I'm not American either (I'm from Europe). I used to think that the 2A was a stupid relic from past cowboy days but have grown to appreciate it (after debating/discussing with Americans) and am now somewhat disappointed that other countries haven't implemented the same. It was in fact due to this thinking that I searched for 2A on hn.algolia.com and found this (quite recent) thread so maybe someone will actually read this.

Many genocides have been committed through first disarming the targeted population (Armenia, Germany, Cambodia etc). Committing genocide on an armed population is orders of magnitude more difficult compared to one that is unarmed.

It's easy to say it could never happen where you live, but things tend to change. And if/when they do it's not like the government would start easing up on restrictions. I don't see that ever happening. You need to have it strongly in the constitution for it to actually work.

Self-defense is what most people seem to be talking about and that's certainly a use case, one which becomes more important the further away from the nearest police station you live (or just in crime-ridden neighborhoods). But while this is the most popular talking point I don't see it as the most important one.

With regards to mass shootings, they aren't really that common when you factor in the amount of firearms there are in circulation and how pretty much anyone can get an "assault rifle" (which seems very difficult to define by those advocating against them).

Homicide rates aren't crazy either but obviously there's a flipside to everything and having more guns in circulation will statistically increase their use. But it needs to be weighed against their ultimate purpose and benefit - freedom from oppression. This is the main reason so many people fled from Europe and came to the US in the first place. And people are talking about removing that now just because of a small amount of shootings? There are orders of magnitude more homicides with hand guns compared to the mass shootings. If you honestly care about people dying from then then, well, yeah, you can argue for government regulation and buyback of most firearms. But you would definitely focus on hand guns foremost.

But that also brings in uncomfortable stats which show that black people are disproportionally responsible for homicides in the US.

And then look at suicides. Even though it's super easy to kill yourself with a hand gun you have higher rates of suicide in many countries with very strict gun laws.

I wish there were more examples of countries with similar constitutions. Mexico I think has a constitutional right to self-defense in your home but the culture is quite different there.

As opposed to most countries now which seem to center more around the government, the US has historically been about the people. The whole idea of the second amendment was so that the people would be able and willing to defend their property (also a strong part of the constitution) and thus homeland without relying on the government for it.

tl;dr: Of course having relaxed gun laws comes with more accidents and more violent crimes (statistically speaking). However the way most of the western world is centering in on nanny state -like policies I'm increasingly getting convinced that the US constitution was and is on the right track. People can self-organize and be responsible. A larger problem in the US nowadays is the lack of a cohesive social structure. People feel alienated. This is moreso what leads to shootings, not guns themselves. Gun restrictions (in whichever form) would be like applying band-aid - while they would decrease firearm incidents they would also not do much for the actual bottom line, however much gun control advocates would want you to believe.

And then we're not even talking about practical issues. With what, half a million guns in circulation any buyback program would be futile. Australia did one and managed to reel in 1/6 of the targeted firearms IIRC.

So even if politicians/activists were honest and said that they wanted to ban all guns for everyone, eventually, I don't see a sane path towards that. And despite that they just keep on chipping away things bit by bit, with the intent of "making the world a better place", while mostly ignoring that gun rights were (and are) backed by a very clear purpose.