Today while driving I was behind an elderly white guy whose car had a bumper sticker that read:
The second amendment makes all the other amendments possible
Well, no it doesn't. I've been hearing this "justification" of the right to bear arms now for decades, and, like a lot of Americans, I always kind of accepted it in a knee-jerk reaction sort of way.
But not anymore.
more below the plume of orange smoke....
So you mean to tell me that the only thing keeping our government in constitutional order is this guy?
So all of our elected officials are deep down truly hellbent on tyranny; however, since they tremble in fear of Gomer's arsenal, they acquiesce to being democratically elected either in or out of office.
If so, then what side are the cops on? Are they armed in order to protect us from each other or to protect us from the government?
If the second amendment was written to give we the people a means to attack government, then why would the founding fathers have allowed the government to bear arms?
Which leads me to my final question: why on earth would the founders have given the people the unilateral right to dismantle the very government that they had just spent a lot of fucking time creating, and spilled a lot of fucking blood fighting for??
Yeah, so here's your brand new country, and we spent an awful lot of time thinking about this really long document, but if you don't like it then - nevermind...
This whole thing is ridiculous on its face, and all you have to do is think about it for more than ten seconds to get there. While I used to be a mild supporter of this interpretation (although I was always more focused on the "well-regulated militia" part) being able to pick it apart in 30 seconds is now a little bit embarrassing.
The clincher was this article by Thom Hartmann, who has taught me more about our true history than any class I ever took.
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery
This is the most logical justification for why the founders wrote the second amendment the way they did; southerners were afraid of the government taking away their guns (fancy that!) so that they could defend themselves against aggress black people (shocking!).
So next time some Facebook wingnut throws out the old "second amendment protects us from our government" crap, just ask why, then, did our founders spend so much time writing all those laws, setting up the three branches - including the judiciary branch (totally useless) - if it could all be overridden at the drop of a hat by we the people? Checks and balances? Nah - each and every one of us has veto power with the pull of a trigger.
Seems to me that if the second amendment really meant what they think it meant, then we don't need the rest of the constitution at all.