The Second Amendment as a whole is not arcane or archaic, but one of the theories about its purpose certainly is. The theory of purpose i'm referring to is that the the right to bear arms is needed so that the people can protect themselves from their own government should their government become tyrannical. That theory no longer has any utility; it's archaic. Our government has nuclear weapons, for Pete's sake. If our citizenry had to go to war against their own government, like a revolution, it is easy to see who would lose.
If you think the federal government is going to deploy nuclear weapons against civilians in the heartland you are either crazy or explaining why in the hell we need guns to shoot bureaucrats in the first place. If they nuke civilians here, they are so fundamentally evil that they should clearly be violently overthrown and its rather defeatist to just say "well if the government ever does become Fascist we should just accept it because Fascists are mean and will hurt us". Besides, the idea that you can police individual neighborhoods and hearts and minds with nukes is lunacy. We arent just going to line up in straight lines in matching uniforms in open fields and await the US Army like a bunch of redcoats. Guns let you shoot the bastard operating the tank from a distance when he gets out to pee. Guns let you shoot the bureaucrat lawyers illegally taking people to court. Guns let you shoot patroling foot squads from a rooftop. If you can get close enough, guns let you assassinate officers and politicians running the fascist machine. And there are 350 million of them in private hands so they can never just round up all the guns. I'm not trying to be rude but Ive always found the "we can never beat dictatorships through guerrilla warfare because NUKES!" argument stupid and ignorant of reality. Look at the politics of the bulk of soldiers. You really telling me they are gonna obey orders to kill american civilians?
Fine, forget about nuclear weapons. The nuclear arsenal exists to serve as deterrant anyway, not in order to be deployed. Nevertheless, the U.S. Military has weaponry and firepower far superior to that of armed citizens, even not including nuclear weapons. Whether you look at the Civil War or at the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, people who have tried to
internally fight the military might of the U.S. have ended up losing. People who think that the United States has turned into a tyranny instead of democratic republic and who intend to shoot at all the tyrants are going to end up with the same fate as Timothy McVeigh. The theory that we need to keep and bare arms so we can defend ourselves from criminals still has utility, but not the theory that we need to defend ourselves from our own government.
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