Liberal Fear

For Liberals, the Second Amendment (the “2A”) isn’t about safety (as they love to condescendingly claim), but rather about fear. Fear from their fundamental insecurity with freedom as Americans have traditionally understood it. This is a robust freedom, where individual rights are given wide latitude and generally end only where another person’s rights begin. But it’s also a freedom that reveals (but does not produce, an important distinction) inequality. 

Liberals fear inequality because their worldview centers on equality of collective outcome, rather than equality of individual opportunity. As far as firearms are concerned, Liberals fear that a few are building up the means to impose violence, apparently capriciously, against the many. These people will tell you that “White supremacists,” for instance, are arming up to overthrow a certain (it’s for sure this time, really) Democratic victory in the upcoming presidential election.  Most obviously, they will use ridiculous interpretations of data to produce mass-shooting statistics that make it seem as if every school child in America faces a certain threat of being murdered in the classroom by an “assault rifle” bearing lunatic. In fact, your child’s chances of getting struck by lightning are greater. 

Outcomes vs. Rights

Collectivist thought among Liberals is part and parcel of their anti-2A rhetoric, and is also a glaring weakness in their position, as recent events have demonstrated. Liberals tend to focus on collective outcomes, rather than the individual rights, which would explain their attraction to extremist collectivist philosophies, namely Marxism/Communism. But when the putative protectors of the public, the police, are defunded or otherwise hamstrung in their efforts to police effectively in the name of ending “system racism,” who then provides security for the collective? That remains a black hole in the modern Liberal social theory. 

Conservatives, on the other hand, value personal freedom and personal responsibility as the cornerstones of a free and just society. Personally-owned firearms are the guarantors of our personal safety and of our Constitutional liberty. We respect the power that firearms possess, and we understand and willingly assume the serious responsibility that firearm ownership entails. Instead of being afraid of individuals wielding weapons in defense of their home, property and rights generally, we fear the government assumption of that prerogative, with the inevitable conclusion that those rights will be left undefended and more vulnerable. 

Written by Q