Do you believe that the Second Amendment is arcane?

[Benjamin Frank]

The Second Amendment is not arcane, the problem is the gun nuts have told all sorts of lies about what it does and doesn't protect.

There was a ruling today by the 9th circuit that contradicts this, but the precedents are actually very clear going back to the Supreme Court endorsing the banning of sub-machine guns in the 1930s.

While the courts obviously aren't going to ban any weapon themselves, with the exception of this 9th circuit ruling, the courts have made it clear that guns that are in line with the type of guns that existed at the time of the writing of the Second Amendment are protected.  The only guns that existed at that time were flintlocks and muskets.  The modern equivalent of those are handguns (flintlocks) and shotguns and rifles (muskets.)

Obviously there is some gray area regarding especially what constitutes a 'rifle' as opposed to a 'military style assault weapon', which seems to be at the heart of this latest ruling as well, but contrary to the lies from the gun nuts, there is a well established precedent that 'military style assault weapons' are not protected by the 2nd amendment.

So, for instance, when the gun nuts claimed that Beto O'Rourke was 'attacking the Second Amendment' they were lying.  The types of weapons O'Rourke referred to have been defined as 'military style assault weapons' and they are not protected by the Second Amendment.

Given the popular support for guns in the United States, I don't think there is a need for an amendment to protect them from being made illegal, but I also don't think that a fundamental right to own handguns, shotguns and rifles for protection of life and property or for hunting or other sporting purposes is a problem in itself either.

I think if more people were aware of the actual facts based on court precedent of what actually is and isn't protected by the Second Amendment, it would be a lot less of an issue, itself, but liars are going to lie.

The debate would then move to the legislative ground and with the public over whether 'military style assault weapons' should be made illegal or not unencumbered by this lie that they can't be banned.

[Benjamin Frank]

A 2nd civil war will not happen, but if it did, it would be fought by the US Army divided in 2, not by the people themselves. People would be conscripted into the army and forced to fight. And of course the army would supply them with weapons.

What you say is accurate for an insurgency type of assymetrical warfare, but not for a conventional civil war.

A civil war would likely look like the Syrian Civil War. Even though that is largely "conventional," there is still an important role for militias to play, supplementing the regular army.

The common refrain that the side with jet planes and tanks will cruise to victory has not been born out in conflicts in the past 20 years.

Syria hardly has the might of the U.S military (including the technology.)