Charlie Kirk Shooting a Reminder of How Warped is the NRA's Interpretation of the 2nd Amendment

The killing of Charlie Kirk is first and foremost a tragedy - another life lost to gun violence, another family left grieving. Kirk, weirdly, argued that gun deaths were a necessary price to pay for the right to bear arms but the NRA's vision of gun rights has little to do with the constitution and is definitely at odds with safety.

The Second Amendment was written to provide for a citizen militia in a young republic wary of standing armies. It was never a blank check for individuals to amass arsenals. Chief Justice Warren Burger once called the NRA’s reinterpretation of it “one of the greatest pieces of fraud on the American public.”

And the practical case is just as weak as the historical one. Private gun ownership does not make us safer; our rates of gun death are proof enough. Nor does it check government power. In an age when the state commands drones, armored vehicles, and cyberweapons, the idea that a handful of armed citizens could deter tyranny is pure fantasy. Guns in private hands don’t restrain government firepower - they mainly multiply tragedy at home. We have yet to see NRA members come out to protect the American cities into which Trump has sent armies.

The right to bear arms, as originally written, was about citizens taking turns in a militia to avoid the costs and risks of a permanent army. Today, the unregulated right to own arms undermines the very rights the 2nd amendment meant to regulate and subordinate to the aims of the broader community and not to the weird fantasies and hatred of lone shooters.