It begs the question about consent of the governed – the supposed basis for legitimate government (assuming for the sake of discussion such a thing exists).

The answer to this question pretty much establishes the illegitimacy of the government.

In my home state of Virginia, for example, the rural (and geographic) majority of the state does not consent to being disarmed and criminalized by the government in Richmond – which represents Richmond and Northern Virginia.

90-plus percent of the state's counties oppose the slew of gun confiscation/criminalization measures proposed and likely to be imposed upon them. The people of these rural counties did not consent to any of this. And they have no say in any of this – because the state government is controlled by the urban population centers, whose concentrated numbers give them a virtual lock on the state's governing apparatus. The 90-plus percent geographic majority outside the urban hives of Richmond and Northern Virginia can vote but it's becoming as meaningless a gesture as voting in the old Soviet Union, where there was one candidate on the ballot – and no option to say no.