Second Amendment Liberty's Most Essential Safeguard 200 Years Later
By Amy Swearer. Jan 4, 2023
The right to keep and bear arms has a prestigious and gloried history. Titans of constitutional law such as St. George Tucker and Joseph Story referred to this protection as the "true palladium of liberty"—the bulwark that preserves all other inalienable rights.
They, like the Founders, understood that the Second Amendment's purpose was to ensure that the people were armed and always capable of defending their natural rights, whether against an invading army, a tyrannical government or criminal actors.
Two centuries later, far too many inheritors of this precious safeguard have relegated it to second-class status, mischaracterizing its purpose as protecting hunting rights instead of human rights and deriding it as a dangerous relic with no place in modern society.
The first part of this critique is undoubtedly true. The world has changed dramatically over the last two centuries. Unfortunately, human nature has not.
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The same three primary threats to our rights—tyrannical governments, foreign invasions and criminal actors—exist today just as they existed in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. Arguably, these threats are even more pronounced today, given the ways in which modern technology has enhanced the capacity of those who are not always animated by charity to wreak havoc on the rights of others. .....