A short thread on something that bugs me a bit about civil liberties and the debate about the Second Amendment /1
The Bill of Rights is a relatively comprehensive, interlocking check on state power, grounded in the then-recent American experience with armed oppression. 2/
While civil libertarians often enthusiastically embrace the intent and purpose of the other amendments in the Constitution, they are often reluctant to engage at all with the intent and purpose of the Second Amendment. 3/
So you’ll often encounter an odd disconnect, where debates about the other amendments are grounded historically and hearken back to the concerns of the Founders, yet debates about the Second tend to sound more in policy terms (“this is what I want it to mean”) 4/
So I’ll get responses when I talk about the 2A’s grounding in (as Scalia noted, quoting Blackstone), the “natural right of resistance and self-preservation” that have nothing to do with the historical accuracy of Scalia’s opinion and everything to do with contemporary politics 5/
A mere policy response to a constitutional argument is always inadequate. It elevates the lesser consideration over the greater — the first principles of our constitutional republic. The 2A shouldn’t be treated differently than any other liberty secured by the Bill of Rights /end
