SEPTEMBER 25, 2021 – When asked what he thought about democracy, Mahatma Gandhi purportedly said, “It’s an interesting idea.” Democracy has ample flaws to render it “interesting,” starting with . . . everyone gets to participate—including people who aren’t subscribers to democracy’s fundamental principle: power is derived from the consent of the governed, not from the end of a gun barrel.
At Target recently, I parked next to a vehicle bearing a red, white, and blue sticker promoting the Second Amendment, because it “Makes All the Others Possible.” My first reaction was, And that vehicle owner gets to vote?! The sticker reminded me of the over-sized pick-up I parked next to a while ago that sported a large Q-Anon sticker across the back window. My reaction had been the same.
What eighth grade civics class would teach that the Second Amendment “makes all the others possible”? Yet doubtless this misguided sentiment is shared by . . . dare I say millions of voters?
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the Second Amendment permits everyone to wield firearms (and ammo) free from all control. How would such a right, such freedom, such liberty “make possible” everyone’s right under the First Amendment to shout nonsense over the airwaves or the right under the Fifth Amendment not to self-incriminate? Or better yet, how does the right to bear arms “make possible” the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition against enslavement (by citizens, as well as by government), especially when gun-toting Klansmen tried to have it another way? Or how does the Second Amendment make possible the Sixteenth Amendment, which sanctions . . . an income tax? (“Oops!” as to that one, chances are the person who slaps a Second Amendment sticker on his/her car isn’t a big fan of income taxes.)
In any event, for the most part, Constitutional Amendments address governmental power—mostly via proscription. What, then, is the silly sticker suggesting? That the Second Amendment provides the means for enforcing the other Amendments? Against the government? That train left the station once a regular military was funded and established. Today, all 300 million guns on the loose in this country wouldn’t stand a chance against the military might of . . . the United States of America . . . a military revered by the vast majority of people obsessed with gun rights under the Second Amendment.
I wanted to engage the owner of the “Second Amendment” vehicle next to my car. I wanted to ask a series of questions that for my satisfaction would lead him/her into a corner with no escape. When I imagined the person’s uninformed, ill-educated responses, however, I realized democracy, being the interesting concept that it is, was already in a corner with no escape.
As I ventured into Target, I pictured Gandhi at my side. “What do you think of America?” I asked him. “Interesting place,” he said. I was struck by his inner peace—an “interesting” state of being, which I found difficult to emulate.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
