That's an interesting argument, but I don't think it quite holds up to scrutiny. On a practical level, the modern military has little, if anything, to fear from random citizens with handguns. On a legal or historical level, I don't think that's what the Second Amendment was about anyway. The States were not interested in supporting civilian insurgency. In fact if I remember correctly, (I'm reaching way back to High School here) it was an armed uprising in New England that scared the bejesus out of the founding generation and motivated them to abandoned the Articles of Confederation for the much stronger Constitution.
The debate over how best to defend the new nation was contentious, but I don't think militias were ever seriously contemplated as fighting off a national army. Rather, it was thought that the nation would be best served by a well-regulated militia under some federal control, but maintained by the States. In other words, if the militias performed well, there would be no need of a large standing army. >From the every beginning, the Constitution has given the President and Congress the right to call up the State militias. The Constitution even says (I think) that if the national army is unable to enforce federal law, the State militias are responsible for doing it! So, the issue was how best to defend the nation and its laws. So, I don't think the Second Amendment can correctly be interpreted as giving individual citizens the right to engage in insurgency against the government. Rather, the Second Amendment is the result of a debate about how best to protect the nation *against* such threats. Aaron On Oct 24, 11:22 pm, "Jason (Memphis)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The National Guard is national. Isn't it pretty much controlled by > the national government even are used to fight foreign wars. I think > the argument for protection from a dictatorship of a national > government still applies. > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Memphis Freethought Alliance" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
