my business in agreement with the laws and protocols of that federation
4) I agree that myself and other free men make up the governing bodies of both the states and federation
That seems to be about as far as most citizens can immediately agree. It can get very fuzzy and downright antagonistic after that.
It was implied and simply understood that “free man” here, specifically meant actually male, most likely of European descent, most likely Caucasian. Since the 1600’s, the New World had imported slaves in order to improve labor productivity and profit. Indentured servitude had been, and even continued to be, a critical source of labor for colonists in the new world - a debt incurred on behalf of the privilege of traveling from the old world. Once these “slaves’” debt had been repaid, they would be free men once again. However, for the Africans who had been kidnapped from their homes and shipped to the new world, their “freedom” wouldn’t officially arrive until the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which “granted” them the right to vote. Or formally, prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on color, race, or previous condition of servitude. Ratified in 1870, this amendment protected the rights of black men to vote. It did not, however, clarify their effective and ongoing position as second-class citizens.
For some, there is an appreciation of the history of African slaves in America, but acceptance that it is “time to move on”, and move forward with the assumption that, of course, they are first class citizens. For others, there’s a tacit acceptance of this same assumption, but a back-pocket trump card they like to save for rainy days to say, “I told you so”. And still, for others, it is a black and white issues, literally. They see only “good white” and “bad black”, and anything in between is an abomination. This is just to illustrate that people and their thoughts, their behaviors, are quite separate from the ideals they agree to as citizens.
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This year there have been something like 16 shootings at schools in America between January 1 and March 20. That’s more than one per week. In most of these instances, children, young adults, or unsane individuals have stormed into school facilities and killed students and teachers, acting with limited remorse and restraint, if at all.
These killers have brought a variety of weaponry, but the weapon of choice appears to frequently be the Colt AR-15, or one of its many look-a-likes. This weapon is essentially a rifle, much like the Remington 760. The Remington is a very popular rifle for hunters. It functions via a pump-action mechanism. The pump-action requires the shooter to “pump” the weapon to eject a spent round, and load a new one into the chamber for firing. This mechanism is considered superior to previous mechanisms, such as “bolt-action”, which require the shooter to manually place the next round into the chamber and lock it with the bolt. The bolt-action rifle was not available before 1824. The pump action was not available before 1854, and is what many people think of when they think about a shotgun.
The AR-15 has two critical distinctions that make it a superior weapon over just about any bolt-action or pump-action rifle. The biggest disadvantages of using bolt and pump action rifles is the time to fire repetitive rounds, and the time to reload rounds. In military battle, these factors are obviously critical.
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Without going into the entire history of the weapon, the M16 became the weapon of choice for the American military in 1969. This was designed to exacting specifications to enable tactical advantage for American troops. The AR-15, formally manufactured by ArmaLite, now owned and manufactured by Colt, is the “civilian” version of the M16. The biggest, and most significant, difference between the M16 and the AR-15, is that the M16 has a fully-automatic mode, where the AR-15 does not. A fully-automatic mode means that when you pull the trigger of the M16 a single time and hold it, it will continually fire all available rounds from its magazine until it runs out. The AR-15, on the other hand, requires the shooter to pull the trigger for each shot. The firing rate of the AR-15 is essentially “as fast as you can pull the trigger”. The M16, in fully automatic mode, can fire 750 to 900 rounds per minute (faster than you can pull the trigger). The firing rate of the Remington 760 is essentially as fast as you can pump it and then pull the trigger. Because the pump-action requires effort, you generally cannot fire the Remington repeatedly at the same target very quickly. The M16 and AR-15 allow you to quickly fire on the same target very quickly, depending on your ability to manage the recoil of the weapon.
Without any doubt, the AR-15 is intended as a weapon to ensure rapid fire opportunities for its shooter, primarily in security situations. As a downgraded M16, its primary user is obviously intended for domestic security forces, who might require such a weapon for medium to large-scale engagements where automatic reloading and magazines would be advantageous. There is hardly any viable argument that could be made where such capabilities would be considered critical for sport shooting and hunting. Certainly, the AR-15 and M16 could give a hunter an additional advantage over the average elk, but they are hardly at a disadvantage without semi- and full-automatic rifles.
Yet, we all agree - as free men - to be bound by the laws and protocols of our states and our federation. And, our union has agreed to be bound by the idea that there shall be no law which impinges the right to bear arms. Of course, it does stipulate, or possibly presume, that this is necessary for, in order for a well-regulated militia to ensure the safety of our freedoms. The actual text reads thus:
“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
A general and common interpretation of this sentence is that there should be citizens who may keep and use firearms, as part of a well-regulated militia, whose intent is to maintain the security of our free state and union. Those citizens are commonly considered to be the members of the armed forces, and the security they protect is the sovereignty of the union.
Others argue, however, that the people are any citizens. And that they may regulate themselves as they see fit, and that the free state is all free men, more generally. The further argument is that these free citizens are free to form militias with their firearms to protect the general citizenry from the government itself. For example, if a tyrannical dictator were to come in to office, in this hypothetical scenario, these militia would rise up, legally, to protect “us” from the tyranny.
Now. That’s where we are. First. These “others” are incorrect. Their interpretation requires significant leeway in the understanding of the verbiage of the second amendment. I see how you can get to that interpretation, but it is not the immediate and obvious meaning. So, it’s out first on the grounds that it requires too much leveraging of the English language to reach the same conclusion.
Second. Let’s assume there is a tyrannical government. I’ll come back to what that even means later. For now, let’s pretend like it’s something practical that could happen, and that we all agree it’s a “bad thing”. So, what happens next? To start, there isn’t one militia that suddenly rises up and takes out the tyrannical dictator and saves the American populace. There are many of these self-described militias, each with their own doctrine and politics. And they are all, mainly, independent. So, they aren’t likely to all rise up together, or for the same cause. At best a relatively small number could rise up - and let’s be optimistic and say it’s 1000 or even 10000 militia members. The national guard and armed forces are so many orders of magnitude more than that, with so many more weapons, and variety of weapons, training, and tactics... it’s essentially a non-starter. There would be a big fuss, and probably a bigger mess - but the American military would shut it down, and over the course of weeks or months, it would fade. Other militias would lose their courage. And we’d be back at status quo in no time.
But what is a tyrannical government? Who is the dictator in the modern body politic? Governing and politics have become ensconced in so many layers, and so much abstraction, that it’s not clear who is a tyrant and who is just bullish. Who is a dictator, and who is just getting shit done? The lines of political philosophy do not run straight - they curve and intertwine and circle back. The goal of “politics” is to get elected, not to govern. It has become a method of control, rather than an honor of service. And “they” are quite good at it.
So. Anyway. It doesn’t matter if there even is a so-called tyrannical dictator. Half of the militias would support him and the other half would be against him. And it all just cancels out. It’s all just noise.