“The simple and direct language of our Constitution is clear – the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. There are no qualifiers on who may keep arms, what type of arms they may keep, or for what purposes. And it certainly doesn’t say the right to bear arms is about trivial matters like deer hunting or skeet shooting.”
Such were the distinct and impactful words of Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie as he testified last week at a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing bluntly titled “The Second Amendment.” The hearing not only featured Congressman Massie, but also former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America, Dudley Brown from the National Association for Gun Rights, and Stephen Vladeck, Professor of Federal Courts at Georgetown Law.
The hearing allowed for a timely status check on where the country is on Second Amendment-related regulation and legislation – though witnesses and members also engaged in some broader exchanges on government power, checks and balances, historical court decisions, and the impact of long-standing precedent on interpretation of the Constitution.
On Second Amendment issues specifically, considerable ground was covered. Congressman Massie discussed legislation he has recently introduced (such as a bill to lower the age from 21 to 18 for handgun purchases) and other pro-Second Amendment items coming up – like a national Constitutional Carry bill.
Discussions also centered on concerns such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) bypassing federal law and creating a de facto firearms registration database, the hypocrisy of powerful anti-gun elites who protect themselves with armed guards, and the deeper philosophical reasons for why an armed citizenry is a prerequisite for a free citizenry.
There is much at stake regarding gun rights in the country currently – and the clock is ticking. Roughly one-third of states have basically ignored the language of several key U.S. Supreme Court rulings on gun rights, including Heller, McDonald, and Bruen. Democrats also continue to ram through ever-constricting gun control laws with little meaningful judicial pushback.
On Capitol Hill, Congress has repeatedly sought answers and clarity from the ATF on a host of concerns regarding regular firearms commerce and ownership – with zero response. Meanwhile, pro-Second Amendment lawmakers mostly don’t have the votes to pass legislation to uphold the rights of gun owners due to historically slim margins.
At the same time, meaningful action in support of Americans’ Second Amendment freedoms has been limited (although not nonexistent) from both the Trump administration and the federal judiciary. Many Biden-era gun control regulations remain on the books and enforced, although the administration insists that it is working to remove them. The Supreme Court, despite having a nominally conservative majority, also has failed to weigh in on the constitutionality of some of the more oppressive gun control laws now in place throughout the country.
On top of all that, midterm elections are looming. The results of those contests could not only change the political dynamics in D.C., but also shift the balance of power and control in statehouses and governors’ mansions. Potentially seismic political change in November could severely impact our right to keep and bear arms – for better or for worse.
If Democrats take control of government in more states, you can almost guarantee that their first order of business will be gun control. One need look no further than Virginia to see how swiftly gun control activists can and will move to cement highly restrictive gun control regimes as soon as possible. New Governor Abigail Spanberger not only approved a slate of extreme anti-Second Amendment laws sent to her by the Democrat legislature, she amended one particularly bad “assault weapons” bill to make it an effective ban on a vast number of guns used for sport, hunting, and self-defense.
But as witnesses at the Senate hearing last week noted, unless Congress takes action to secure and expand our Second Amendment liberties at the federal level, turnout for the Republican Party in November could be significantly depressed. It is not enough to simply warn about Democrats waging war on the Second Amendment. Gun owners need to see real action from Republicans to motivate turnout.
The hearing was short by congressional standards – but it was important for several critical and interconnected reasons.
First and most notably, the Second Amendment receives short shrift as a right. Because it is treated as a second-class right, it is constantly scrutinized, tested, challenged, attacked, delegitimized, and reevaluated. There is no other right enshrined in our Constitution that has come under such open, direct, and explicit attack as the Second Amendment.
Second, while most politicians and bureaucrats in Washington rarely touch a firearm (even as they’re surrounded by armed guards), tens of millions of Americans use firearms for entirely legal, safe, and legitimate purposes every day. For gun owners, the Second Amendment is far from the arcane, peculiar, dangerous, and obsolete historical anomaly that its detractors – and even some of its self-proclaimed supporters – believe it to be.
Third, the right to keep and bear arms was perhaps the single most pivotal right in the founding of our country. In fact, it was a British mission to disarm the colonists that precipitated the first shots of the Revolution on Lexington Green in April 1775 – 251 years ago this month. Those first patriot casualties of the war died defending a store of firearms. There quite literally would be no United States of America without an armed citizenry. Honoring the 250th anniversary of American independence should include honoring the importance of an armed citizenry in securing that hard-won liberty.
As the witnesses at the hearing underscored, the Left hates the Second Amendment because it balances the power of the citizenry with the power of the government. Ultimately, the Left is frightened by the right to keep and bear arms because it checks the very tyranny that they wish to impose on the nation.
The Left simply hopes that bad things won’t happen, either from a tyrannical government, an enemy foreign power, or a violent criminal lurking in your neighborhood. Conversely, those of us who understand the need for our Second Amendment have accepted the truth – however ugly it may be – about human nature. We would rather be prepared to confront threats to life and liberty than simply bury our heads in the sand.
Progress on restoring the original intent of the Second Amendment may be maddeningly slow and uneven, and gun owners have every right to be frustrated. But last week’s hearing proved that there are indeed still voices in positions of power who refuse to compromise on this essential constitutional right. And as long as that is the case, there is reason for optimism.
Connor Martin is a U.S. Marine and covers national policy issues.
