When it comes to the violent overthrow of our government Alabama's Rep. Mo Brooks wants to keep his options open

[knoxblox]

[Brainspore]

@generic_name

“the constitution gives us the right to overthrow the government”

Such a bananas (and surprisingly widespread) idea.

Protip: if your intention is to overthrow the Federal government then you don’t need to ask the Federal government’s permission to do it.

[Steve_L]

So Mo, would you be in favor of average Americans being able to keep and bear anti-aircraft missiles to guard against the possibility of US military drones being used against them by a dictator?

My guess is that you’d try to weasel your way to a no on that question by arguing about the definition of “arms”. But that establishes a line, a limit on the Second Amendment. “Missiles don’t count as arms.” Once we agree that there should be a limit, now let’s have a constructive negotiation about where that line should be drawn. What else falls outside the definition of “arms”?

[snigs]

So when the Weathermen ran their bombing campaign to stop American Imperialism/overthrow the government, were they a well organized militia exercising their Second Amendment rights?

[jeddak]

Well regulated.

WTF is well regulated about today’s gun owner-base?

[gracchus]

Another self-styled patriotic conservative who has no place in government.

@gracchus

Claim: the Second Amendment acts as a check/“solution” against the potential overbearing authoritarianism of the federal government.

This nonsensical and baseless interpretation – beloved of Libertarian anti-statists, white supremacist and fascist “militias”, and pandering GOP politicians – assumes that the Framers lacked so much confidence in their main document and the free State it defined that they inserted the Second Amendment as a sort of “suicide clause”. In fact, the Second Amendment specifies that its basis is to help protect that free State, AKA the United States of America, from its authoritarian enemies.

[Les_Pane]

@generic_name

“the constitution gives us the right to overthrow the government”

So, Rep. Brooks, you would fully support BLM arming themselves and taking to the streets to overthrow the government, yes?

[docosc]

Ah, the possibly-apocryphal Winston Churchill line about “We are now merely negotiating the price.” Yeah, there really are those who think that there should be no limits. If you can afford nukes, you can have nukes. I hate them.

[Melizmatic]

@jeddak

WTF is well regulated about today’s gun owner-base?

[teknocholer]

@generic_name

If the argument is “the constitution gives us the right to overthrow the government” then I would point out here is no better way to ensure the end of a democracy than to have an armed uprising.

For most of the folk advocating armed uprising, that’s a feature, not a bug.

[cepheus42]

FOX news, so they’ll softball him of course. I would LOVE to get him in front of a smart reporter on some other network where they will ask the tough questions. Like: name a time in the United States’ history when a group of armed people successfully fought off the government in defense of some right they claimed to have? Because with all due respect, Mo, in the history of this country anyone who stood up to the government was massacred by the government or people who had government support. The indigenous tribes; Nat Turner; John Brown; heck, even the entire south armed and launched a war in defense of the vile right to keep black people as slaves and were eventually crushed for their attempt. How does the reality jibe with this fantasy you’re spinning? Or did you mean only “white people I agree with?” Because you could just say that. “White people I agree with need to remain armed to protect them from … something, something, blah, blah, insert racist doggerel here.”

[jeddak]

To your point, and to take it a step further, if the intent of the framers of the US Constitution was for the public to have access to armaments that would enable to them to overthrow the government, those armaments must be sufficient to overcome the US military. So we should all have the right to buy not just as many guns as we want, but also heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, howitzers, tanks, Javelins, helicopters, fighter jets, submarines, ballistic missiles…

[Steve_L]

@cepheus42

Like: name a time in the United States’ history when a group of armed people successfully fought off the government in defense of some right they claimed to have? Because with all due respect, Mo, in the history of this country anyone who stood up to the government was massacred by the government or people who had government support.

He would likely cite the American Revolution fighting against King George. Would that make Brooks just a Redcoat or would he be a full Benedict Arnold?

@jeddak

So we should all have the right to buy not just as many guns as we want, but also heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, howitzers, tanks, Javelins, helicopters, fighter jets, submarines, ballistic missiles …

Don’t give Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk ideas.

[Tony_MacFarlane]

The intent of the framers was how to deal with a 20 percent non-white population in the country at its founding.

[jeddak]

Arguably, also the white underclass. According to Howard Zinn.

[MagicFox]

Me thinks Brooks is confusing the Confucian concept of the Mandate of Heaven with the US Constitution.

It’s been a while since I read either document, but I don’t recall overthrowing the government being part of either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

[ejeffrey]

@knoxblox

If there were no guns, they’d resort to other measures

I know that if I were an elementary school teacher trying to keep my classroom safe and there was an unhinged murderer running around the school I’d like my odds a lot better if they were wielding a kitchen knife (or even a “samurai” sword!) than an AR-15.

Nobody is saying that banning guns will get rid of all guns, or that getting rid of all guns would stop all murder. We are saying that guns are the leading cause of death among children and we should fucking do something about that. Reducing the number and type of guns is proven to work.

[cepheus42]

@Steve_L

He would likely cite the American Revolution fighting against King George

Which was “well regulated” militias and foreign armies. And which also was before we were a country.

But yes, he’d be the redcoat.

[CarlMud]

What part of “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,” screams, "use your guns to overthrow the government? The 2nd Amendment literally explains that people need guns (in the absence of a standing army or national/state guard) so they can be called up to defend against armed insurrectionists trying to take over the state.

The people cheering on 2nd Amendment extremism are the people the 2nd Amendment was designed to oppose.

[Flossaluzitarin]

We want to get out there in governance, asking 'Where on any US Agency or policy-making were guns not the most effective solution you applied?" and get a few tautological replies. Speculating here that these guys think of themselves sometime during a given term.