The contemporary gun rights debate misses the point of the Second Amendment. A crucial piece of our constitutional design, it is neither the relic dismissed by liberals nor the panacea praised by conservatives. Understood correctly, the Second Amendment is most threatened not by gun control, but rather by the militarization of domestic police.
The discrimination pervading the Second Amendment’s recognition, and how militarized police threaten its promise, appear evident in Ferguson, where a politically and demographically diverse coalition is emerging to defend it.
Sidestepping partisan battle-lines in an ideological debate, this analysis exposes how liberals and libertarians alike can find common ground on Second Amendment principles. It also exposes constitutional arguments supporting the Black Lives Matter movement that few observers have recognized. All US citizens share an interest in restoring the Second Amendment’s limits on the militarization of the police.
Missing the Point of the Second Amendment
Gun-control advocates responding to urban violence, mass shootings at schools and theaters, and fatal household accidents routinely lock horns with gun rights advocates committed to the role of an armed populace in securing liberty.