This equation changes when the police are militarized. In the wake of the War on Terror, it is now a common occurrence for police departments around the US to purchase excess or outdated equipment from the military. They are allowed to use chemical warfare against civilians in ways that wouldn't be allowed in actual combat. They have electrical equipment that can track or jam civilians' phones. They have literal tanks. The list goes on and on. Even if civilians outnumber the police, there would be a mass slaughter of civilians if it came to all out combat.
> They have electrical equipment that can track or jam civilians phones.
A thought popped into my head as I read this, how would the founders apply the right to keep and bear arms today? Would it extend to digital weaponry? Both offensive and defensive?
The question is interesting, but any answer is more projection of one's beliefs than any actual grounding in reliable fact.
In the context of the 18th century, the forces that a government could bring to bear would either be a centralized army (that would take months to get anywhere in what is now the US, due to its large size), or the very localized militia forces, which would be responsible for local defense until the regular army could arrive. In the specific context of the US, the main threats would have been Indian raids and slave revolts, where immediate action from local militia would have been essential for response. One of the pivotal events of the American Revolution was the British attempt to disarm the Massachusetts local militias, and it's my belief that this is why the Second Amendment is worded the way it is.
At the same time, we must recognize that our modern world is alien to those who lived 200 years ago. Services once provided by a collective civic obligation (such as the militias of that period) are now institutions provided by the government or by private individuals under contract of the government. And the realistic threats we face are vastly different. I imagine that given these circumstances, they would take a much narrower view of Second Amendment, casting it more as a right to personal self-defense rather than a right to private military rebellion against the government acting unlawfully.
By the time the Bill of Rights was written, the rebellion had been over for years. The American revolution ended in 1783[1], whereas the Bill of Rights wasn't written until 1789[2].
That's not to say they might not have been sympathetic to rebellion still, but they definitely weren't "in the middle of" one. Note that Washington himself literally led the American military against a rebellion during his presidency[3].
The Confederate States (during the American Civil War) prohibited states from seceding... and this was only a few months after they had seceded from the US!
> how would the founders apply the right to keep and bear arms today?
Not as fundamentally a right to keep countermeasures (whether classical weapons or alternative devices) to militarized standing police forces, because that is completely missing the point of the RKBA.
The RKBA exists and was seen as vital to the security of free states because the existence of a universal, well-equipped citizen militia was the thing which made it possible for the citizenry to demand that the government over which they had democratic control not hire large standing internal and external (which ultimately end up as backstop internal) security forces in the first place — because those were seen as fundamentally incompatible with liberty — but instead rely on small cadre forces plus mobilizing the civilian militia for internal and external security. The founders wrote quite a bit based on the dangers of standing armies, but they didn't write a prohibition into th Constitution, just provided the tools that they saw as making standing armies unnecessary. They didn't write as much about standing paramilitary police forces because at the time of the founding those weren't a thing, but pretty much every concern they expressed about standing armies applies to paramilitary police forces, which are just standing armies that are exclusively deployed internally for use against the citizenry, with additional force.
The most powerful thing civilians could do, but it would require nearly 100% participation, is just stop working. Everyone, everywhere. It would be painful, but nothing strong comes without pain.
This seems like an interesting idea, citizens could do things that are legal and peaceful but which convey a strong message. Other examples might be to stop buying, driving minimum speed everywhere (though you might still get ticketed for blocking traffic), submitting complaints, turning off services for a month, living without using power for a while (difficult but possible), and making telephone calls.
What else is within the power of people to control themselves in a legal and peaceful fashion? One thing business and government really does not like is uncertainty and it doesn't take much random disruption to mess with plans, especially now when things are already messed up.
It would have to be something people can easily do, without much impact to themselves, that a lot of people will agree to do, which will have a noticeable impact on a sector that has been behaving badly. Company/product bans have been attempted without much success, but if people are motivated perhaps it is possible. It would essentially be citizens going on strike. It doesn't necessarily have to be directly related to the bad actor. I'm not sure there is a way citizens could strike against the police since few people usually interact with the police on a daily basis, but they might strike against government with the stated goal of changing governments oversight of the police.
There have got to be lots of ways the police, government, and business rely on ordinary people. That reliance is power and in many cases it would be legal, legitimate and peaceful to exercise that power.
