I personally would prefer to forget about the "what" and focus entirely on the "who", but more on that another day.
In my (rural, libertarian-leaning) home state, firearms owners often explicitly cite some variant of "capacity to resist totalitarianism" or "to defend the American people's liberty against the government" as reasons for having guns.
If, like me, you regard the encroachment of an unconstitutional American surveillance/police state as the primary threat to the way of life and values of the American people, this is a strong argument indeed. In fact I would like to see heavier, more military-flavored weapons proliferate for just this reason, especially since there are diminishing marginal returns for some types of arms escalation. E.g. armor piercing anti-tank weapons or surface-to-air weapons designed for hunting helicopters are not any more useful for shooting up a school than light guns chambered for NATO 7.62. But they have vastly different deterrent effects for a state actor contemplating violence against the populace.
You might argue that this is stupid because if the situation ever devolves to the point of violent oppression, they will just drone strike dissidents' houses invisibly from the sky. But I like to think the main effect of an armed, freedom-loving population is to deter the country's leadership from instituting that level of violent oppression in the first place.
That's because the individuals who wrote the US constitution gave exactly that justification—though people (of course) argue whether or not it is still relevant.
From my perspective, the 1st amendment had a similar justification, so if you really don't buy that _guns_ can keep the gov't in check in any kind of realistic way, clinging to "free speech" as something we absolutely need—for the exact same reason—rings hollow; it doesn't seem like a principled position to me to reject one and embrace the other.
Syria is a great example—for the exact opposite belief that a lack of guns is a terrible way to deal with a repressive regime, and will get you and your family killed.
Syrians are NOT "heavily armed", not even close. Syria is ranked 110th out of all countries in terms of "number of guns per capita".[0] USA has 28.8x (!) as many guns per person as Syria.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_c...
> That's because the individuals who wrote the US constitution gave exactly that justification
The only explanation they gave was "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State". It's a bit ambiguous, despite attempts to insist otherwise.
A militia being "well regulated" (in modern English) by the government that it might need to fight is the opposite of that.
And you also miss the phrase "In order to" as in for example... it was only one of the reasons why the right to bear arms should not be infringed, not the only one. The bill of rights was at the time argued as superfluous as some felt that most people understood that those were inalienable rights and didn't need to be spelled out. Others felt otherwise (with foresight) and wanted stronger provisions, many of which were in the original Articles of Confederation the country was founded under before the Constitution.
Also, the militia act isn't the law, the Constitution is.
The Constitution isn't scripture, written by gods and prophets for whom citizens should try to guess their superior, divine wisdom and intent. It's a political document, written by people as human as we are - well-meaning and flawed; earnest, careless, and horribly corrupt; etc. - just like current politicians. The wording is a compromise among those people, who certainly had many intents. (What is the "intent" of a law passed Congress? To find semi-ambiguous wording that can get a majority of votes.)
Most fundamentally, the U.S. is a democracy (and if you care for the founders' intent, that's clearly a big one), not a secular theological state ruled by the will of dead philosopher-kings. Current U.S. citizens decide the law and what the words mean, majority rules.
Powers that are granted by the Constitution to the government (for example, Congress ability to pass law).
Powers that are implied to be given to the government (for example, the President's cabinet).
Powers that are left out and to be decided by the states and the people at a later time (for example, any new laws that are not in conflict with the Constitution).
And finally, powers that are DENIED to the government (these are powers the government must NEVER have).
Now, let's read the 2nd Amendment: ...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
>shall not be infringed
In other words, the Constitution specifically DENIED the government the power to regulate arms. The government does not have that power. The government was NOT given that power.
One thing to consider is that nothing is a literal absolute in the law; it's not an algorithm. For example, nobody denies the government's right to regulate arms as far as background checks, denying them to criminals, and until very recent history, much more stringent bans on possession - until recently, centuries of American jurists interpreted the law differently, and many still do; were/are they all illiterate? So easily dismissed by online amateurs? Also, government can outlaw advanced arms such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, and fully automatic weapons.
The government also can't regulate speech according to the text - except that it can: Dangerous speech (shouting fire in a crowded, dark movie theater where there is none, or inciting someone to murder), false commercial speech (lying in your ads), slander, etc. are all illegal.
For me it's all about personal freedom. And since most people think the police and military are the only ones that should be allowed guns... I can't think of a reason, outside military training, that anyone in the police or military should have a gun that doesn't apply to someone being attacked in their own home.
Perhaps I just live in an unfortunate part of Texas, but I know a number of people who have performed the mod on theirs… and frankly, among the people I know, these were already there people I was last comfortable knowing owned any firearms at all...
Citation, please?
I'm not aware of ANY AR-15 being converted to automatic and being used in a mass shooting. In fact, outside of a handful of "militia types", I can't think of any at all. The closest thing off the top of my head would be the West Hollywood Shootout back in the 90s, but I believe they used illegally-converted AKs, not ARs.
> Perhaps I just live in an unfortunate part of Texas, but I know a number of people who have performed the mod on theirs… and frankly, among the people I know, these were already there people I was last comfortable knowing owned any firearms at all...
You know a number of people who have committed a federal felony? I'm a huge gun nut and have literally hundreds of friends with large gun collections and know of no one who has manufactured an illegal machinegun.
I guess you run with a rougher crowd...
I would most certainly not call that common and I think either you're around the very small minority or full of it. That modification (illegally done) carries a penalty of 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. I seriously doubt you know people openly willing to share information that could invoke those kind of consequences.