RedBlueAmerica: Does Second Amendment guarantee right of rebellion?

The Record Searchlight ^ | January 6, 2013 | Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis

[2ndDivisionVet]

The renewed debate over gun rights that has followed the massacre of elementary schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., has included scrutiny over why gun advocates believe they need a right to bear arms. Among the reasons: Many advocates believe that individual gun ownership helps preserve American liberty, making government fearful of trampling on rights of its citizens. If government goes too far, the argument goes, Americans have the right to revolt by force.

Is that argument correct? Or does it belong to fringe gun enthusiasts? Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, debate the question.

Joel Mathis

Does the Second Amendment guarantee a right to armed rebellion? Who cares? We Americans are heirs to revolutionaries, men who pledged their fortunes and their honors to each other to break away from a repressive empire and start a new country — one whose rhetoric of freedom and liberty that has required most of the last two centuries to come to fruition in the lives of most of our fellow citizens.

But even in the midst of revolution, the Founders were also cautious.

In the Declaration of Independence, they asserted the right to "alter or abolish" governments in favor of new forms more likely to serve the happiness of the people. Such moments, they warned, are exceedingly rare...

[Sarabaracuda]

Unconstitutional laws have been with us since at least John Adams’ administration. How many people went to war over the Sedition Act?

[NonValueAdded]

Why would the Founding Fathers distance themselves from the events of April 18-19, 1775? Answer, they wouldn’t.

[PGalt]

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

DEPOPULATE socialists/totallitarians from the body politic. DEFUND their collectives, foreign and domestic.

These "discussions" go away, the debt goes away...and...we...

live - free - republic

[PGalt]

C’mon 2014

(Prepare. Persevere.)

[patriot08]

http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/officials-10-woodland-hills-students-5-adults-invo/nTrGg/

[precisionshootist]

"Does Second Amendment guarantee right of rebellion?"

70 million people with guns can have it guarantee any damn thing we want it to.

[trebb]

Armed rebellion, against an oppresive ‘government”) is not a right - it’s a duty. The right to bear arms is merely a facilitator to make the duty possible.

[jaydee770]

DEPOPULATE socialists/totallitarians from the body politic. DEFUND their collectives, foreign and domestic.

I think the last two elections indicate that is not likely to happen any time soon. Conservatives are outnumbered by moderates within the GOP. The GOP is outnumbered by the societal leeches in the Dem party who always vote with their hand held out.

Fix those two issues and then we might stand a chance at depopulating the socialists/totallitarians from the body politic. We'll be lucky if the whole house of cards doesn't come tumbling down before sanity is restored...

[Sirius Lee]

Unconstitutional laws have been with us since at least John Adams’ administration. How many people went to war over the Sedition Act?

An entire slue of unconstitutional acts were passed since the Republic was formed, and that government expansion and meddling eventually became so intolerable that many people DID go to war in 1861.

I agree with many of the posters here that the government is one more ill conceived unconstitutional law or EO away from pushing America over that tipping point again.

[PGalt]

“We’ll be lucky if the whole house of cards doesn’t come tumbling down before sanity is restored...”

The socialists have built this house of cards. If/when it collapses at the time of their choosing or we are insufficiently subdued and a spark starts CWII, then we have a template to rebuild it....

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

It’s easy to form a more perfect union than the present one...

DEPOPULATE socialists/totallitarians from the body politic. DEFUND their collectives, foreign and domestic.

“Socailism is Legal Plunder” “Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation.” - Bastiat

—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.