Oh I'm all in favour of
everyone getting educated as much as possible
. I'm just talking free speech higher stuff here.
The 2nd amendment is just as important as the 1st.
You have to remember how and why such rights were given to the citizenry of the US. The basic litmus test is...did the right pre-exist the formation of government? If so the govt has no right to take it away. The US is pretty much the only one that used the concept of precedent to extend like this....in putting the pre-existing inalienable right of the individual above that of the state/government.
Remember the 2nd amendment is all about the citizen able to protect his safety (with others as a militia) in the end from a rogue tyrannical govt (and the US knew all about that before and during its war of independence for example...and arguably to an extent during its civil war).
Europe definitely could have used a form of the 2nd amendment, having seen its fair share of rogue tyrannical govts. One only need to compare the action of the Jews in the baltic states (who were unprepared and unarmed thanks to no 2nd amendment there and active disarming of them previously by the Soviets....but knew what was going to happen having seen the early street reprisals) compared to the Jews in the warsaw Ghetto during their uprising....results wise on the tyranny (and its larger timeframe of existence). The math can be scaled to those who were armed, those who werent. Same goes for the holodomor era in the USSR. No reason for mass starvation and death and gulag marches if the citizenry were well armed (the counter-cost on the despotic govt becomes just too high). Its really a potent safeguard in the end.
In the modern day context, yearly gun homicides (including suicides) are about 30,000 cases....but whats less known is that anywhere between 300,000 to 2 million lives are saved by private gun ownership each year (according to CDC).
Seen far far worse with ANTIFA thugs (when they are not getting violent, and just sticking to talking)....heck even the pro-abortion ppl who scream the worst kind of things at pro-life groups when they exercise their right to the 1st amendment. I'm not going to call for curtailing any of their rights to free speech....as much as I may want it at times.
Its despicable what can be said....but I don't draw a line because I know once you do it, it can be drawn eventually to get to me. This predated Trump ...actually even the formation of the US.
...I assume its the same case with you @VCheng ?
