Distorting the Second Amendment

There's no liberty down the barrel of an insurrectionist rifle

Extreme Second Amendment advocates assert that the right to bear arms is the most essential freedom and a means to fight a government that imperils civil liberties.

“The Second Amendment is what makes the rest of the amendments (in the Bill of Rights) possible,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, said after a federal court recently invalidated the state’s attempt to block enforcement of federal gun laws.

In his failed 2022 campaign for Southwest Washington’s Congressional seat, Republican Joe Kent called himself a “Second Amendment absolutist.” 

“This is 100 percent about keeping the government in check. The government is supposed to have a healthy fear of its citizens, and that’s why the Second Amendment exists,” Kent said during the campaign.

It’s time to vigorously confront the myth that the Second Amendment confers a right for citizens to oppose the government by force.  It’s especially dangerous in these days, when so many politicians are perpetuating it and tolerating violence as a tool of political protest. 

On close analysis, what these people are defending is the ability to sow chaos and civil strife —  events like the Jan. 6 insurrection. Civil peace, justice and liberty cannot be achieved at the end of an insurrectionist gun barrel, no matter what its champions claim about the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment is no model of clarity: ”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It wasn’t until 2008 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it applies to individuals as well as state militias, which were seen as an alternative to having a peacetime federal army.

However, U.S. Supreme Court rulings and state laws clearly say the Second Amendment does NOT authorize private militias — which are the only conceivable way someone could mount a serious rebellion.

“Contrary to widespread mythology about the right to keep and bear arms, private militias are not authorized under federal or state law, are not protected by the Second Amendment, and are unlawful in every state,” according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, based at the New York University School of Law.

Even Federalist Paper No., 46, in which James Madison writes that militias are a tool to repel the danger of a tyrannical government, the reference is to state militias, not private ones, according to the Brennan paper, called Dispelling the Myth of the Second Amendment.

It would be foolhardy to think that the founders of this nation gave license to anyone who wants to take up arms for a perceived grievance. It would be like building a self-destruct button into the Constitution. 

America’s founders were terrified of mob rule. The 1786-87 Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts partly instigated the Constitutional Convention in the first place.  The framers were elitist and distrustful of the masses.  They surely did not want to give anyone legal cover to overthrow the government by violent force.

Remember, too, the words of the First Amendment, which says the federal government cannot infringe on the “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”  It’s nonsensical to  think that the authors  meant to lay the government open to violent overthrow.

Washington state’s own constitution  recognizes the right to bear arms, but it specifically states: “… nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.” 

The law and state and federal constitutions simply do not allow citizens to take the law into their own hands and use firearms to do it.  For the peace and safety of the public, society cannot allow uncontrolled, unaccountable police or military action.  It’s not up to the Proud Boys or any right wing or liberal group to decide when and why to take up arms against the state or society. That would invite chaos and bloodshed.

Unfortunately,  political groups and figures — especially former President Donald Trump —  have been justifying use of force to achieve political ends. By suggesting that the Second Amendment authorizes violent opposition, they are adding tinder to already flammable divisions in the nation.

This warped thinking started decades ago. It led to the lethal 1993 confrontation in Waco, Texas, with the Branch Davidians, a cult  suspected of weapons violations. In 2016, it led to the 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by right-wing extremists. It led of course to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.  It led to the attempted kidnapping of Michigan’s governor and the assault on Paul Pelosi. It led to the armed intimidation of peaceful protestors at a George Floyd rally at Longview City Hall in 2020. God forbid it doesn’t lead to violence if Trump is arrested this week.

The Declaration of Independence recognizes that the people have a right — a duty, even  — to overthrow a tyrannical government. In their wisdom, however, America founders gave the public means to change government peacefully. It’s called  elective politics.  They created a system of checks and balances, of institutions and civil rights guarantees in the hope of preserving democratic and benign rule.

There’s an irony about the people who talk about using force to defend liberty. They speak in contradictions. They accuse others of being “Communists,” but they are the very ones who want to undercut society and government with the tactics of Lenin and Trotsky. 

They’re forgetting the elements that guarantee liberty and democratic government, which include honoring the rule of law, recognizing  the results of honest and free elections, accepting the primacy of majority rule, and valuing the needs of society as well as their own.

And I would add one more: understanding our history and our Constitution—  not by distorting the Second Amendment to justify violent rebellion.