A legal right to own a gun does not go back to the founding of the republic, but to Anton Scalia’s ruling on behalf of the Supreme Court in 2008.  This is after years of falsehoods offered by NRA-financed lawyers, often not revealing they were paid to protect not the U.S. Bill or Rights but the American gun industry.  Prior to that there was no individual right to a firearm except as part of a well-regulated militia.  This was periodically restated by multiple court rulings over generations.

 

The crucial first part of the Second Amendment (“a well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”) is missing from the lobby in the NRA’s headquarters, as if they are attempting to delete it from the Constitution.  To the gun fetishists the Second Amendment only says “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” but the first 13 words significantly modify the sentiment of the last 14.

 

That gun ownership is not a universal right is self-evident.  While the post-Civil War period’s Constitutional amendments made African Americans equal citizens they were still prohibited from owning guns, in just the list of states you would guess.  This was because they might rise up in revolt if this Constitutional right applied to them.  No Second Amendment for you, sorry.

 

These militia were important at the outset of the American experiment because they were the nation’s army.  Every one of today’s weekend soldiers in rag tag militias playing with guns and sedition is without legitimacy, not remotely state-authorized.  At the start of the American republic our defense rested upon volunteer militia.  Fast forward a couple of centuries and we are not only the biggest military force in the world but we maintain the five largest armies in the world:  the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard would each, if standing alone, be the largest military force ever seen.   We spend three times as much as China, the next highest spender.

 

The biggest bald faced lie of the gun fanatics is that the Second Amendment is meant to arm the citizenry for the purpose of revolution against the government, a completely non-existent right of revolution.  This is unsupported by facts, the law and even a cursory review of history.  The fragile US government, its legitimacy and sovereignty not quite established, struggled mightily against armed rebellions (Shays Rebellion, Whiskey Rebellion, Fries’s Rebellion, Muskogee Rebellion).  The last thing the American people or the US government wanted were periodic skirmishes with anti-government rebels. Not the rebels nor anyone else claimed the Constitution gave them a right to challenge legitimate authority with violence.  They did so at their own peril and were violently dispatched, a lesson to apply to today’s insurrectionists.

 

As Republican Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court put it eloquently, claiming the right of an individual to own a gun is a “fraud.”  It is the massive gun industry ($20B revenues a year) that pays the lawyers to argue against what the Constitution actually says. 

 

Next time you encounter a Constitutional “originalist” remind him or her that the founders did not give them the right to own a gun, rebel against the government or have indefinite rule over the world through the profligate sale of lethal arms.  All that is make-believe in the service of capitalism and Christianity. 

 

The insurrectionists of 2020 were protected by white privilege, which allowed them to seize the Capitol.  If we repeat the same election with the same result we will get a crop of 2025 insurrectionists who are better armed and organized.  They will be far more lethal to the police and members of our national legislature.  We can only hope the authorities will treat the next crop of self-styled revolutionaries as they would treat a multi-racial leftwing revolt —  with a hail of gunfire rather than a respectful retreat and capitulation.  If they want martyrdom who are we to stand in the way?