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> I’m not sure how we push back against authoritarianism?

This is one of the reasons why the 2nd Amendment is a good thing. However in the UK they lost track of why a population needs to be able to defend itself when a tyrannical regime tries to take over…

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I'm a gun owner and a believer in the natural right to keep and use tools. But small arms in the context of modern government technological authoritarianism amounts to little more than a security blanket - telling yourself both that you can protect yourself from it, and also that things aren't bad enough "yet". But at best you can go out in a blaze of "glory" while further contributing to the system's advance.

History is full of examples showing that you're wrong. That is not the best case scenario at all. Is it a possible scenario? Sure, but not the best case or only case by any means. The country itself is founded on examples of you being incorrect.

I don't really know what you're referring to from history, given that this level of technological development and fine-grained agile government/corporate perception/control is a pretty recent phenomenon. Our society is no longer kept in line by force projection from groups of humans with small arms, but rather surveillance tech, dispatchable forces, and the economic advantages of specialization/cooperation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA

2A arguably protects anything from steak knives to nukes, despite what tyrants in power say.

People owned warships, cannons, etc privately at that time it was written. If people shouldn't have arms such as nukes or f-15 and 'scaled up weapons' the 2A should be amended to exclude some arms.

Sure, I've made this argument myself. I don't see its relevance to what I've said here.

The relevance is neither the historical basis nor text restricts 2A to small arms, so why are we restricting the conversation to precisely their effectiveness?

>>...2A...

> But small arms in the context of modern government technological authoritarianism amounts to little more than a security blanket ...

I didn't mean to direct focus onto just small arms. The same dynamic applies with explosives, cannons, fighter jets, etc. For example, does having a ready-to-go tank in your back yard eliminate the problems with not getting a building permit?

The point is that focusing on weapons is futile when society is no longer ordered by overt force but rather economic/pragmatic attractors. In the western world the battle based on physical force has essentially been fought and won permanently - the result is democracy which is a similar dynamic without most of the violence. If a critical mass of people come together and want to change things, then that happens. The system has responded by dividing people into tribes and diverting them such that a critical mass opposed to the system itself doesn't actually happen.

I dunno. Small arms + blankets + petrol beating out an occupying force is pretty common. Hamas is building rockets out of drain pipes. What really matters is the morale to actually pull together and fight which is completely non existent in the western world. We need to become a lot less comfortable before anyone will do anything. Especially "British" "People".

Resisting occupation or engaging in terrorism against a foreign power are completely different scenarios than pushing back against democratically blessed bureaucratic overreach.

The KillDozer is an appropriate example. I cheered for that guy, along with many others. Some of the corrupt town officials got their comeuppance. But what did it really accomplish systematically?

When people criticize small arms in terms of resisting government, its usually because the government has better toys, and assume they would simply roll over the problem with tanks and planes. Thus you work your way back around to an occupation scenario.

The issue is that those toys have workarounds, especially for locals. The soviets ran into these problems several times. Sending tanks piloted by locals to put down locals often ended in a stalemate or worse (The locals cant tell whose piloting the tank, the tankers can identify their neighbors however)

If you want to narrow things down to guns keeping local politics straight, there was that recent business with the hardware store shotgun vs Shinzo Abe. The shotgun gentleman seems to have gotten every single demand met.

> When people criticize small arms in terms of resisting government, its usually because the government has better toys

But that is not the point I'm making. Like sure, I agree that a militia wielding small arms can resist an invading army, say in the case that the US military was defeated or didn't respond to an area because it wasn't considered strategic enough.

The point I am making is that it's fallacious to think that weapons can do anything to push back against homegrown democratically approved bureaucratic tyranny. As I said in another comment - how can a gun, explosives, or even a tank alleviate the problems you will face from not getting a building permit?

Secession?

But this is what I'm talking about... Keep following that idea to flesh out the details. If there are enough people on board to make it an actual secession, then you also have enough voting power to just get friendly people into city hall and either eliminate permit requirements or at least rubber stamp them.

If there aren't enough people for that, then it's not actually a secession but rather just a few rebellious people the bureaucracy will eventually grind down. And the hyper-individualist suitcase nuke idea from Snow Crash is quite compelling, but so far seemingly untenable.

And neither one does anything about the extra-governmental system of control when you go to sell your house and the bank cartel sets the price much lower due to all the "unpermitted" work.

A big problem the communists had during Tiananmen Square was that PLA units were generally assigned to the localities that they drew their soldiers from. So Beijing was covered primarily by Beijinger soldiers. This was problematic because it turns out they didn't want to shoot their own, so they had to bring in PLA units from far away before the crackdown could really begin in earnest. They corrected this problem by mixing up units (so PLA units are stationed from places far away from where the soldiers were sourced). They also added actual riot police in the form of the PAP so they didn't have only PLA soldiers with tanks to put down internal insurrections.

As far as resisting "government" in a democracy, it is much more likely that one side of an ideological divide wants to subdue the other (or both want to subdue each other using force). More like Republicans vs. Democrats and not really the people vs. the US military. One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

The primary reason a government in control of a strong military (e.g. U.S.) wants to restrict private gun ownership is so that they can scare the populace indirectly by means of rampant crime, riots, etc. which they tacitly permit (or secretly encourage) The population is thereby forced to go along with ever more draconian laws and regulations because their safety is (or is perceived to be) threatened.

The 2nd Amendment is worded as a conditional ("since well-trained militia is required for the state security, the citizens must be allowed to bear firearms") and its premise is actually false, so shouldn't it, technically speaking, have lost its legal power?

No, and your understanding of it is not reflected by the SCOTUS. You do not need to be in a militia to benefit from the 2nd Amendment or access it.

Basically every able bodied citizen male is in the 'unorganized militia' anyway per US code.

I thought he meant it the other way around. Since militias are not required for the security of the state, citizens don’t need to bear arms.

If you’re a male American citizen of a certain age, you are in the militia. Thats what “militia” means—it refers to the part of the citizenry capable of military service.

Fair enough as it's a very loose definition and doesn't require formalities or any kind of actual restrictions on the right.

Historically it did. The Second Congress passed two Militia Acts in 1792, the second of which mandated that each member of the militia buy a musket or rifle along with ammunition and other kit, and to be organized into specific units as directed by their state legislatures.

The Bill of Rights (i.e. the first 10 Amendments) are individual rights. There's plenty of commentary about this, but quoting from the ACLU in particular:

  "The entire Bill of Rights was created to protect rights the original citizens believed were naturally theirs."

https://www.aclu.org/documents/bill-rights-brief-history

The Bill of Righte contained 12 proposed amendments, 11 of which have been ratified.

We've just gotten used to calling it the first 10, because the other one took a long time to ratify.

In the US, the party in favor of unrestricted gun access is also the party that performatively hates porn, so I'm not sure if that would help in this case.

I do not think there is enough data to base this statement on. I am not aware of any high quality surveys or polling or better that would assess what overlap there is between people who highly favor freedom, with those who highly favor the 2nd Amendment, with those who highly oppose porn, with those who highly favor face scans.

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