This post on reddit is one of the better and definitely unique reasons to be against gun control in the United States. Not written by me, but merely reposted here for posterity:
“I won’t give the expected answers of self defense or resisting tyranny, those are too trite and overblown. No, I answer with something far more basic yet fundamentally bigger.
Self Determination.
The right to keep and bear arms, to me, is not about pistols or rifles or shotguns or even artillery pieces. It says “a free man is trusted”. A free man may own a weapon. A free man does not need to fear the creatures of the world, his neighbor, a police officer, the state, or war.
Society as a whole is a form of contract. We all agree to follow the laws or suffer consequences. It’s an agreement between equals that this is how we will live together. Ultimately, any agreement or contract is backed by the threat of some kind of force. Fines, loss of privileges, imprisonment, or in extreme cases death. Being allowed the ability to resist, yet choosing not to because you believe in the process is part of how you know you are free.
If the State holds weapons and the citizens do not, then it is no longer an agreement between equals. That is a man being told, not a man being asked. And if you do not do as you are told, these punishments may be applied. As you lack the “permission” to have means to resist, you are effectively a slave. Perhaps a well treated slave with lots of privileges (so long as you do as you are told), but since you are not given the option to resist you are a slave none the less.
So to me, the right to keep an bear arms says that I am an equal participant in our society. I am a free man who CHOOSES to follow these laws and abide these restrictions. I may not always get my way, other people will vote differently, but regardless I am an equal member of that society and I chose of my own free will to participate in it’s process.
A free man may own a weapon. He has the ability to resist, but chooses not to because he is equal.”
