This attitude is captured by one of our founding Fathers.
James Madison, Federalist #46 wrote:Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it. The argument under the present head may be put into a very concise form, which appears altogether conclusive. Either the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will not. On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents. On the other supposition, it will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the people.
Indeed why trust government to secure the rights we hold as citizens? As Madison says, either government is dependent on the electorate or not. If it is, elections will solve almost any representative problems that arise. If not, the combination of local governments and an armed populace will be go a long way to beating back any adventures that a tyrannical Federal government might pursue.
Daryl wrote:My personal guns have been in a national register for decades. Still here & not been "seized" yet.
My "yea!", was just a mischievous impulse, just a gentle tease of some of the ideologues here.
