This has been a major argument for the NRA crowd for years.
The 2nd Amendment was placed in the Constitution to protect us from tyranny, to prevent the government from becoming a police state. Without guns, how would we stop the government from abusing its power?
Really? That's is the argument?
Well, riddle me this: When is the most heavily armed populace in the Western World going to realize that we ARE a police state, the government has abused its powers, REPEATEDLY, and they did it while handing out guns like candy?
I have been told that the 2nd Amendment is the key Amendment that protects all of our other rights.
Really?
It hasn't stopped repeatedly violations of the 1st Amendment.
People have been jailed for their religion. Reporters have been jailed upholding our rights to a free press. People have been routinely arrested and violently assaulted for assembling peaceably to petition government for redress of grievances. People who have disagreed with the government and spoken out against everything from government fraud to war crimes have been abused and harassed by the government. Policemen have frequently murdered unarmed civilians for being the wrong color without repercussion.
When will the 2nd Amendment protect the 4th?
Our persons, papers, emails, phone calls, medical records, financial records and much more are routinely examined by the government without a warrant. Police seize money and property without warrant or compensation simply by declaring that the money or property were earned/acquired/used in the illicit drug trade.
Boarding an airplane frequently involves government conduct that in any other context is prosecutable sexual assault.
When will the 2nd Amendment protect the 5th?
People have been compelled under torture to incriminate themselves. People are now routinely deprived of life without meaningful due process. You can also be kidnapped from your home country and taken to a secret prison and tortured at the whim of the CIA or the Military.
When will the 2nd Amendment protect the 6th?
People are now routinely denied speedy trials by a jury of their peers, are denied the right to confront their accusers, or see the evidence against them. Hell, you can be banned from ever flying again by having your name placed on a "no fly" list which cannot be appealed.
When will the 2nd Amendment protect the 7th?
Anybody heard about any jury trials at Guantanamo? (and please do not insult my intelligence by making the same baseless legalistic arguments about "enemy combatants" and "military tribunals". Terrorism is a criminal act and should be tried in a criminal court).
When will the 2nd Amendment protect the 8th?
People are certainly suffering cruel and unusual punishments including physical and mental torture. We have imprisoned and abused children and no one has been held to account.
When will the 2nd Amendment protect the 9th?
I would say quite a few of our "other" rights have been "denied" and/or "disparaged". We are second class citizens in our own land, beholden to the oligarchy that poisons our air and water, destroys our planet, and conspires to abridge what few rights we might have left for their personal enrichment. Our prisons have become profit centers one group of corporations, providing slave labor for other corporations.
When will the 2nd Amendment protect the 10th?
The oligarchs have certainly conspired to abridge the rights of individual states. Three men (the Koch brothers and DeVos) pretty much bought the state of Michigan this week.
So, other than protecting itself and keeping platoons of soldiers out of my living room, the 2nd Amendment has done precisely jack squat to protect our liberty.
And no, I am NOT calling for violence against the government. I am simply pointing out that the we have the curious distinction of being the world's first police state with citizens more heavily armed than the police.