Group That Claims to Stand for Americans' Rights Targets Second Amendment
One of America’s long-standing civil rights organizations is now attacking Americans’ right to keep and bear arms.
The uncanny irony came in the form of a July 16 article from the American Civil Liberties Union, which discussed the “anti-blackness” that allegedly prompted the founding fathers to include the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
Yes, an organization that once championed individual rights is attacking one of the most integral aspects of the Bill of Rights. We can’t make this up.
“The vigilantism of widespread gun ownership puts Black Americans in an especially vulnerable position given the brutality and human cost of discriminatory policing,” the ACLU wrote.
“The gun violence epidemic continues to spark debate about the Second Amendment and who has a right to bear arms. But often absent in these debates is the intrinsic anti-Blackness of the unequal enforcement of gun laws, and the relationship between appeals to gun rights and the justification of militia violence.”
The article went on to spew nonsense about how gun rhetoric was born from “white racial anxiety,” which allegedly led white Americans to “frame Blackness as an inherent threat.”
That’s right. You can now add the Second Amendment to the ever-growing list of things considered racist — along with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, college football and “niceness,” of course. You probably think that’s a joke, but it isn’t.
So, what is the solution to this “anti-black” amendment?
Increasing funding for police departments that are also stereotyped as systemic oppressors of black Americans? We know the left doesn’t want that, and has championed against police forces time and again — especially in light of George Floyd’s death.
Would the ACLU prefer we deprive all black Americans of their right to self-defense and encourage them to rely on police?
Considering how vehemently the left has attacked our men and women in blue over the past year and deconstructed any faith minority communities might have once had in police forces, that wouldn’t be the best route.
To reiterate one CNN article’s quote from the late Charlton Heston, the Second Amendment is “something that gives the most common man the most uncommon of freedoms.”
But Carol Anderson, author of “The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America,” holds a different opinion.
In fact, she maintains that the amendment “was designed and has consistently been constructed to keep African-Americans powerless and vulnerable,” according to CNN.
Specifically, she cites a plethora of historical examples which appear to address potential armed slave revolts (perhaps similar to the Haitian Revolution, but this began three years after the Constitution was ratified).
Anderson also discussed laws created to deprive black Americans of gun rights in the Jim Crow South.
While it’s no doubt that black Americans were treated unfairly in the past, we cannot change the mistakes of bygone times.
Instead, it is important to ensure that all Americans have the ability to protect themselves and their livelihoods in the modern age.
The 18th century ideals of the Bill of Rights may have had an arguably limited scope back then, but it’s safe to say that no one believes these guaranteed rights should be stripped away from anyone or everyone because of the era’s shortcomings.
In fact, we’ve seen the modern era draw even closer to the truth that all men are created equal.
We’re supposed to work toward creating a more perfect union, right?
The Second Amendment acts as an equalizing force for all Americans. It ensures that the elite aren’t the only ones with weapons (albeit, theirs are more catastrophic).
Would the ACLU prefer that everyone be unarmed subjects to an oppressive system?
Ironically, those who claim to challenge systemic oppression are now seeking to unarm the oppressed.
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