Our Politicians Don’t Fear for their Lives Anymore: That’s a Problem, History Suggests

The History Supporting the Second Amendment Suggests it has Outlived its Usefulness.

The Second Amendment’s original intention was noble and brave. The idea was that people, organized into militias, would ensure the government could not take too much power. The framers had ample concern — based on history — that the government would eventually use its power against its own citizens to quell freedom. They were certainly right to worry.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (thankfully deceased), writing in Heller, took a broader view — that the Second Amendment was really about the right of each person to have a gun. Prior to this 2008 decision, the court had routinely sided with the government in its ability to place restrictions on gun ownership not related to “militias”.

The blood of every innocent who’s been killed since then is, of course, on Scalia’s hands, his family’s hands, and all his Republican enablers’. Of course, we can blame the NRA, gun manufacturers and Republicans intent on serving them — they all bear some responsibility. But lost in this murder and mayhem is an important fact: the Second Amendment — as originally intended — is no longer effective.