Not sure many of them would see an issue with AR-15s. They’re basically what the military has and what the civilians had back then was usually better than military grade. In fact, American civilians have always had better rifles than their contemporary military.
I loathe the title, and strongly disagree with it. Also, heard the presenter is a hard right-winger, but this is still an interesting history lesson. I never would have guessed most of this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dIsy3sZI2Y&t=2s
I’m betting the founders would have thought having a lesser armed citizenry to be pointless. Of course, they might well have thought that such a giant, world policing, military to be a far worse mistake.
I mean, it’s super hypothetical. We lift them up but they were just a bunch of dudes living in their own times. While I’m sure they wanted a framework that would lead the country into future prosperity, they knew adaptation was necessary.
They also knew that the backbone of this country’s defense were militias made up of citizens. We don’t really have those. I’m all for regulated militias coming back. They could possibly get exceptions for many banned weapons.
Every citizen doesn’t need to have access to military grade weaponry at any given moment. Even when I served, my shit was locked up and required a document trail for access and ammo use.
Balancing safety and personal rights is a complex and divisive issue. Everyone having all the guns would be super cool with me if we fixed gun culture, mental health access, and our many many societal financial issues. 'Til then, reasonable laws.
We are a well regulated militia. Well regulated means well equipped/prepared.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
That’s all it means? Because it seems fairly clear that it means something like “well organized, supplied, and trained.” If we’re saying that the word “regulated” just means “armed”, and the word “militia” just means “people”, then it sounds a lot like you’re interpreting it to mean what you want it to.
I’ve never heard “regulated” used that way outside of tortured 2nd amendment interpretations, and a militia requires some amount of training and regular drills.
I agree, those who give up the liberty of others to not risk being shot at over an argument because every problem looks like a nail for the sake of continuing to parade a statistical security blanket around deserve neither the liberty to own and operate, n’or the false sense of security they get from menacing the checkout line at Walmart.
I have a feeling the conversation to have with most of the founders would be centered around the political weaponization of the Second Amendment in the face of almost daily mass shootings. I have a strong suspicion that the “well-regulated militia” part of that amendment would become much more pronounced.
I really doubt it. If they intended the right to belong to militias or members of one, they would have written that instead of people.
Or perhaps put something in about a militia, but one that was well regulated.
Plus there are a lot of people in the militia. Specifically every able-bodied male from the ages of 17 to 45.
They would be far more concerned with the government embracing fascism, than they would about 2nd amendment considerations. If anything, they’d push for a less restrictive 2nd amendment, and dismantling of federal power structures. They were revolutionaries, after all.
Agreed, though the correlation between the modern advance of fascism and the people who press the hardest on gun rights is hard to dismiss. Of course, I am only pointing to the correlation in sets, there are obviously elements of each set which do not belong to the other, but the cardinality of the intersection far outstripes that of the difference.
A few of our founding fathers were based and are remembered for their true merits as people.
And the rest were just the most rich and powerful people around at the time. They had to start a war and a new country in order to get away with defrauding England when they joined in on this settler colonial project. They stopped slavery from ending. They chased wealth and valor, and designed the country for their ends.
WE deserve a new constitution like every other modern country.
Then get enough of the population to agree with you to convene a constitutional Congress and pass that new constitution. It shouldn’t be hard if at least 75% of the US aligns with you. If you don’t have that much of the population in agreement, then you aren’t communicating your desired constitution well or the current one works well enough for enough of the country.
Otherwise you are either implying that we need war to crush the pillars of our society, necessitating the rebuilding of our institutions like what happened with WWI and WWII for the other “modern” countries I presume you are wanting to emulate, or you want to disenfranchise at least 30% of the population because WE is not everyone and YOU “deserve” a new constitution and fuck the “other side”.
We both know a lot of our representatives would never convene a constitutional congress because they’re so greedy for power they want to draw back democracy. And our representatives dont really represent what any American wants.
I wouldn’t imply revolution. I’m advocating a reformist position, where we reform the current government, under the reform rules spelled out in our current constitution. I like a lot of what our constitution says, genuinely.
Yeah I do largely want to emulate social democracies in europe whose constitutions have been updated about once per decade, some starting in WWI/WWII and some even earlier than that. They either have much more representation than us or even have direct democracy. Thats awesome.
Dont misunderstand me, I dont want to leave out conservatives. I want a better constitution. Better representation. Its such a dream though, or representatives will just slip in more spying or police state crap in there.
Their project was in part to legitimize the transfer of power from the nobility to the elite merchant and “gentleman” farmer class. They were very much a product of their time, just like you and I are today.
I’d say they are more products of their class privilege than their time. If some people at the time were outlawing slavery, and someone else stops them… Who is the product of the time? Well, the conservative, of course. Because progressivism is just a bonus added on, its better than we expect of anyone in the past, and history itself.
Guys, they’d be overjoyed their government the hammered out in overnight binge drinking sessions lasted 200+ years.
All the present problems are our problems. They gave us the amendment system for a reason.
They also wrote that system not expecting it to be able to be gummed up by as little as 2% of the population because of how stupid we were about drawing state borders
I feel like that comment severely lacks nuance but I’m also not sure how best to state the problem in few words so I haven’t downvoted.
I would put it like this. The founding fathers did a decent job in writing the Constitution, but it is evident that they were humans that didn’t expect in having to handle how to actually make the system work with less than trustworthy people. The need for the 12th Amendment is a prime example.
However, we’ve kept it for the most part while changing base assumptions over time as the want to rewrite everything from the ground up disappeared.
How? Assuming you’re talking about Wyoming we only have one vote in the house and two in the senate. We can hardly gum it up by our little lonesome.
Well for starters that’s a disproportionate 3 electoral votes for president
It takes as little as less than a fifth of the population to elect a president if they embark on a small states crusade.
As for constitutional amendments, it takes THREE QUARTERS of the states to approve an amendment, meaning that starting from the smallest states and working our way up, less than 7 million people can decide for the other 343 million that an amendment doesn’t pass.
And that’s all assuming state action reflects popular will within the states, which it often doesn’t.
Not universally. Jefferson would have been horrified that the same government he established was still trucking along. 50 years was the longest he wanted it to last, and called for dramatic change at that point
Do you honestly want to live in a country where the established foundations of government changed every 50 years? That kind of chaos and instability would be crushing. There are places like that right now, and first world countries they are not.
Hmm… Sounds to me like someone understood the need to update a country’s systems with the cultural and technological progress of humanity.
Ben: “Can we go to the dispensary again?”
Me: “Dude it’s been two hours. How are you out already?”
With Franklin probably being one of the few exceptions, most of the founding fathers would probably have an adrenaline overload seeing that the USA successfully evolved into the world power to protect its corporate interests. They wouldn’t even hesitate to host a billionaire rave party lol.
Now bring someone like FDR, Hugo Black, or JFK and they’d probably be horrified to find so much of their work undone and thrown down the trash.
The constitution is so weird lol.