Reply #83: Try actually reading the constitution, then reading some about the people who helped create it. [View All]

[eqfan592]

They very much DID want an armed populace, in no small part to discourage the government from ever attempting to trample the rights of its citizens. The implication being that should the government ever attempt to do so, the armed populace would be able to defend its rights against the government, through force of arms should it become necessary.

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights, Walter Bennett, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, at 21,22,124 (Univ. of Alabama Press,1975)..)

"(And) what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939)

The implications are fairly clear here. The 2nd Amendment wasn't put in place simply because the founding fathers thought firearms were neat. It was to aid in the defense of life and liberty of the population of our nation, be the threat external or internal.

Now does my saying this because I think we need to overthrow our government now? No, I'm not, and I don't. But your fooling yourself if you don't think that bill of rights isn't a listing of rights the government can't infringe upon in order for the people to keep its power in check.