Now that's clarity right there.Poppycock.
Think back over time to any issues regarding the first amendment - even down to the Ten Commandments at a courthouse, or a prayer before a football game.
Were any of those resolved with firearms?
Does anyone ever say, "if our church isn't tax deductible, we'll start shooting."?
Does the city think, "Well, we better let this gathering happen, or we'll get shot?"
Nope.
Replace the word "shot" with "sued", and yes.
Oh, they're (incl. me*) bad too. Everyone has their blind spots.
* I'm far right of centrist, but on INGO I sure look centrist.
Concerning the rest of your post, don't you think that the whole point is that we don't have to say "or we'll start shooting", because, well, we can? I know people are almost all talk, but it could happen, and in my mind to think that the two are not connected is to kinda not believe in the 2nd amendment. As soon as we can't, not just don't, we are in much greater jeopardy of losing those rights.
And in some ways, the precedent for those 10 commandments at the courthouse or the prayer before a football game was settled with firearms. Our forefathers made it very clear to the king that his time was over and we wanted to do things our way. So just because we didn't settle it or see it settled in our lifetime with firearms, the precedents were set with them.
My sig line on another forum is "our forefathers would be shooting by now". It may be a bit of hyperbole, or maybe not, I don't really know. But I like the sentiment.
TMWIW (tell me why I'm wrong)