The Second Amendment’s Second-Class Treatment Has to End

The Second Amendment contains no language actually suggesting it should be limited by whatever whims of government happen to be fashionable at a given point. Even those who claim the militia clause does just that have to ignore four key words: “shall not be infringed.”

And we’re kind of living in a golden age. We have restored gun rights more in the last two years than we’ve seen in the previous 50 combined. We’re not necessarily where we should be, even compared to 50 years ago, but we’re moving in the right direction overall.

Still, the Second Amendment is still treated as a second-class right.

For example, let’s look at California.

Among the 10 new laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom is a training requirement that calls for four hours of classroom time and a live-fire requirement. In other words, you have to prove you’re capable of shooting before you can own a gun in the Golden State. 

The same state, it should be noted, where the governor and many other prominent leftist lawmakers are outraged at even the hint of requiring an ID to vote, saying it would disenfranchise an untold number of people who don’t have easy access to a photo identification card. 

So, to get this straight for a moment. The Second Amendment isn’t a second-class right; it’s just that, unlike voting in California, those who wish to own a firearm must not just have a photo ID card — the same one that they say the poorer Californians can’t access at all — but pay for a class of at least four hours plus range time, something that will not be free, all so they can spend more money on the gun.

Spending money on the gun is just how it is, but the rest seems more than a little hypocritical, don’t you think?

But you know what they say about Newsom: if it weren’t for double standards, he’d have no standards at all. Just remember his lockdown dinner at The French Laundry for yet another example.

But it’s not just anti-gun states that seem to have an issue. Supposedly pro-gun Florida long held onto its prohibition on open carry, something that makes little to no sense if you’re a pro-gun state. Then we get the issue of a Flock camera recording everyone who uses a particular public gun range: a camera that is pointed such that the only people it tracks are those going to the range.

Would anyone think of doing such a thing at, say, the headquarters of a political organization, or an abortion clinic? Probably not, and that’s kind of the point.

See, the truth is that the Second Amendment isn’t a second-class right, but it is still treated as one. Most states still include some kind of limitation on the right, even if it’s just where you can carry a firearm and where you can’t. Federally, it’s just as bad, but it’s only the Second Amendment that faces this kind of treatment.

Sure, there are still assaults on the First Amendment. We all remember the Biden administration’s supposed war on misinformation, much of which was labeled as such but turned out to be true. We remember calls for hate speech legislation, too. Still, there’s never been the momentum to curtail free speech like there is to curtail our right to keep and bear arms.

Remember this when people try to tell you that they’re not treating it as if it’s a second-class right. The only “infringement” they’ll name that applies to another right is “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater,” all while ignoring what that case was really about, anyway. Make them tell you more. Tell them that you’re fine with not being able to shoot into a crowd, which is the closest analog possible, and dare them to find more. 

Their claims and their beliefs are different here, even if they refuse to accept it.

We know better.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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