Year: 2007

How would the “doomsday provision” the second amendment is meant to be, work in this country? We’ve had some good discussion in some previous threads, but I think on both sides it’s being a bit oversimplified.

Things aren’t as black and white as either side makes them out to be. An en-mass uncoordinated resistance to a rouge government, absent any overall structure, isn’t likely to happen, or be successful, which is why our founding fathers spent so much time bickering about the militia.

Any resistance to a perceived tyranny on the part of a state government is going to result in people leaving that state, or in the federal government marching in to enforce the constitution.

Any resistance to federal tyranny is going to result in states seceding from the union, and invalidating federal authority within their borders. Once that’s done, the states can work on raising an army to resist the inevitable assertion by the feds that they do have authority.

When you find yourself in that situation, as a state, or groups of states, it helps if you have an armed body of people that are proficient in small arms. It helps even more if you’ve drilled your militia so that they have some basic military training as well.

It’s not a guarantee that you win; you might lose. The last time this happened, the seceding states lost. That time, the seceding states were wrong. They might not always be. The second amendment exists to make such things easier. It doesn’t guarantee that the government will always lose, or that the people will always win. It just raises the cost of enforcing a political hegemony. Sometimes that’s enough. It very nearly worked for The South, the last time this happened.

That’s not to say the second amendment can’t work on a more local level. It’s worthwhile to remember the Battle of Athens, which occurred in 1946, when a group of returning World War II veterans decided they had had quite enough of their corrupt and oppressive county government, and decided to do something about it.

Also worth noting are the Deacons for Defense. Not to mention the dozens of civil rights workers who regularly carried firearms while working in The South. Both these groups were battling what amounted to a domestic terrorist operation. Would The South have been better off if only the Klan had guns? Considering the Klan and the government were sometimes inseparable in the Jim Crow era, and considering Southern gun laws were seldom enforced against whites, this would seem to make a pretty strong case for the 14th amendment’s vision of our rights, including the second amendment, being applied to everyone, equally.

I suspected this was the case, but according to this article, it seems that it was actually the case:

Helmke, of the Brady Campaign, said the group suggested to Washington that it rework its gun laws rather than press on with an appeal. A broad Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment could jeopardize a variety of laws, including waiting periods for handgun sales and California’s machine gun ban, he said.

I understand why The Brady Campaign would want that to happen.  Strategically, it made sense to reword the laws to be near-prohibition, similar to NYC, and force us to go back to court with a weaker case.

But Fenty had to do what he had to do, politically.  Fenty isn’t President of The Brady Campaign, he’s Mayor of Washington DC.  It might not be the rational thing for their side, but politics are seldom rational.

“This is the capital of the United States of America,” Barnes said. “What kind of message are we sending when you say we want more guns?”

We’re sending a message that we take our constitution seriously.

Hat tip to Cam Edwards.