The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed

I think the 2nd Amendment prevents real doomsdays and here’s why. Most fascisms come to power when a population, terrified of chaos, desperately accepts the first strong man they come to. When everyone turns into refugees fleeing looters with their possessions on wheelbarrows it is any port in storm. In countries that exist with iffy governments, communities can start the old neighborhood watch when news from the capital looks bad. This preserves enough enough democratic space to buy the requisite time to reconstitute things in a rational fashion. A country with a Second Amendment can call a congress or convention to figure things out. A country without is an a binary space with order and chaos as the two alternate values. And no, it does not accept nulls. A society which can hold out for a while doesn’t have to turn to a Boulanger in desperation. It gives the local status quo inertia even when the national scene may be in flux.