This:
[What the left does not get about the 2nd Amendment is that it is not about the National Guard, or sporting firearms or gun collections. It does not guarantee the government an army, nor does it guarantee civilians the right to hunt and shoot skeet. It's about the right of the people to maintain some portion of the ultimate power of government -- violence -- to themselves. ]
has been so thoroughly buried by the left that almost nobody still understands it. Even the NRA has been put on such a defensive stance that it is rarely brave enough to wave this at banner height anymore.
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to prevent tyranny. Period. That means the common man was supposed to have the tools at his disposal to rise up in a new, violent revolution against the government if necessary. In the era of our founding, a rifle could make a man the equal of a professional soldier. Today, we are not even allowed fully automatic weapons, much less the 'arms' that could really create that equality of the power of violence.
How many Americans feel they have no power over the government ? That even if they vote, it won't make any difference ? The systematic dismantling of the Bill of Rights is why they feel that way, with one source of power after another quietly stripped away from the people. So quietly and gradually that most people today don't even realize they once had that power.
aka Stockholm Syndrome: a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage can show signs of having feelings of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed. I agree, we have had our rights suppressed for so long, we don't know what liberty is anymore.
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to prevent tyranny. Period.
Sen. Hubert Humphrey's statement, Know Your Lawmakers, Guns, Feb. 1960, p. 4 (1960): "Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
And that was from a Democrat - except he's a Democrat of 47 years ago!