Wednesday, August 10, 2016

"The Entire Insurrectionist Theory of the Second Amendment Is Fabricated"

"Taken at face value, all of this rhetoric adds up to one very clear belief: If you believe the United States government has grown tyrannical, the Second Amendment protects your right to rebel violently against it, using firearms, to reclaim your liberty. Cruz and his ilk rarely specify precisely what this revolt would look like, but the implication is extraordinarily clear: Armed Americans should shoot enough government officials as is necessary to overthrow perceived oppression. The Cruz-endorsed insurrectionist theory of the Second Amendment, in other words, is basically a tacit permission slip to assassinate political leaders whom one deems to be oppressive.
"And that, it seems, is precisely what Trump implied on Tuesday."

Mark Joseph Stern in Slate discusses how "the GOP's current framing of gun rights quite explicitly licenses an armed revolt against tyrants."

And in a 2011 Atlantic article, Garrett Epps explains the fallacy of "the insurrectionist idea."

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