> OK, you've had about 200 years to test this absurd hypothesis. Care to
> give me one instance in which one could claim that the US government was
> deterred from doing something nasty to somebody for fear of its "armed
> citizenry"?
The point is that the *threat* could be there. If ever there was a time when enough people armed themselves as Jordan mentions, then we might see the US government cower. Power, even backed with institutionalized state violence, is never absolute.
Emma Chissitt