this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 88 points 6 months ago (5 children)

It may be in the constitution, but I doubt the founding fathers envisaged that you'd all be such fuckwits.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 42 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It isn't in there. What is in there is a legal provision allowing states to quickly raise an army to deal with a crisis.

[–] Aganim 22 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I'm not American, so I could be wrong, but wasn't it something about a well-regulated militia?

[–] afraid_of_zombies 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It was, those three words aren't there by mistake.

Standing domestic armies were controversial at the time. They needed a way if a state was a facing a crisis it could grab a bunch of armed citizens, declare it a militia, and deal with the issue. Most of the signers were lawyers and they knew that there had to be a legally established procedure for this.

This is me being nice to them btw the issue was slavery and the fear of slave revolts.

And a few decades ago it got reimagined as a civil liberty. Which is clear from the text that it is not and is clear from the debates around the amendment at the time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I was always under the impression that the militia bit was because they didn't want the USA to form a government army. The army instead would be all citizens, armed, that would act in case of a national threat, then like... go back to farming or whatever.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 1 points 6 months ago

Yeah a standing army was controversial at the time.

[–] chiliedogg 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Regulation had a different interpretation back then. It had to do with training and equipment. It's why professional soldiers were called "Regulars." They wanted civilian militias to be equipped and have the ability to train on their weapons.

In order for civilian militias to exist, be effective, and be able to respond instantly the citizens need to have weapons.

Somebody who doesn't have a gun and has never used one isn't going to be effective in civil defense.

[–] hark 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Yet there is little to no training before people are allowed to own guns. Seems to me like it doesn't follow either the modern definition or the supposed definition of old.

[–] MataVatnik 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, but dumbasses think that part is optional (not joking)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

WELL REGULATED back in the day meant something DIFFERENT then it does today! But ARMS back in the day refers to the EXACT ARMS we have Today!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Worse, we seem absolutely proud of our stupidity.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Here's the laugh though. Read "Democracy in America" by Alex de Tocqueville. A large part of it is observations amounting to "these fuckwits need to be aware of what they're doing and in many cases they are not"

[–] afraid_of_zombies 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I have read it and have a copy on my bookshelve. Where did you get that impression?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's all through the book. I also have a copy on my bookshelf and have read it.

I guess to be clear, I'm not referring to America alone in my response and even though his observations were largely on America what he writes about can be applied generally.

One simple example is how he states something like "I don't know if America would vote the best people if they ran for office. We know they exist but they clearly don't enter politics."

It's an extremely polite way to say "we aren't getting the best or brightest running for office but that's ok cause we're so fucking dumb we probably wouldn't vote for them anyways."

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago

It sounds like the man was writing in English, no? Why assume his meaning was other than what he said?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The constitution should be changed. Or better: Thrown out and written from scratch

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Maybe we could ammend it or something. Just spitballin here

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

No, because the Founding Fathers were so scared of tyranny of the majority, we have tyranny of the minority instead, and they will never let it change.