Your new essay will enrage all the right people. Lol
I’d been meaning to write something similar for a while. One thing that I believe needs debunking is the idea that guns are ‘the great equalizer’. They’re anything but!
Hand-to-hand combat is ‘equal’. What separates two fighters in hand-to-hand combat is their own skill and courage.
Firearms are a different story. You have pistols? OK, your opponents have rifles. Now what?
You have rifles? OK, your opponents have Gatling guns. Now what?
Fast forward to today and add in drones, fighter jets, rocket launchers, etc. Your militia armed with AR-15s isn’t on equal firepower footing with some local police forces in the US, let alone the US Military. I honestly think this is a reason why all those guys who stockpile guns and stare at maps and think the 2nd Amendment keeps tyranny at bay, have never risen up and never will rise up: because they know the firepower of the government makes them look like harmless garden gnomes.
Owning guns is good for self-defence. In many parts of the US, owning a gun can save your life, but not from the government. From your neighbour or from some roving criminal.
Training with militias can teach you useful and timeless skills which would come in handy in a SHTF situation, but as you say, those scenarios are largely fantasy.
Great article. The last paragraph on the myth of spontaneous popular uprising is particularly on point. In the end, the 2nd amendment and the IAT Principle play the same role in the republican / libertarian ideology, that class consciousness plays in the communist one.
For any successful revolution/resistance to occur, having an armed populace of like minded people to draw from is a “nice to have“. But having a leadership group of popular and influential thinkers who can inspire and then readily serve as an upstart counter elite is crucial. Once empowered, a successful counter elite can then wield its political legitimacy with the normies to shore up and utilise their supporters and/or disarm their opponents.
To put this into a (milder) American RKBA context, the success of the state wide shall issue CCW movement in the nineties wasn’t just about the rise in the number of handgun owners. Its success was driven by a loose network of focused activists from a lot of different state organisations (ALEC, state level NRA, etc) who engaged for years with politicians towards incremental change. This meant also working to oust their opponents and install friendly reps in state house primaries.
Currently, we know that American Federal LE is putting out memos and intelligence primers labelling parental organising for school board elections as possible domestic terrorism and signalling the growth of so called “Trad” Catholic adherents as a worry. This type of local and popular political organising appears to be what keeps the Feds up at night.
What, in your opinion, was the intent of the Founders in including 2A?
The Founders gave us a tool, for whatever purpose, but they could not know how, when or if we might use it, nor with what success. They certainly could not have imagined the Leviathan which emerged. Or, maybe they could and were giving us the best chance they could.
There would have been no continental congress, at least not as it was, without there being a militia to call upon. And it was the blood of patriots being spilled that compelled it to act. There was much bickering about to respond in the early days of the American revolution. Action forced them, they did not force action.
People say a lot of stupid crap on the internet. Kind of like saying, oh I don't know, that it's dishonorable to sit though mandatory diversity training whilst censoring yourself so you can be on a certain platform.
Your new essay will enrage all the right people. Lol
I’d been meaning to write something similar for a while. One thing that I believe needs debunking is the idea that guns are ‘the great equalizer’. They’re anything but!
Hand-to-hand combat is ‘equal’. What separates two fighters in hand-to-hand combat is their own skill and courage.
Firearms are a different story. You have pistols? OK, your opponents have rifles. Now what?
You have rifles? OK, your opponents have Gatling guns. Now what?
Fast forward to today and add in drones, fighter jets, rocket launchers, etc. Your militia armed with AR-15s isn’t on equal firepower footing with some local police forces in the US, let alone the US Military. I honestly think this is a reason why all those guys who stockpile guns and stare at maps and think the 2nd Amendment keeps tyranny at bay, have never risen up and never will rise up: because they know the firepower of the government makes them look like harmless garden gnomes.
Owning guns is good for self-defence. In many parts of the US, owning a gun can save your life, but not from the government. From your neighbour or from some roving criminal.
Training with militias can teach you useful and timeless skills which would come in handy in a SHTF situation, but as you say, those scenarios are largely fantasy.
Great article. The last paragraph on the myth of spontaneous popular uprising is particularly on point. In the end, the 2nd amendment and the IAT Principle play the same role in the republican / libertarian ideology, that class consciousness plays in the communist one.
For any successful revolution/resistance to occur, having an armed populace of like minded people to draw from is a “nice to have“. But having a leadership group of popular and influential thinkers who can inspire and then readily serve as an upstart counter elite is crucial. Once empowered, a successful counter elite can then wield its political legitimacy with the normies to shore up and utilise their supporters and/or disarm their opponents.
To put this into a (milder) American RKBA context, the success of the state wide shall issue CCW movement in the nineties wasn’t just about the rise in the number of handgun owners. Its success was driven by a loose network of focused activists from a lot of different state organisations (ALEC, state level NRA, etc) who engaged for years with politicians towards incremental change. This meant also working to oust their opponents and install friendly reps in state house primaries.
Currently, we know that American Federal LE is putting out memos and intelligence primers labelling parental organising for school board elections as possible domestic terrorism and signalling the growth of so called “Trad” Catholic adherents as a worry. This type of local and popular political organising appears to be what keeps the Feds up at night.
What, in your opinion, was the intent of the Founders in including 2A?
The Founders gave us a tool, for whatever purpose, but they could not know how, when or if we might use it, nor with what success. They certainly could not have imagined the Leviathan which emerged. Or, maybe they could and were giving us the best chance they could.
There would have been no continental congress, at least not as it was, without there being a militia to call upon. And it was the blood of patriots being spilled that compelled it to act. There was much bickering about to respond in the early days of the American revolution. Action forced them, they did not force action.
People say a lot of stupid crap on the internet. Kind of like saying, oh I don't know, that it's dishonorable to sit though mandatory diversity training whilst censoring yourself so you can be on a certain platform.