[simon1ltd]

Except the National Guard are actually part of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

"The National Guard is a state-based military force that becomes part of the reserve components of the United States Army and the United States Air Force when activated for federal missions."

It may be organized by state, but it's a federal force.

The 2A exists to give people tools to fight the government (or support it), it's not a gun fetish, it's literally a tool to empower citizens. If you doubt that people armed with rifles, shotguns, and semi-automatics can overcome the Worlds Biggest Armed Forces(tm), then look at the most recent example: Afghanistan (repelled the US -and- the USSR).

[softcactus]

I addressed that the US National Guard is part of the US Military. I don't doubt that an armed civilian population can defeat the US Military, but most 2A advocates support the physical mechanisms of tyranny: militarized police, violation of privacy, unlawful detainment. They wait for a civil war that never comes, while supporting the growth of the police state. Is the annual number of gun casualties worth an absolutist 2A position when guns don't actually make us any freer?

[tshaddox]

Presumably in any situation where individually owned firearms were helpful in resisting the United States military, some significant portion of national guard members would also say “no thanks” when activated. After all, the United States military can already conscript individuals, so any hope of individual firearms being useful for resistance obvious assumes that individuals would say “no thanks” to conscription.

[softcactus]

I wish I could find the video but there was a great video by this Army infantryman who explained why there wouldn't be a splintering of the US military and why they would 100% kill US insurgents. Basically before shit hits the fan the National Guard would be mobilized and no longer receiving news. So if the government committed some horrible atrocity, they wouldn't hear it. Second let's say there's a Waco-style siege of an insurrectionist group holed up in a compound with families. Their briefing would say that "the insurrectionists fired on US troops and are using civilians as human shields" not "some of your fellow citizens and their families have rebelled against the tyrannical US government". Our military performs countless atrocities every day with almost zero defectors and yet for some reason people think that if they ever fought on US soil, they would begin falling out of line.

[simon1ltd]

I haven't seen this video, but would like to -- It sounds right to me, which instantly makes me question it, but it does fit the information coming out of Ukraine re: Russian military and local population.

This is exactly the scenario the 2A is designed to thwart.

It doesn't guarantee a win, but it gives civilians a chance to group together to protect themselves. I've got friends from Hong Kong, and what the government did there to a helpless (disarmed) population in order to crush any unapproved views absolutely blew my mind. People being murdered, rounded up and vanished, thrown from buildings, beaten in the streets on a wide scale. If the troops are given false information, and move in to attack, then they're going to be made to pay dearly for every mile they advance. There's a lot more people out of uniform then in it, and I mean a lot -- winning against a mostly disarmed population (in the middle east) is more than we can handle. Attacking a heavily armed population in its home area is suicide for the attacking forces.

[softcactus]

That argument falls apart when you realize that the same people adopting the "shall not be infringed" stance also "back the blue" and vote in favor of the physical mechanisms of tyranny. You can't simultaneously argue that guns are necessary to fight against a tyrannical government and then turn around and approve of things like probable cause, qualified immunity, civil asset forfeiture, increased surveillance under the auspices of border security, and increased funding for police. The argument is intellectually dishonest coming from 90% of the people who make it. If they were really interested in "liberty" they would be in favor of ending the drug war and the laws associated with it, but they aren't. They just don't want to admit that dead kids is a price they're willing to pay to keep their fun toys.