> The guns are for the possibility of civil war/social upheaval/violent revolt.
I will never understand Americans' desire to prepare for a tyrannical government, that may with some low probability happen in some unspecified future, but in such a way that it can still be defeated.
When they are simultaneously giving up lots and lots of lifes in violent murder sprees every single year. With absolute certainty and in the present.
Looks like an optimization gone wrong to me.
May shed some light:
"How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment: The Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun. Today, millions believe they did. Here’s how it happened." https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/how-nra-rewrote-secon...
To head off the inevitable "but a bunch of rednecks with guns would never be able to stand up to the military!" That's first-world myopia. Look at what happened when, e.g., Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan. A bunch of farmers did not take on the undivided Pakistani army. Instead, after initial skirmishes, part of the Pakistani army broke off and fought for independence alongside the revolutionaries.