I read an article over on Daily Kos today that I really enjoyed: Why Liberals Should Love the Second Amendment by Kaili Joy Gray. Among all the positions generally held by folks on the ‘left,’ the anti-gun-rights stance is one of the most inexplicable. You would think that the civil liberty mavens, defenders of free speech and the ‘little guy,’ would be the first to defend the one right that secures and protects all others. Without the right to keep and bear arms, all the other rights are sitting ducks at the hands of an all-powerful government.
Gray’s piece is perfectly logical, well articulated, and correct. Go read it (especially if you consider yourself to be in the ‘left wing’)!
And yet, despite the recent Heller and McDonald decisions, liberals stumble at the idea of the Second Amendment as an individual right. They take the position that the Founders intended an entirely different meaning by the phrase “the right of the people” in the Second Amendment, even though they are so positively clear about what that phrase means in the First Amendment.
If we can agree that the First Amendment protects not only powerful organizations such as the New York Times or MSNBC, but also the individual commenter on the internet, the individual at the anti-war rally, the individual driving the car with the “F[***] Bush” bumper sticker, can we not also agree that the Second Amendment’s use of “the people” has the same meaning?