.Believe me, the government knows the population is armed. But why should we be armed with assault weapons? Such weapons wreak more terror and destruction than any benefit by way of defense against tyranny. The general population has no more need of assault weapons than they need bazookas. Are we supposed to have a bazooka in the home to defend against some perceived tyranny? If you can afford one, or afford a recoiless rifle, or a mortar even, you most certainly can have one in your home in this nation if you can pass the back ground checks needed to buy any other firearm. As for why should we be armed with semi-automatic rifles, which by EVERY defintion in the world except for the American democrat's definition are NOT assaut weapons, is because a population armed with .22's and shotguns is not a deterent to a tryrannical govt, as these weapons are next to useless when faced with an enemy armed with high powered, long range, high velocity, high capacity weapons. You trust the leaders of this nation that much? I certainly don't. But then again I'm not some head up my ass liberla that doesn't now the history of the hundreds of millions of people slaughtered by their own governments in just the last 50yrs of the 20th century, forget about the history of mankind.A government that knows its population is armed is going to have to disarm it before it tries to extend its powers beyond what the majority will tolerate--and this serves as a definite warning sign.
And it seems to me that the people who actively fight tyranny as they see it are called terrorists. Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols thought they were fighting tyranny when they killed 168 people. Yeah, the Brits thought the Founders where terrorists also. The nazis thought the Resistance fighters where terrorists, along with the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. The Chinese thought the students at Tienemen sq where terrorists. Pol Pot thought the intellectuals where terrorists, Stalin thought over 60,000,000 of his fellow Soviet citizens where terrorists. I could go on and on and on. Hell, some of us think the govt agents who incinerated 20 children, plus adults, at Waco or shot an unarmed woman holding nothing but her baby at Ruby Ridge to be terrorists.