Comment by lolcraft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lolcraft | Hacker News Reader

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It was also used, as I understand, as sort of legal allowance to form paramilitary parties with sort of like police powers. So you, as a citizen, could enforce laws when there was no police or army able to do so for you. For instance, in the days of slavery, the 2nd amendment was used to justify groups of armed thugs [1] that hunted black slaves on the run.

I've never understood the logic behind Republicans of the 20th century [2]. AFAICT, they think the 2nd gives them "the right to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government". That's clearly bullshit. First, because what constitutes tyranny changes a lot from person to person, and only legislation can define it clearly and "democratically". Second, because the former means you're legitimizing political violence in a democracy, precisely the system where that kind of shit should not be allowed. So in fact you're just making terrorism, or at least the kinds of terrorism you like, legal, with all the contradictions that would bring. Timothy-McVeigh-like bullshit ensues.

[1] Of course, back then they were considered to be respectable persons that followed the law.

[2] They're not the only ones, of course (cf. Black Panthers, which I personally am more sympathetic to, since IMO there was clearly oppression there), but they're the loudest.

To everyone who assumes that "tyrannical government" is always read to mean "our" government, here's a primer.

1) Everybody should (and probably already does) know that the United States was essentially formed out of that exact type of rebellion. The arms that won us the war of Independence were all provided by private citizens, just as the cannons were, the ships that formed our navy, etc. If we hadn't had private weapons, we wouldn't have had anywhere remotely enough arms to have won the war.

2) The provision allows us to defend against government tyranny, foreign and domestic. This means that we are allowed the right to bear arms to aid in the nation's defense, just as our framers did, in the event that we are attacked on our own soil. To those that would claim "like anybody's going to target the world's largest military" - who is to say that we'll always have a large military? In 100 years, who is to say that someone isn't elected that dramatically repurposes military spending. Arguments that may not be true now are not necessarily always going to be true.

3) Historically, disarming a populace has in many cases resulted in the unfair abuse of those citizens. History is replete with stories where a population, or a segment of a population was disarmed, and those people were subsequently subject to tyranny, or abuse, or genocide.

Having a right to keep and bear arms isn't our only defense against tyranny -- in reality, a reasonable people should exhaust all civic means of defending against it first. When a persons rights are trampled, we have civic and legal recourses for those. As in DC v Heller and Chicago v McDonald, we learned that despite the state's belief that the 2nd amendment may be restricted in certain ways, there are legal recourses against those restrictions. Nobody in DC (to my knowledge at least) was launching an armed protest of handgun laws there, as they should not have.

That said, in the event that the system does not work, or if in 200 years time, it has been perverted to the effect that it does not respect the rights of its people, the 2nd amendment may be the last defense against tyranny.

Everybody should (and probably already does) know that the United States was essentially formed out of that exact type of rebellion. The arms that won us the war of Independence were all provided by private citizens, just as the cannons were, the ships that formed our navy, etc. If we hadn't had private weapons, we wouldn't have had anywhere remotely enough arms to have won the war.

Do US Americans really think it would have been terrible if the British Empire had remained in control and their country turned out like Canada, Australia or New Zealand?

Well we in Australia are so very disadvantaged in that not only are guns hard to buy, but our banks are strongly regulated too. Oh, and don't forget about Medicare, all those doctors being paid by the government. It's depressing.

Do US Americans really think it would have been terrible if the British Empire had remained in control and their country turned out like Canada, Australia or New Zealand?

Absolutely. We didn't then want to bow before your King then, and we do not wish to bow before your Queen today. We did not wish to put down as poor and malnourished servants as you did with Ireland, nor did we wish to be slaughtered en masse, or divvied up and split like you did with India.

We choose to lead ourselves, to make our own decisions, come good or bad. And, last I checked, we've faired better historically from an economic standpoint than all of the other former colonies of Britain, and even Great Britain its self - all of which took great instruction from the lessons we taught on self-governance.

I find it shockingly surprising that someone would come and defend any of the European colonies as being good for the rest of the world.

I appreciate your response, and I also appreciate the wonderful spirit of freedom embodied in American culture. However, I can't help but find it ironic that the United States' celebration of freedom harks back so strongly to a war with a country that has been its closest ally for the best part of a century.

Not a problem, and I do apologize if my tone was a bit strong there, I've often found that Europeans (not all, but some) look down their noses at Americans as if we were in need of their salvation. When, our history often guides us to be both helpful to and suspicious of Europe and its goals.

Most Americans have no particular issue with the UK or Great Britain, we simply recall our history as having been formed to offer an alternative to Monarchy. We do often feel that in the 20th century, we have given more than we have received. (Right or wrong.)

While some far-left-leaning Americans may long for a country more like those of Europe and the UK, the majority, in my experience, prefer things as they are. Notably, our culture may seem aggressive, dangerous, and out of control to you - but to us, we see a stark difference between what we see as "Liberty," and what Europeans tend to call "Freedom." That is to say, it often seems to me that in the US, the concept is "Free to," whereas in Europe it appears to be "Free of." I do recognize that such a view may not be wholly truthful, but it is how many of us approach the issue here.

Notably, while some in our society would prefer to regulate the behavior of others through the threat of state violence (as is done in Europe to prevent unwelcome speech, or religious display), this tyranny of the masses is often held in check in the U.S. by the guiding principles which may seem absurd to you, but have proven to be effective throughout the course of our personal history. There are many of us who find those principles very much instructive, especially because of the discomfort they cause.

A very well presented explanation. thank you.

I think that probably most US Americans would agree that it is, but mostly that's just because all people are indoctrinated into local patriotism. For whatever reasons you consider your country to be great, those reasons would apply to us as well.

People, by and large, root for the home team.

In America especially, our history books are filled with our victories, and how our revolution framed this great nation, while simultaneously omitting the horrors we committed against Native Americans. We're raised to sing "My Country Tis of Thee" and sing the Star Spangled Banner before sporting events.

We're taught about our Constitution, and our Constitutional rights, and for sure, we're taught that democracy is better than monarchies, dictatorships, patriarchies, and non-representative forms of government. If you ask anybody over the age of, say 35, how they feel about communism or socialism, they would undoubtedly tell you that it's evil. They grew up in the aftermath of the cold war, and all the popular media at the time was about spying on mother Russia, and all that nonsense. We had Rocky IV, Red Dawn, etc. I do not know, but I suspect that all localities do this, whether subconsciously or purposefully I don't know, but I believe that all people are indoctrinated to what's nearby.

For these same reasons, most people, generally speaking, adopt the religions of their parents, etc., etc.

Whether or not we'd be better off is an entirely different conversation, and there's no way that we can really know for sure, but if you ask 100 Americans, I'd be surprised if less than 98 of them told you that would in fact, be the most terrible thing in the history of terribleness, right or wrong.

Not quite sure how to say this, but what makes you so sure those countries would have turned out as they are had world history been altered by the U.S. doing things differently? You seem to assume their history is in a vacuum in some sense, unimpacted by British interaction with us. I see no reason to make such an assumption.

Yes, this is a good point, thanks.

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