this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
816 points (97.9% liked)
Political Memes
10789 readers
3192 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"Well regulated" in the 1700s sense or "well regulated" in the "I think the government should have direct control over the militia that is supposed to violently fight the government" sense? Because imo one seems more viable than the other.
The second amendment was never intended to let the people overthrow the government. It was intended to serve instead of a standing army for the defense of the republic. Madison didn’t want military power centralized in the Federal government.
Not only did he not want it centralized, it was really uncommon and expensive to have a standing professional army at the time. The US was a new nation, and it was pretty poor. The idea they'd be able to have a federal professional military, at least one large enough that you don't need supplemental militias, would probably be laughed at.
Ehhh the federalist papers make it pretty clear that the second amendment and the aforementioned militias were for threats both foreign and domestic. Plus, considering the whole "starting a revolution against what was at the time 'their own' country" thing alone I think they recognized the possibility that they may need to do it again in the future.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" and all that.
-Thomas Jefferson