Because the visible 2A enthusiasts essentially trace a lineage to the KKK. Of course, they don't actually care about upholding the Constitution or fighting tyranny. That was just a convenient cover tactic and accusation to use against political opponents.

There isn't, it just appears that way. There is a subset of people that are cheering on the government in this situation and they are 2nd amendment supporters but the 2nd amendment supporters are much larger than that overlap.

Things like this is just another way of trying to drive a wedge.

> cheering on the government's authoritarian actions

Enforcing the law is not an authoritarian action.

Take for example the case of ICE agents arresting American citizens. Many complain that it's authoritarian. But it's just the law. 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(5)(A) grants them the power to arrest anyone (including citizens) for any offense (not just crimes) committed in their presence.

If Democrats disagree with this they can just repeal it. They've had the majority several times since the law was passed in 1990. But instead of repealing it, they advise their constituents that it's "illegal for ICE to arrest Americans" or it's "illegal for Border Patrol to operate outside the border". Complete misinformation!

It's more authoritarian not to enforce the law. Instead of protesting to have the law changed, Democrats protest to harass ICE agents. A nation of laws seeks change in the legislature, not by vigilantism (what Renee Good was doing) in the streets.

Not civil war, but a revolution. The 2nd amendment isn't worth much except as a very last resort, when the vast majority of people are willing to die to overthrow a government, as we're seeing in Iran.

The people claiming that having guns won't save you against the weight of the army are only partly correct. Having a few guns won't save me personally. I would certainly be killed on my own. But no government can kill everyone, either as a practical matter, or simply because you still need folks to produce the food. When everybody is armed, the government simply cannot oppress them to the same degree.

Imagine every protestor you see on video was instead standing rank and file in the street with a rifle on their shoulder. I.e. a well regulated militia. That would sure send a very different message, wouldn't it?

He's saying his friend and his friend's coworkers who somehow work for Newsom wants Newsom to do that. Not that Newsome wants to do that.

You're misquoting them. They said "it would be fun to see [people I don't like] have their guns cataloged."

Just so we're clear, you're arguing that ICE is already murdering people on the street with impunity, but people shouldn't defend themselves or they'll just get murdered harder?

It’s a bunch of dudes who think they’re literally Rambo. Like, sure with enough firepower you can maybe take out two before they take you out but any sort of application of your second amendment rights is going to end quickly for you.

I'm gonna say the same thing I said the last time you trotted out this opinion (which is far more excusable now that you've outed yourself as a brit BTW). At a societal level the LARPers don't matter. They are a rounding error compared to all the people who have a single daily carry piece or purse gun or whatever. And those people affect the numbers and the risk calculations happening in offices far away.

ICE is thuggishly and sloppily prowling places like Minneapolis because statistically they can get away with it without causing too many bodies. Up the potential body number and their tactics are forced to change for the better.

If the statistical average door they kick in in Minneapolis had the same likelihood of "shit I ain't going back to prison <bang> <bang> <bang> <dives out bathroom window and hops neighbors fence>" behind it as the statistical average door in St. Louis ICE wouldn't be behaving the way they are in MN. They would have specific targets, specific places and times to pick them up, etc, etc. (i.e. operating like the local professional police do) because the risk calculation with even a tiny change you might get shot back at, even if only ineffectively, makes that (much higher) resource expenditure pencil out, with consequences in terms of how much they can get done.

Personal ability to credibly threaten lethal violence if cornered (note: I did not say "firearms") acts much like an ATGM or MANPADS for an infantry squad. You're not gonna take a squad with TOWs on the offensive against a bunch of tanks, but if attacked you've at least got a prayer. The same math holds on the individual level. Making any potential target substantially more prickly to a potentially superior force and doing so for little cost is a huge boon for the little guy. A firearm is a force multiplier same as a bomb carrying drone or a cell phone that records things the government does not like or a media platform that puts those things in front of the eyes of the masses. It forces the superior force to still be much more careful and expend far more resources when engaging. When it comes to domestic policing what this means is that ICE would be under more pressure to "be careful and professional" in every city like the DEA did during the war on drugs we wouldn't even be having this discussion because they wouldn't be employing the tactics that everyone hates.

This math is a large part of why drugs won the war on drugs. There were enough glawk fawtys wit da switch kicking around on the "wrong" side of the law that the cops needed to adopt militarized tactics, the public didn't wanna pay for that shit (monetarily or politically) over weed, and thus drugs won the war on drugs. If they could've rolled up on just about anyone "cheaply" with just a few cheaply (poorly) trained cops, minimal equipment and support, minimal planning and surveillance, etc. it would've gone on way longer (but they couldn't, because that would have yielded too many bodies and cost too much political capital).

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Are you familiar with Chris Dorner?

Thew whiplash from "Why isn't anyone fighting ICE???" to "the government will nuke us if we fight back" is frankly stunning

>One dude in his home with a gun or two versus a 50 billion dollar ICE force that has complete immunity and a massive media and political empire ready to spin any bad incident into an us-versus-them narrative.....

How does legal immunity or a media empire affect a dead man?

>Oh, and if anything really gets out of hand, that political empire also has nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons are not very useful in a civil conflict... Or pretty much any conflict

OK, now what happens when you show up in front of an ICE agent while carrying an AR-15? How, specifically, do you use the gun to effect political change?

Well done! Step one is getting armed, and step two is training. There are a lot of good resources out there for non-right-wing shooters, such as InRangeTV.

At this point, unfortunately, that appears to be where the Overton window is resting. I didn't intend any sideswipes or sarcasm in my comment, I was just trying to characterize the opposition to the 2nd Amendment in broad terms.

> If the second amendment advocates cared as much about our protected rights as they claim, they’d be all over this.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Second Amendment, and all intersections with other civil rights are seen through our respective lenses.

There is a lot of attention being paid to this within that community, but it's largely supportive. Everything the left is upset about falls into two categories: it's either something with broad support (deportation of those not legally present) or there's more to the story that significantly changes the situation, at least from their perspective (Renee Good).

To be clear, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind or even state my own views with this comment; I'd just like the various sides to understand each other a bit better.

> All you’re saying is that our liberties only matter to them as regards people who agree with them politically. Which is absolutely true.

What I'm saying is that "Gun owner" shouldn't be a political statement, and we'd be a lot better off if more Democrats owned and trained with guns.

Vietnamese farmers would agree with you.

"Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15, your AK-47"

The words of the last Democrat that seemed to really have a chance to win a senator seat in my state. His support really dropped after such a statement in this state.

> We are a minority, sure, but not a small one.

So you are actually supporting my point. Conscientious, civically-minded people who own guns are unfortunately a minority on the (American) Left.

> And I still believe this - more than ever. You'd have to be insane to stand up to the current government right now.

Then you should be quibbling with my parent commenter who is smugly asking why the "gun people" aren't shooting back, not me.

I specifically used the phrase "American Left" to try and head off this trite quip.

I was referring, in general terms, to the left wing of mainstream American political discourse without narrowing it down to just "Democrats". I was trying not to trigger the waves of "Ackshyually karl marx says under no pretext" comments that one usually gets.

> I would imagine your idea of "attacking" the second amendment is just common sense laws.

I would imagine your idea of "Common Sense laws" is actually just petty attacks on law-abiding citizens that do nothing to stop crime, so I guess we're even.

> it just illustrates the right never actually cared about standing up to oppressive governments,

My comment was not trying to argue that the Right did or does care. My comment was saying "This is the reason there are comparatively so few gun owners on the (American) Left". Because the American Left (speaking broadly) discouraged it for almost a century.