The founders idealized the Roman Republic and sought to create a system where the central government would never have the power to seize control as Julius Caesar did.
But I don’t think turning out to the streets with AR-15s is an appropriate response to the government forming an ineffective propaganda office (ministry of truth). We’ve seen the awful cost of civil war both here at home in 1861-65 and recently in countries such as Syria and Libya. Violent revolution should be the absolute last resort especially in a world where total war is practiced and not the relatively civilized and small-scale warfare of the American revolution or the 1688 English Revolution.
In practice, the US government has committed atrocities throughout history against citizens and the 2A did little to help (genocide of native Americans, discrimination against Germans in ww1, Japanese internment in ww2, Jim Crow and slavery, the civil war itself where armed citizens just joined whatever side they lived on, etc.)
> But I don’t think turning out to the streets with AR-15s is an appropriate response to the government forming an ineffective propaganda office (ministry of truth).
I don't think the founders envisioned that at all. Your rifle is for sitting behind your door and waiting for the tyrannical government to break down your door and realize that the first person to breech is probably going to die. It's a deterrent to ensure that law enforcement is willing to do the bidding of said corrupt government. Guns are not meant to be for menacing the public. They're for defending life and property. And yeah, property.
But I don’t think turning out to the streets with AR-15s is an appropriate response to the government forming an ineffective propaganda office (ministry of truth). We’ve seen the awful cost of civil war both here at home in 1861-65 and recently in countries such as Syria and Libya. Violent revolution should be the absolute last resort especially in a world where total war is practiced and not the relatively civilized and small-scale warfare of the American revolution or the 1688 English Revolution.
In practice, the US government has committed atrocities throughout history against citizens and the 2A did little to help (genocide of native Americans, discrimination against Germans in ww1, Japanese internment in ww2, Jim Crow and slavery, the civil war itself where armed citizens just joined whatever side they lived on, etc.)