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America, fuck yeah! Gonna carry all the guns and be a muthafuckin’ HEE-RO! Dem dirty moo-slims ain’t bringing Shania law to my mud farm. I gots me my AKs and ARs and 17 broke down vee-hicles for cover. Bring it on, muthafuckas!
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 15, 1791--
On December 15, 1791, the date that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, the state of firearms technology was, comparatively speaking, still in its infancy. In the 18th century a well-drilled trooper could reload a single shot in a musket in about 20 seconds. Today’s modern ammosexual is usually not all that well-drilled and neither are they part of a militia, well-regulated or otherwise. And yet he—it’s almost always a he—can take out a school or shopping mall single-handedly without so much as a background check.
But there is much money to be made dealing in fear.
All those times over the decades when some ‘murican shouted “They’re gonna take our guns!” . . . did they? Nope. But the panic caused massive gun buying. It’s almost like there is a profitable weapons industry with a vested interest in making you imagine their product is about to be made illegal, so buy a bunch more! Don’t be concerned that you’re more likely to die from a gunshot if you have a firearm in your house; there are murderers on every block trying to steal your eight-year-old 47-inch Sanyo. Stand your ground!
What did the Founding Fathers think when they came up with the Second Amendment? Well, they were big fans of militias. Alexander Hamilton referred to them as “the most natural defense of a free country.” Others said the militia is “the bulwark of a free people.” At the time, many believed all citizens should be part-time soldiers, because those citizens just finished gaining freedom for their country from the British. They were opposed to the idea of a standing army, seeing it as a threat to freedom. And if everyone had guns and was ready to soldier, there would be no need for that standing army.
But now there is a standing army, a large and expensive one that has the power to kill billions by pushing some buttons. At the local level, your AR-15 isn’t gonna do shit against an Apache Helicopter with a 30mm chain gun or a Hellfire missile launched from a Predator drone.
Additionally, the idea of gun + colonial complexion = patriot, while Black person + gun = criminal is nothing new. The 2A has not been equally applied throughout history. Free Black people were often legally restricted in gun ownership, as were Native Americans. Back then, white Americans were armed in order to be able to maintain control over non-whites. Nowadays, however . . . oh, wait. Shit.
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The legal and judicial system in this country perpetrated one of the biggest scams in our history by not understanding English grammar and punctuation.
The fools in this country who think that loading up on guns will make them safe from the guv'mint are so beyond stupid I can't even.
Also, I've had enough firearms training to know that I shouldn't be allowed to own one absent several dozen hours' of *more* training. An untrained person is much more likely to shoot a loved one or themselves, or miss when aiming at an actual threat. The hero complex is one powerful drug.