lets say Americans give up their gun rights. Then the government decides it wants to use unconstitutional force on us. How would we defend ourselves without guns?
Distributed crypto-currency. One of the big draws of Bitcoin for me years ago was my sense of hopelessness about the utility of guns as being useful under a situation where it was appropriate to 'bare arms' as envisioned by the authors of the 2nd amendment. 'We the people' are increasingly dis-advantaged in such a contest as technology moves exponentially forward.
It occurs to me that the main thing the proverbial 'powers that be' have is more money.
All of the rest of their power and influence derives from that, and this asymmetry is the basis for what amounts to a form slavery under which more and more citizens live even here in the 'land of the free.' Wresting monopoly control of nation's (or world's) monetary system from TPTB is a far more powerful weapon than civilian firearms. The latter certainly has it's place both tactically and strategically however. And they are an indispensable tool for other more mundane things as well.
I guess as a thought experiment, then, look at the meaning today of "bear arms." First of all, "arms" was not specifically firearms, but things that poke, stab and slice. Bows and arrows, pikes, spears, swords, mace, knives at the minimum. But today in most areas none of these, with the exception of firearms, are considered "arms."
Secondly, you'd broaden "arms" to include crypto?
Interesting idea. It is a day of robbers and thieves operating over the internet. Yes, we can protect our goods and gold from them using crypto, just like yesterday we would do it with a firearm, and before that, with a sword.
When I was first doing software engineering for money, crypto was, under U.S. law, classified as a 'munition.' That was a giant pain-in-the-ass for the work I was doing.
As for 'bear arms' (and I apologize for the typo), my read of history related to the second amendment is that it is pretty clear that what was being considered by 'bear arms' was to bring them to use in conflict and in support of and under the direction of an individual state.
I also read the 'a well regulated militia' as being something which was a theoretical (and necessary and proper) thing but it was impossible without an armed population. That is to say, it did not exist perpetually but it must be possible in times of need...and again, an armed citizenry was necessary for that to occur.
All kinds of arguments about how the 2nd is obsolete or wacko or whatever exist. Or that it doesn't mean what it seems to mean. I personally have not found these arguments to be compelling. On the contrary, a government's founding documents containing the the explicit concept and mechanism of it's own demise should things go wrong seems to be a pretty unique thing in history. These ideas and others like them have proven (to me) to have been powerful and proven given the success we've had over the last few centuries.
It is as clear as day that the U.S. 2nd amendment is a massive thorn in the side of the 'globalists' and 'new world order' crowd. That is all the advertising I need to make me believe that it is something worth holding on to.
