> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator
This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".
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This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".
Black Panthers carried guns to protect protests, and having guns created a situation where cops could not rush in and beat dissent into submission. There is a strong argument that without the second amendment, the Civil Rights Act would not have been passed, and we would still be living in an institutionally segregated society.
I don't own a gun and don't feel I need one because I'm a privileged urban white. Gun control has historically been used as a tool to disarm Black Americans: the NRA supported gun control in response to the Black Panthers! (https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-...)
Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.
Interestingly, that would be most of them, with the supreme court ruling that the police does not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
And it definitely makes it less safe for the rest of us in society.
My military-trained father-in-law accidentally discharged his handgun inside the house while cleaning it. The bullet ricocheted and could have killed anybody.
It was a manufacturing defect. All those guns were recalled and replaced 2 months later.
He claimed he unloaded it and checked he unloaded it.
A couple weeks later every single one of those guns was recalled and replaced by the manufacturer. The gun, itself, apparently had a defect wherein it could pop a round loose, hold it where you couldn't see it, and then chamber it if you knocked it a bit. I have no idea how this could possibly occur, but the manufacturer actually claimed this and wound up having to spend enough money that something wasn't right with those handguns.
Fortunately, he adhered to standard discipline and made sure the gun was never pointed at anybody. So, when it did go off, nobody was in line of fire. However, it did ricochet and still could have caused quite a bit of harm.
Always adhering to discipline doesn't make probabilities zero--it just minimizes them.