Give them enough rope… The debate over the Second Amendment

            The debate over the Second Amendment, and its role in modern society has often focused on arguments based on “worst case” scenarios. The government may become tyrannical. Law and Order may break down. As polling in the past has indicated, many fundamentally did not understand the value and necessity of this basic right or why the Founders believed it necessary to a free Republic.

            The anti-gun advocates’ arguments for gun control seduced many, because of the relative peace and prosperity enjoyed by America post World War II. However, the last twenty-two months have been a trying time and seem to have ripped the thin veneer from the gun control advocate’s weak arguments.  Exposing many to why the Second Amendment is just as relevant today as it was in 1789.  The first and central argument of those who want to restrict or eliminate our rights centers on the definition of “militia.”  Is the Second Amendment an individual right or a collective one?  Was it only needed at the founding of this nation when America was new and had no standing army?  Gun control advocates argue that times have changed.  We now have a professional military that protects us internationally and a National Guard to protect us domestically. The Second Amendment, goes the argument, was never meant as an individual right. We as citizens no longer need to arm ourselves in order to protect and defend our nation. This is the modern world, and we can depend on the government to protect our country and guarantee our freedom. The political leftists scoff at the possibility that the government itself could be deterred from threatening the very freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. For many, this argument seems valid. We no longer need “citizen soldiers.” We no longer need to worry about a tyrannical government (unless it was Trump). Only “crazy” people worry about such ridiculous hypotheticals. Tyranny could never happen in the “Free World.”

            But as with many assumptions, the Pandemic ripped away the facade of civility that stands between the people and the de-evolution of society through the reaction of governments, from the local level to Federal institutions. The left, in their glee to “never let a crisis go to waste” limited our access to each other and our representatives, who supposedly serve us in government. All their directives and mandates were done in the name of safety, Governors and Federal bureaucrats restricted every area of our lives they deemed necessary to further their own goals. What started as a two-week solution to a new epidemic became almost two years.  In this time, we witnessed governmental failure at all levels to provide for the security and general welfare of all. We saw our fellow citizens fined and arrested; locked out of the very system where power is supposed to be vested in the people. As crisis after crisis occurred, especially this past year, people seem to be finally understanding what our Founders knew: Unchecked and unlimited power starts with small steps. The Second Amendment’s primary purpose is to defend against tyranny and conquest both foreign and domestic. Thomas Jefferson believed that standing armies could and would eventually be used by tyrants to oppress their own citizens. But property owners and armed citizens alike would, if threatened, defend, and protect their own property, community, and the Republic itself.

Jefferson knew that power is seductive, and humanity flawed. The left’s deep dive towards tyranny over the last twenty-two months provides the most poignant example of how quickly a “benign” government can turn on its own citizens. While the difficulties of 2020 and 2021 caused much harm to the nation, the events serve as a warning to us all and underpin the reason the Second Amendment has always been an individual right. It is our duty as US citizens to defend the Constitution, to protect the Republic and remember that governments are made up of flawed individuals, who can and will use their positions of authority to serve themselves. With the current administration, we also learned that a standing army along with the government’s intelligence gathering capabilities, can fail to protect the nation’s interests while simultaneously promoting an agenda antithetical to our Constitution. Americans have to rely on themselves to defend this Republic, and we have the left’s own policies and actions now as concrete proof why the Second Amendment is an individual right, not a collective one. Without it, we could be in the same place as Australia. What once was a hypothetical possibility, the left has made into a reality.