One of my favorite blog sites, Flopping Aces, ran a contest. Write the best essay on the relevance of the Second Amendment in 400 words or less and win a t-shirt (shown above) from Ranger Up. I didn't even need 200 words. But then I didn't win either. Second place seems fitting for the subject though. Here's my essay:
Militias. Armed Revolt. The 2nd Amendment was introduced at a time when the founders had fresh in their minds the success of the American Revolution, fought in large part by REAL citizen soldiers armed with their personal hunting rifles. But (thinks the reasonable person) that was a wholly different time. The right to bear arms is outmoded in a stable republic. And he would be right. If there could ever be such a thing as a stable republic.
The 2nd Amendment isn’t a Revolution-era footnote explaining how we got here. It’s a foot in the door of liberty in case that door ever swings closed.
Our Constitution is perishable. The only thing keeping it alive is the active force of the law it details. Undermine the force of law, and the Constitution evaporates. And law is easily undermined. Activist judges. Czars. Legislative creep unchecked by Stare Decisis lethargy. States are threatening to assert their rights against the federal government in a manner unseen since the civil rights era. Is the thought that citizens may need to stand up against tyranny so unthinkable that we would ignore the only physical protection we have to do so?
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