OK, good question.
I was just posing that folks may have many reasons for supporting the 2nd Amend. After all, some folks want to eliminate it.
Of all the possible reasons, I wanted know if someone thinks that defense against tyranny is not a reason for us to have the 2nd.
I really don't like the term 'insurrectionist theory'. It is too neutral as to reason for the insurrection. Maybe you want to lead a rebellion to make the turkey the national bird? To be silly.
So I prefer defense against tyranny. I know that some assume IT is based on preventing tyranny but I don't like it.
Let me offer a reason not to exclude reasons you would consider silly. In a representative government in which individuals have a large zone of freedom and many rights to assert against the state, a silly cause taken seriously will be as good a reason as any other. If you demand a non-silly reason, you've introduced a value judgement and complication to the issue.
We wouldn't say that freedom of speech is only for non-silly speech because we suppose a real right involves the speaker's discretion on that.
I'd compare a right to take up arms against the state to another right, the right to vote. I don't have to actually vote in order for my prospective vote to be a threat to a candidate. Just the prospect that I might vote a fellow out of office might make him more gentle where my interests are involved. If he and others like him do their jobs really well, voter turnout might plummet just because people aren't motivated by dissatisfaction.
Of course, the implicit threat that I will vote if he gives me reason to vote doesn't work if I don't have a right to vote.
I can think of one episode in our history in which taking up arms (along with subsequent voting) against the government ultimately changed policy for the better - prohibition. It was a poor idea that made ordinary people into criminals, criminals wealthy, and endangered state agents. Even "revenuers" may not have been assured of their safety. That scenario isn't very "Red Dawn", but it does illustrate some things the state can't do well where a population refuses to comply and has the means not to comply.
IT sounds crazy and anarchic in the abstract, but if it is understood as an implicit threat to use one's rights, like the right to vote, it's part of a larger and seamless fabric of rights that keep the state from being our master rather than our servant.
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