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- cross-posted to:
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Donald Trump has said that he will not become a dictator if he becomes US president again except “on day one”, after warnings from Democrats and some Republicans that the US was in danger of becoming an autocracy if he wins the 2024 election. Fuck, well at least he’s honest on this statement
This is exactly what the Second is intended to take care of, but no part of the constitution will have any meaning if Trump installs himself as a dictator. Unfortunately the average right winger doesn’t seem to understand that. This is literally the moment they have claimed to be waiting for but they’re on the enemy’s side. He’s going to cancel their gun rights and they’re going to cheer for it.
Not it isn’t. The idea that the 2a is supposed to prevent government overreach is revisionist history.
The intention of the 2a was to make a standing federal army unnecessary. Madison didn’t want a federal army, but knew the nation would need some form of military, so he wrote militias into the constitution.
(He changed his tune when the War of 1812 showed him how necessary a true military was.)
It’s laughable to think that people in power wanted others to be able to overthrow them with guns. In fact, rebellions were attempted with guns in the years after the revolutionary war. And they were put down. Never did George Washington say, “Ah, these men with guns seem to think we are being tyrannical. We should reconsider.” No, he said, “Pay your fucking taxes.”
It’s a bit of both. In the 18th century, it was abundantly obvious a country needed to be able to defend itself against both foreign powers and internal threats. But it was also very clear that if you paid a group of people to be professional soldiers, you basically always lived under the threat of those people going “That’s a nice country/state you have there” and launching a coup.
Hence the well-regulated militia, because then you don’t need a proffesional military, and there’s nobody to launch a coup, and also no way for the federal government to take over individual states. So in a way, it WAS to prevent government overreach, but not in the wat it’s usually said.
And, in any case, it’s laughable to think that a group of armed Americans could stand up to the US military if an American dictator ordered them to attack US citizens and they obeyed such an order.
The citizens would be charging in with guns blazing, but the military would send in a few drones and wipe them out. The whole “guns would let us stand against a dictatorship wielding the might of the US military” idea is a fantasy.
The fact that the right is that one that parrots this line while supporting someone who is actively saying he’ll be a dictator and send the military against US citizens blows past ironic and lands in Downright Scary territory.