Not that it would be any of my business, but I've seen one too many rednecks quoting the Second Amendment as a valid reason for not having gun control. To be specific, he didn't even succeed in forming a sentence, but he rather just posted a picture with a quote "When government fears the people, there is liberty. When people fear the government, there is tyranny.".
Most convenient that they don't bother adding a date to that quote.
Because when Jefferson said that, the military consisted of infantry which used muskets, cavalry which had horses and field artillery which had cannons - which were not exactly overly effective back then. Out of those three things two were attainable for the common man; horses - which were fairly common back then, and muskets which didn't have any major difference to those used by the military.
So, a militia with competent leader and an option to pick their fights could actually hold their own against the military and even win. Cannons weren't that effective back then, and if you can choose the place and the time, you can pretty much nullify the rest of their advantage.
Well, there would of course be the navy, but navy can't invade anyone's country, nor can it offer support very far from the shoreline.
However.
I don't know whether it has somehow slipped past these yahoos - I think not, since many of them seem to be gun nuts and militants - that the military today is not the same thing military was 200 years ago. They have all kinds of neat toys, such as tanks, helicopters and airplanes, not to mention smaller things like artillery that can fire cluster munitions and stuff like that.
Civilians have... well, they have handguns, shotguns, rifles... and of course cars to replace the horses. And a very limited amount of full auto weaponry.
It would be the understatement of the millennia to say that the militia would be the underdog today, if it had to fight the army. Example; Iraq. While the freedom fighters are holding their own, they are in no position to suddenly overthrow the occupiers. And this is not your average militia; some of these men have been in the army and their weaponry is military weaponry, including handful of mortars and MANPADS (apparently). Or, if you want me to spell it for you; they are considerably more heavily armed than a US militia would be. And yet their most effective weapon is not a military - or even a civilian - weapon, but rather a big pile of explosives called IED. These things you can make from just about anything, including fertilizer.
I claim that should there ever be an actual need for militia in the US, one formed from gun owning Americans would be useless if the military supported the powers that be. And if the military didn't support the tyrannical government... well, then there would be no need for militia. Therefore, I also claim that the people opposing gun control because of the Second Amendment are using the constitution only as an excuse to keep playing with their guns. Time has passed by the citizen militia a long time ago.
If there are people here who oppose gun control because they think that a militia formed out of US citizens and armed with handguns, rifles, and shotguns would make any difference if the military sided with the government... I dare you, I double dare you; tell me how were you planning to pull that off?
