Think this through. One of the reasons we've had so much peace and prosperity is that heavy weapons have been removed from the general population. If they weren't, many situations where phalangist militant movements arose and eventually were extinguished or dried up might well have ballooned into major disruptions to the civil society the way it happens in muzz countries.
Considering that removal really only happened since 1934, no, not so much. Not many people can afford heavy weapons, or for that matter, even crew served weapons. But the Tiffany family donated two machine guns to Teddy Rooseveldt's outfit during the Spanish American war. They would not have been able to do that today without a lot of paperwork and arm twisting, and then not brand new ones.
Most of those who can afford them will not use them for nefarious ends, and the few who might would solve their 'problems' other ways if the people could shoot back.
One can't have it both ways. Either you trust government law enforcement and the armed forces to maintain the rule of law or the Republic collapses.
The law is the law, until some potentate in a black robe breaks it and says it isn't. We've seen enough of that with Roberts rewriting the letter of the ACA to make a penalty a tax so he could say it was all copacetic, even though the penalty/tax originated in the Senate and Revenue measures are Constitutionally mandated to originate in the House. So if you want to pick part of the egregious breakdown in the compact, that's as good a place as any. But there are other examples going much further back.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (loosely translated "Who is guarding the guards?")
Isn't a new thing at all.
That's part of the crisis Comey, Lynch, Holder,the Eightball, Hill-O-Lies and the 'Crats are creating by politicizing law enforcement.
And Janet Reno.. and her deputy (Holder again?) and Mayor Daly, and Governor Mandel, and and and.... I'm just saying the breakdown hasn't been so sudden, more like a slow rot or termites eating a wooden bridge. No one seems to notice until it falls down.
Moral people are questioning the compact between the government and the People to maintain the civil integrity of law QED members of this forum believe there is less danger in returning to a time where heavy weapons were held and wielded by the general population because the government has become craven and mendacious, than to maintain the system as it has existed since the 1870s.
Moral people should ALWAYS examine the behaviour of those elected to serve them, those appointed to positions of authority , from the lowliest meter maid on up. None in the service of the public is or should be immune to such scrutiny.
That isn't a license to witch hunt, but when there is evidence of wrongdoing, excusing it because "they are on our side' is just as much a violation of the rule of law as the "other side" doing the same. In the end, we all lose.
As far as trusting implicity the government to have the overwhelming means to wreak destruction, they have no monopoly were the thousands of tons of legitimately owned and used explosives out there turned toward a destructive end. If they are trustworthy, then they can trust us.
In the end, despite not having them, I'd trust ME with those weapons more than I trust anyone else. Lots of others feel the same way.
My wife's people trusted the GOvernment to give them a fair shake. That cost them ten million acres of land.
But that distrust, completely justifiable goes back a ways, too.
Henry Plummer, Bannack MT , and the
Montana VigilantesThe three numbers on the patch of the MT highway patrol aren't a date. They are the identification numbers of the three lead vigilantes, who dared not use their names for fear of (lethal) reprisal by the crooked sheriff.
As for jihadis and crazies, the government has long had the option to keep both under control. Consider "drug lords" are a government owned problem, too. Those cartels could have been stopped at the border if there was anything there to slow them down. The jihadis could have been stopped by not letting them in, and the dangerously insane were at one time institutionalized.
Whatever happened to "Provide for the common defense"?--a seminal part of that compact, in the Preamble.
Government has made that mess, on both counts, by its actions or lack of them, while it has been pursuing the citizenry for filling in mudholes and cattle eating the wrong grass.
The compact is broken. It is up to those in government to get their act together and fix it before the wheels come off.
