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Dwight, I was referring to the writings of Thomas Jefferson. They wanted the public allowed to be armed to get rid of a tyranical government. That was the purpose a long time ago, It certainly would not be a viable solution today. At the time of the writings we had a representative republic fresh off of a revolution. We also had not had the civil war preventing the states from withdrawing from the union, and we did not have the patiot act where just discussion of such a thing can make you vanish without a trace.

Then again when I watch the news I wonder hmmmm ---- lol.



Taken literally, this could be said of the 2nd amendment, but if you look further into writings not much later than when it was written, you'll find literature such as Blacktone's Commentaries, and in this edition written by St. George Tucker in 1803. Tucker was raised in Bermuda and studied law in Virginia under George Wyeth, the same person who taught Thomas Jefferson. He was also a Revolutionary War militia officer, legal scholar, and later a U.S. District Court judge (appointed by James Madison in 1813).

"This[The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed] may be considered as the true palladium of liberty... The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty."

So the right to bear arms by the public is not only seen as insurance to overthrow a tyrannical government, it is also an inherent right to self-defense.

It is also folly to think that small arms insurrection can have no effect on modern military powers. Afgahnistan was never conquered by the Russians. The US eventually pulled out of Somalia.

"Enthusiasm for armed citizens was not, even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, based on the notion that such citizens could defeat professional armies on their own. The serious argument was always that armed citizens could raise the cost of tyrannical abuse--enough, at least, to give second thought to would-be tyrants."