The Second Ammendment Lobby and Police Safety

[TheCurmudgeon]

Condor, I don't see this as a second amendment question. Let me try approaching this from a different angle.

Lets look at Weber's definition of a state:

According to Weber, a state is any "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

Without using the meme, a specific class of firearm has been argued to be a requirement to keep the state from having that monopoly. No other weapon system (even large caliber weapons or automatic weapons) have been associated with the population's ability to challenge the state's monopoly on violence.

I know THIS argument is harder to comprehend then the simpler argument, but it is the same in certain ways. It is based on a distrust in the government to perform the basic functions it is founded to perform. The assault weapons argument takes that a step further, where the government not only can't perform its basic functions, but is now an active threat.

I personally don't think this is an industry argument to allow them to sell more AR-15s. This is not the "Commercial elite" controlling the "common people" with fear driven arguments that they must protect themselves. I think it is an argument that exists amongst the people that the industry has keyed in on. There is much distrust of the government that goes beyond a simple dislike of the current administration. It sometimes manifests itself in that form, but it is far more pervasive than that. I believe the thinking is part of a larger change in the culture of the US, but I can't put my finger on it. The larger questions raised here are the ones I am interested in.

In the incarnation I am referring to it shows up as a absolute requirement for the population to be armed. But not just armed with a gun, armed with a military style weapon. And not just armed for self protection against criminals, but armed for protection against the very state that the people created.

It is this total lack of trust in the government in a segment of the population that I am interested in. This argument for assault weapons is just the clearest form of it.

So again, the question becomes why do people feel this way in a free society. The British came to trust the system enough in the 1920's to restrict gun ownership. We never have. In the recent times there have been several groups who have tried to break away from the government or blatantly challenged it. This is not new. What seems to be changing is the INDIVIDUAL interest in the need to challenge the system, or at least be protected from it.

Is this a result of more aggressive policing? Have incidents like Rodney Kings cause a severe lack in trust of the police. Is it part and parcel to the release of documents that has demonstrated that your government spies on you? What makes people believe that they need military style assault weapons to protect themselves from their own government? What happens when they finally start to use them?