I just wonder how all that will mix with an incorporated 2nd amendment and the shear number of weapons in private hands in this country?
The difference between us and the soviets will be the amount and level of the firepower in private hands.
I used to think Obama was going to provoke a clash, but for the very reason that you have cited, I don’t think he will.
Instead, it’s just going to be one little thing at a time, with the government restricting more and more of our choices and putting its tentacles into every formerly private area of our lives - but just a little bit at a time.
Nobody is even commenting any more on the stream of crazy, nit-picking “executive orders” coming out of the WH. We have already begun to accept the usurpation of legislative powers and the ignorance (in the sense of ignoring) of our legal system. The press barely even reports it any more.
Obama wants there to be a BMI notation on your “permanent medical record?” Oh, okay. Who would ever have thought we would have accepted even the concept of an individual, centralized “permanent medical record” in the first place?
The difference will be in the courage to use that firepower, and the choice of liberty over security, and the readiness to undergo bloodshed. Personally I believe there won't be a hell of a lot of difference. Nor will there be much ammunition available, anyway.
But like they say: guns don't kill, people kill. Well, guns don't resist oppression either; people resist -- or they don't.
Put another way, clothes don't make the man, and guns don't make the man.
The founders gave us just two ways to resist tyranny from within, an educated and informed public by a free press, which has mostly thrown in with the tyrants these days, and the last resort the Second Amendment.
It’s interesting that just recently the Supreme Court has seen fit to remind everyone what the later means.
It’s all wrapped up in the Declaration of Independence and the consent of the governed.
“I just wonder how all that will mix with an incorporated 2nd amendment and the shear number of weapons in private hands in this country?”
Guns are nothing if the holders lack the balls to use them. What we do when the moment measured in ‘pucker factor’ comes will decide all. Even in the best scenario that line of gun men will be thin.
At no time in the history of humankind and despotism has so much firepower been in the hands of so many.
Between 2 and 300 million firearms are held by private citizens in this country along with 10's of billions of rounds of ammunition. We ALSO have at least 10million men under the age of 60 with military training (2009 VA data).
It seems that one day the American left will realize the brilliance of the founders...much to their chagrin.
You left out the biggest difference, that of Americans being fiercely independent, which is vastly different than the populations of Europe and especially the old USSR.
The mis-judgement on the liberal’s part is that Americans always give anyone a BIG benefit of the doubt, until it becomes obvious that benefit is misplaced and there are indeed ulterior motives, then we're ready for a fight.
“..The difference between us and the soviets will be the amount and level of the firepower in private hands...”
Firepower means nothing without Willpower. The difference is having the WILL to do whatever it takes live free - up to and including “the unthinkable”.
We’ll see if Americans still have it - one way or the other - or if we’re “American” in name only. It’s inevitable whenever one side of an issue refuses to accept the dictum of “Live and Let Live”; Libs just don’t and won’t accept the fact that other people have a right to live their lives the way they want to.
None of us want to see it; only the crazy want it to happen - which is why the other side is pushing and pushing the way they are. I truly think they are insane.
Just my take on it.
“The difference between us and the soviets will be the amount and level of the firepower in private hands.”
That doesn’t mean jack unless there is coordination, organization, and leadership. Where is that coming from?