> Any armed militia (let alone a single citizen) would have no power to fight anything. A government army would crush them.

If this were true, then America wouldn’t have failed so badly in Afghanistan, guerilla tactics work. The objective isnt to defeat the military in a war, if that were possible it would lead to instability and random groups of americans from taking over the government anytime. The objective is to give enough capabilities to everyday citizens to atleast be able to setup a resistance severe enough that no government would consider such an action. For those abilities I think the liberties provided are helpful enough. But I agree with you, there are far more dangerous instruments being used against common citizens now, that it makes people protecting themselves with guns a bad joke. That calls for more policies to allow citizens to defend themselves, whether that’s a more robust education system to help citizens catch lying politicians, or a more robust system to bring in control the massive polarization spreading across all democracies, and defences against gutting out of the middle class that’s taking place. But all of them call for more protections to be added, not existing ones to be removed

It has been said many times before but tanks and planes cannot enforce a no-gathering order, they cannot stand on street corners enforcing curfews. Tanks and planes cannot defend the incredibly fragile (to attackers) US energy grid, which is too spread out and vulnerable to be defended by boots on the ground anyway. There's also the fact that a large amount of the US military would desert or defect from their posts if tasked with killing American citizens. Organized rebel groups would receive aid from our geopolitical adversaries, and the highways would be destroyed within weeks or months of the anarchy setting in. If the US ever suffered a civil war today, it would end as a country overnight, possibly permanently.

I dont know, I've been told by the media that on January 6th we were one hair away from being overtaken by a fascist regime.

If there's one thing we've learned over the past century is that conventional armies are terrible at winning guerilla wars against population.

That, and one could make the case than countries with strict gub laws, and thus a theoretically less afraid government, actually serve their citizens better than US when it comes to stuff like education, health care, social security, housing and infrastructure. So I am not really sure the theory of an armed citizenry resulting in better government for the people actually holds water.

No, it doesn’t mean it has failed, it just means it alone is not sufficient. Just like how a century of american prosperity wasn’t solely due to gun rights.

Like many other laws and policies, 2nd amendment alone is not sufficient.

The better question to find the answer to your query is.

Is removing the 2nd amendment and gun rights going to magically save america and stop its marching decline?

I don’t think so.

> And given that the government is chosen by the people to carry out their bidding, it would be odd for them to then threaten it.

I don’t think its good to pretend that some holy god falls out of the sky every few years during election time and asks every citizen who they want to choose as their leader.

No one’s talking about slinging guns and start shooting up all the politicians. If one doesn’t like a policy, they should go to the courts, write a letter to their representatives or vote for someone else the next time who they agree more with.

The issue is in pretending as if all of this is a god given right. It needs to be defended every moment.

You dont want an elected representative to come to power, setup the military to be loyal to that leader and then pull the rug on everyone else, jail the opposition, enslave the public.

I’m not saying this out of some fiction book, it’s happening as we speak in Myanmar, happens every few years in Pakistan, essentially the status quo in North Korea.

A robust democracy should not depend on the good will of dear leader. But be based on the foundation of its public.

More people are dying in america from drug addiction (from hopelessness and neglect of society), obesity, drunk driving, suicides every month, than you’ll see deaths from the 2nd amendment rights of everyday citizens to have guns and the right to carry them.

You have to ask yourself, why politicians rile up the public so deeply about the 2nd amendment, but totally ignore the common public’s disheartening reality and abandonment.

The 2nd amendment is a worst case scenario law, if you read history of most countries across the world and the tyranny of governments who have 0 fear of public, maybe it might change your mind.

I’m not saying that the 2nd amendment makes american politicans shiver in their beds and make it hard to sleep at night, or prevent them from still disappointing the public.

But there are far more worse realities which would make the current “hell” look like a sweet ideal utopia.

Every country and its citizens should strive to improve the lives of the public, disarming the masses is an odd hill to die on while on that quest.

in fact, are not well equipped to protect anyone either. Police are minutes away once dispatched. Even upon arrival, they aren't required to put themselves in harm's way to save you, just hope to mitigate further damage to others around you.