That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Seems to me it's saying you can over throw it should it become tyrannical.
And I know, somebody is going to argue that it doesn't explicitly say "Over throw" but instead "Abolish."
I'll comment on this.
If the government is tyrannical, do you really think it would just step aside while you told them they were no longer in charge?
I doubt it.
So fighting would go down.
And if the people had no weapons, it diminishes their ability to do this at any time.
While I'm not saying that our current government is tyrannical(stupid and racist, yes, but not yet a dictator), it could one day become tyrannical.
As with all governments.
At that time, if we no longer have guns because our right to own them was taken away(another thing I doubt will happen), it'd be much harder to over throw the government.
And I know what you're saying.
"The American people could never defeat the military!"
But clocking out at the idea of 35%(there was a study that came up with this number) of 330,000,000 people owning guns, that's 115,000,000 people with guns.
That's a hard number of people to suppress.
Additionally, other countries might join in too.
All depends.
But regardless, people owning guns gives the people power against their government.
In that time, the State's were not all one government.
They were all separate, under the rule of the union.
Because the second amendment gave us the right to bear arms.
Not to carry around an inter continental ballistic missile.
Wait.
I looked it up.
You can own a nuke legally inside the united states.
You just have to pass all the safety standards, and there's nobody that's going to give you an instruction manual to build it.
It'd also amount to hundreds of billions of dollars to make the storage area, getting the material, development, etc.
On top of that, it'd also add on another few hundred billion to be able to launch it any where.
Note, the richest man on earth has $79.2 billion dollars.
The united states spent $80 billion on just the PLANES to carry nukes.
With enough money, you can own just about any weapon.