Never suggested they didn’t. I’m suggesting that the country would have been better off if they both had weapons and chose to resist.

We aren’t Germany. The founding fathers made sure we could arm ourselves. The choices we make are our own.

This is honestly, the dumbest, most American take in the world.

Hell yeah brother 🦅🦅🦅

It literally ignores the plainly obvious fact that not a single other developed country allows gun ownership, and yet, still have rights and democracy and freedom.

Many other developed countries allow gun ownership. Educate yourself, my man.

But more importantly, I literally do not care if they do or not. The point was never that democracy cannot exist without firearms, but rather that in the worst case scenario an armed citizenry can act as a force against tyranny. It’s a rare thing that it might be needed, and a last resort. No sane person wants a civil war

Guns did not get your rights

Except they literally did. How do you think the revolutionary war was won, softly spoken words?

they do not protect you from a government that has AI powered drones with anti tank mines on them. Hell a fucking APC with a sound cannon will make your AR look like a child’s toy.

Guerrillas with small arms in developing countries have repelled the US military repeatedly over the past half century. More importantly, if you don’t think a combination of small arms and low cost homemade munitions are effective against a modern military you haven’t been paying attention to the war in Ukraine at all.

That’s a fair statement.

I don’t think we are there yet. It will be far better for our country if our problems can be solved by diplomatic and political means, and we are far from running out of levers to pull.

The founding fathers have written at length on their reasoning for including the right to bear arms in the constitution. It is very clear that they believed in the people’s ability to resist and overthrow the government if needed.

After all, this was a group who escaped the grip of the monarchy through force of arms. It’s odd to think that they didn’t see value in the ability of the people to do the same, especially when they repeatedly wrote about it in period.

However, all that being said, I agree with your sentiment that leftists should be arming themselves. Just because the 2nd amendment has almost completely lost it’s original intent or meaning, doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of the fact that it exists with tons of legal precedent to strap up in preparation for what might come next. Things are unlikely to get better from here, and if things get worse you will be glad you have a firearm for protection.

Also this here is kind of the point. The original intent is not important; many people believe in the modern era that an armed citizenry is important as a last ditch balancing force to government overreach. We are all better off if left leaning people arm themselves instead of using pro-gun arguments as some sort of self-righteous gotcha against the right.

I believe it’s fundamentally important that we keep that right to an equalizing force.

Acting like we are going to directly fight a tank with an AR-15 is either a straw man or just frankly ignorant. The US military has repeatedly been repelled by guerrilla forces with small arms, and if you have been paying any attention at all in Ukraine you will see what can be done with very little technology in terms of drones etc.

If we ever need to raise arms against the government, it will be a dark day indeed. No reasonable person wants that. We have many methods of recourse before that even enters the conversation IMO.

However, there can eventually come a time where resistance is appropriate. Hitler never would have taken complete control of the country, exterminated so many Jews, and started Europe on the path to a world war if the Germans were armed and actively resisting his rule.

It seems self evident that the German people would been better off resisting Nazi rule than allowing the death camps and WW2 to come to fruition.

That’s still the purpose of the second amendment, for people to own guns to defend themselves and others against tyranny

You can’t expect everyone to agree with you ideologically, and obviously they won’t rise up against a government they agree with. Conservatives don’t see the current administration as tyrannical, so there is no conflict for them between the ideals of the second amendment and their actions.

However, you can absolutely choose to exercise your second amendment rights.

As a gun owning liberal, I’m tired of my peers acting like the second amendment is some conservative agenda. The right to firearm ownership is an eminently liberal ideal. More liberals and leftists should own guns— the second amendment is more important now than ever before.

If you think there is a pressing need for an armed liberal/leftist citizenry, go buy guns and arm yourselves.

There is a very reasonable explanation for this: If we are a topic of research for them, they could have simply stopped studying us in the same way

Take our own science for example. We pull out of studies when the funding dries up. Maybe the aliens’ government grant ran out. Or, perhaps they have a policy of avoiding interference with the subjects. They could have changed methodology in response to the threat of high resolution recording equipment

Yeah there is a reason why plane spotters use 400+mm lenses