Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts.
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The NRA opposed open-carry in CA and got a bill signed in to ban the practice in 1967 under then Governor Ronald Reagan. It wasn't because they realized they'd gone too far. It was because black people were open-carrying. https://www.history.com/articles/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act
To suggest that there is some intellectual inconsistency between an ideology that says it's OK if George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse shoot people in the street but a capital crime if Alex Pretti is carrying is to assume that their stated policy is their actual logic. It ain't.
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Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
The only reason there even is some discussion among conservatives is because Mr. Pretti was white.
I ventured into a conservative forum and it was a mixture of "His own fault / shouldn't have been there" and "Hey, what about his 2A rights? I'm not ok with this".
(Not claiming this one forum is representative). -
To suggest that there is some intellectual inconsistency between an ideology that says it's OK if George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse shoot people in the street but a capital crime if Alex Pretti is carrying is to assume that their stated policy is their actual logic. It ain't.
America has a long history of people with unpopular ideas who are hostile to our democratic system and want to constrain democracy so that their ideas can flourish. It's how we got the Senate, and the 3/5ths rule, and the narrative that guns exist to stand up to a "tyrannical government."
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America has a long history of people with unpopular ideas who are hostile to our democratic system and want to constrain democracy so that their ideas can flourish. It's how we got the Senate, and the 3/5ths rule, and the narrative that guns exist to stand up to a "tyrannical government."
After all, if you think that a government of, by and for the people is carrying out tyrannical ideas it is axiomatic that you think the will of the majority is a tyrannical imposition on your right to elevate your liberty over my equality.
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After all, if you think that a government of, by and for the people is carrying out tyrannical ideas it is axiomatic that you think the will of the majority is a tyrannical imposition on your right to elevate your liberty over my equality.
(As an aside, the fact that these ideas go back to our inception when only 6% of the population could vote, thus sustaining that minority power largely explains why the most democracy-fearing members of the Supreme Court are all "originalists". But I digress.)
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@SeanCasten Heh @dandb you were saying...
@cjhubbs @SeanCasten Yep! The article is very silly, confused about very obvious things!
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(As an aside, the fact that these ideas go back to our inception when only 6% of the population could vote, thus sustaining that minority power largely explains why the most democracy-fearing members of the Supreme Court are all "originalists". But I digress.)
I recommend Carol Anderson's book "The Second" if you want to understand this history, and how we got 2A in the first place. It was decidedly NOT about making sure that future Alex Prettis could protect themselves from racist ICE agents who came on a Somali fraud pretext and started killing.
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@cjhubbs @SeanCasten Yep! The article is very silly, confused about very obvious things!
@cjhubbs I wonder if this is more obvious to people outside of the US maybe? Like maybe if I had been raised with this mythic understanding of the US as a level playing field or whatever...
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Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
@SeanCasten There are other countries, eg the UK, in which immigration raids are met by local protesters.
And nobody got shot.
How come? - the police don't have guns, simples.
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I recommend Carol Anderson's book "The Second" if you want to understand this history, and how we got 2A in the first place. It was decidedly NOT about making sure that future Alex Prettis could protect themselves from racist ICE agents who came on a Somali fraud pretext and started killing.
The TL;DR though is in plain text in the Constitution. When 2A referenced a well arm militia you can assume the writers were using that term in the same way they used it in the body of the Constitution, where Congress had the right to summon militias for only 3 reasons:
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The TL;DR though is in plain text in the Constitution. When 2A referenced a well arm militia you can assume the writers were using that term in the same way they used it in the body of the Constitution, where Congress had the right to summon militias for only 3 reasons:
1) to enforce the laws of the US; 2) to defend against foreign invasions and 3) to suppress domestic insurrections. The folks who wrote this had direct, recent experience with Shay's Rebellion, the Revolutionary War and lived in constant fear of slave rebellions. 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
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(As an aside, the fact that these ideas go back to our inception when only 6% of the population could vote, thus sustaining that minority power largely explains why the most democracy-fearing members of the Supreme Court are all "originalists". But I digress.)
@SeanCasten Agree, we’ve never truly had a representative democracy with majority rule. Reform the Senate and expand the House! https://connor.site/2025/representative-democracy-is-worth-fighting-for/
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1) to enforce the laws of the US; 2) to defend against foreign invasions and 3) to suppress domestic insurrections. The folks who wrote this had direct, recent experience with Shay's Rebellion, the Revolutionary War and lived in constant fear of slave rebellions. 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
Suffice to say that in the modern world, our nation's gun nuts are really not wild about the US government using a militia to enforce the law (see: Ruby Ridge, Waco, Constitutional Sheriff movement, etc.)
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Suffice to say that in the modern world, our nation's gun nuts are really not wild about the US government using a militia to enforce the law (see: Ruby Ridge, Waco, Constitutional Sheriff movement, etc.)
And given the size and power of the US military (esp as compared to our founding era when we neither had a standing army nor the tax system to pay for it) it also doesn't make any sense to suggest Congress might need to call up well regulated militias to defend against foreign invasion.
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And given the size and power of the US military (esp as compared to our founding era when we neither had a standing army nor the tax system to pay for it) it also doesn't make any sense to suggest Congress might need to call up well regulated militias to defend against foreign invasion.
But the fear of "domestic insurrectionists" from Denmark Vesey to the Black Panthers is still there. And it's not accidental that the Scalia court ruled in Heller that the first 13 words of 2A are "merely prefatory" and no longer apply.
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But the fear of "domestic insurrectionists" from Denmark Vesey to the Black Panthers is still there. And it's not accidental that the Scalia court ruled in Heller that the first 13 words of 2A are "merely prefatory" and no longer apply.
'cause they don't want to be a well regulated militia. They just want the right to kill people who they, in their sole discretion deem to be domestic insurrectionists. Is that what they say? No. But as the old saw goes: watch their feet, not their lips. /fin
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@SeanCasten Agree, we’ve never truly had a representative democracy with majority rule. Reform the Senate and expand the House! https://connor.site/2025/representative-democracy-is-worth-fighting-for/
@connor As a certain MA Senator would say: I've got a plan for that. https://casten.house.gov/media/press-releases/casten-introduces-package-of-legislation-to-reform-american-democracy
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And given the size and power of the US military (esp as compared to our founding era when we neither had a standing army nor the tax system to pay for it) it also doesn't make any sense to suggest Congress might need to call up well regulated militias to defend against foreign invasion.
@SeanCasten Isn't the national guard the well-regulated militia? Cause they were called as much as the "regular" military to fight abroad. Sometimes moreso.
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And given the size and power of the US military (esp as compared to our founding era when we neither had a standing army nor the tax system to pay for it) it also doesn't make any sense to suggest Congress might need to call up well regulated militias to defend against foreign invasion.
@SeanCasten The well regulated militia is the National Guard, the existence of which is supposed to prevent federal tyranny by avoiding the need for a standing federal army to operate on US soil or operate abroad without a Congressional declaration of war for that matter. Since we have a permanent federal army always operating abroad, we’ve violated this principle since at least WWII and thus haven’t restrained the military industrial complex as Eisenhower warned.
https://www.amazon.com/Second-Amendment-Biography-Michael-Waldman/dp/1476747458
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Look, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
@SeanCasten Just ask Philando Castile.
