Last week another crazy struck again and massacred 12 people in a movie theater with an assault rifle. Predictably my favorite progressive podcasts start screaming about gun violence and how we need tighter gun control. Every time something like this happens we go through this same tired old back and forth with both sides talking past each other. Why I find conservatives to be grossly wrong on so many issues, gun control is the one issue I agree with them.
I find it strange that those on the left, who are correct in their logic about drug control and birth control suddenly abandon their logic when it comes to gun control and instead start parroting arguments that conservatives use against legalizing drugs and providing more access to birth control, but with the words drugs and birth replaced with “guns.” Crazy people are going to kill people. They always have and always will. When I went to see The Dark Night Rises I took my gun with me in case there was a copy cat killer. Banning guns or making them much harder to get isn’t going to solve this issue. Better mental health facilities will. But I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole here. There is something else I wanted to point out. My fellow liberal friends often completely misunderstand the point of guns in the 2nd amendment. Sometimes they understand the notion of self-defense, or hunting, but not the real purpose.
The purpose of gun ownership as outlined in the 2nd amendment is to enable a citizenry to violently overthrow their government.
That’s not what I’m advocating, but that was the purpose of the 2nd amendment. We had just violently overthrown our government at the time and the founders wanted to make sure the people would be safeguarded from yet another oppressive government. It’s not about hunting, it’s not about self defense from criminals, it’s about overthrowing the government. It is for this reason that assault rifles and high capacity magazines are important. The purpose is to enable you to have some degree of level footing in a war scenario. Whether or not that’s possible in an age where the government spies on all of its citizens and has drones in the sky is another matter, but it’s the thought that counts. Yes this tragedy is horrible, yes people will be murdered every now and then by some psycho, but taken together it is not enough to warrant removing an entire populace’s final recourse to dealing with an oppressive government.
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