Lawyers, Guns and Money
A well regulated militia being necessary to the preservation of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
-- Amendment II, United States Constitution (Bill of Rights)
The Second Amendment represents an idea at least as fundamental to the central philosophy of government by the consent of the governed envisioned by our founders as any, including freedom of speech and separation of church and state. In fact, it may be the single most radical idea in the entire Constitution, which is saying quite a bit.
That’s because the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting and gun sports. It’s not about protecting the home or keeping people safe from criminals. It is about denying the duly constituted government a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
This isn’t a stretch or an interpretation – it’s the plain language of the Amendment. The founders understood the difference between a militia (essentially a paramilitary group organized by citizens) and a standing army, gendarmerie or state-constituted security force. They saw the existence of an armed citizenry as an essential counterweight a powerful central government and a tangible guarantee that the other rights enumerated in the Constitution could be defended by the people themselves if they were ignored by the those in power.
This goes right to the heart of the notion of government by consent and protection of minority rights. An armed citizenry means that one faction in control of the government cannot impose consent through force, and must seek it through persuasion and debate. It all seems very pessimistic and violent, but it’s quite the opposite. No other constitution in history up to that point – and very few since – placed so much trust in the deliberative process and the ability of people to come to a consensus through democratic means, that it would offer its people the freedom to fight it out if they couldn’t agree.
I recognize that this philosophical high-mindedness puts me on the wrong side of some very serious debates about public safety, and in cahoots with some mouth-foaming fanatics. But I strongly believe that it is disingenuous and ultimately very dangerous to frame the debate over guns strictly in terms of crime, accidents and suicides, while ignoring the centrality of citizen ownership of arms (not just guns, but any means of deadly force) to the American notion of democracy.
I think it’s fair to question whether the 18th century ideal is still the right model for our country. Certainly we have the examples of Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine and Israel (yes, West Bank settlers, I mean you) to show what happens when armed militias get the upper hand over central governments, and we have an extremely bloody Civil War that was fought in this country 150 years ago to show what happens when the American political process breaks down. I would be the first to admit that there are sensible objections to the proliferation of guns in society, and many examples of countries with plenty of freedom and less violence because they lack this peculiar feature of American radical libertarianism.
But for better or worse, in America, the question of guns is a Constitutional question – not something to be nibbled at the edges. Liberals in particular need to ask themselves whether this is a right Americans can afford to lose – especially at this precarious moment of our Republic – just because the issue has been owned by a socio-economic group that does not sign on to the rest of the progressive agenda. We’d like to believe that our institutions are strong enough to stand on their own, without the threat of force to keep the bastards from intimidating their critics, hijacking the machinery of government and regulation, and tampering with the very foundations of democracy: the right to vote. Yes, we'd like to think.
Sometimes freedom does spring from the barrel of a gun. Sometimes, when you hear the word democracy, you need to reach for your revolver.
1:26:38 PM 
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