The only reason courts have authority to arbitrate disputes is because they are backed up by the will and authority of the government, which in turn has a monopoly on the use of force in society.
> Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.
That was Noah Webster, dictionary guy. He’s clear that the second amendment embodies a personal right to bear arms (so the citizens aren’t disarmed, like in Europe) so they can overthrow the government.
If a shooting war broke out between the federal government and private citizens, the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them like they were made of thin air.
I think that the best way to exercise the second amendment is to organize militias at the state level, but even then, there still isnt enough cash for proper defenses against the federal government.
Unless you’re willing to level your own country (which for practical reasons even tyrannical dictators are not), fighting armed citizens is nothing like fighting a foreign war. (Also, the track record for advanced nations losing wars in places like Afghanistan with vastly inferior weapons is significant). The Syrian civil war also started with a civil uprising, with armed civilian guerrillas fighting government security forces. Again, there were defections when soldiers refused to fire on citizens, and that led to establishment of the Free Syrian Army, comprised of defectors from Assad’s regime.
Here is how it played out when Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. The Pakistani military was armed with modern US made aircraft and weapons, launched Operation Searchlight, which killed at least 300,000 Bangladeshis. Civilians took control of arms depots and started shooting back. That precipitated Bangali units of Pakistan’s military to mutiny and start fighting for independence. Military assistance from India helped win the war, but that started many months later. Without being able to take control of those arms depots to begin with, Bangladesh never would have been able to start the war that led to independence. (The American Revolution, by the way, played out more or less the same way. Guerrilla attacks at first, seizing weapons and supplies, creating a more formal militia, and then getting assistance of a foreign power.)
It’s not some crazy NRA fantasy. We have numerous examples of despotic regimes with modern weapons and aircraft being overthrown in civilian uprisings. I come from a country that exists because of such events. The Second Amendment is there to preserve that option. Had Bangladeshis been armed like NRA wingnuts in 1970, hundreds of thousands of innocent people might have been alive today, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi women may not have gotten raped by the Pakistani military, etc.
That's what separates Bangladeshi force from 99% of NRA wingnuts: training, organization, support from foreign allies. Because of these differences, I do not expect a similar international response to occur in the event of a civil war in the U.S. And I think such is ultimately what will make or break an insurgency.
Without armed resistance from the people, there would have been nothing to support.
Even assuming that they could do this (which is plausibly quite wrong, as defense tactics can be very effective), what's the incentive? The people who serve in the National Guard are citizens themselves (who have sworn to uphold the Constitution) and every bit of effective defense makes it that much easier for them to defect while keeping plausible deniability. By contrast, if you've confiscated all the guns away (or bought them back) that dynamic just can't happen, at least not nearly as easily.
The presence of an armed citizenry does make for a huge difference in this scenario. No doubt about it.
Just having possession of armed weapons makes absolutely no difference to a modern, well equipped American military force. We’re talking about Armored Personal Carriers and Tanks rolling through cities, all communications being monitored or cut off. The arms may make it hard for the occupying force as there will be more shootouts but retributions will keep most of the populace under control.
The dynamic of Armed militias being a deterrent to a military occupation made sense in the 18th century but don’t make much sense today.
Assad literally used tanks against the civil uprising, and wasn’t able to stop it. (And doing so caused part of the army to defect.) Gaddafi was killed by the National Liberation Army, which initially armed itself by capturing tanks and weapons from military stockpiles.
Comparing Syrian and Libyan military forces to American ones is also a stretch. We’re talking about orders of magnitudes of difference in armaments and intelligence.
The main difference in the US would be that militias are even better equipped and better trained. Your tanks and APCs are completely irrelevant; they're useful to capture land, but by definition the US government has no land to capture in the US.
I expect the federal government to invent one. If it worked for Iraqi Freedom, the Spanish American War, Vietnam, maybe it'll work in Wyoming. Otherwise, we already condition our kids to solve conflict through violence, first by beating them when they do things we don't appreciate, and then by sitting them down in front of the TV where they can watch and learn as their only adult role model saves the day by inflicting grievous bodily harm onto other people (superheroes, star wars, fortnite).
Also, war is a lot less personal these days. There are a dozen or so Air National Guard units with access to weaponized drones in the united states. The public didn't even flinch at the onboard camera movies coming back from iraq and afghanistan showing people being blown up in their pickup trucks and SUVs.