President Biden spoke this week about gun control, or “gun safety” as it’s been re-branded, and he claimed “this is not about taking anybody’s gun” before saying AR-15s should be banned. In Texas, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke is back to his “take their guns” rhetoric and others on the Left have presented hot take after hot take about guns.
At this point in the debate, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes has entered the chat with a thread on the 2nd Amendment.
An increasingly mainstream message of gun maximalists is that the *reason* to be armed is so that you can use violence or the threat of it to get your way in the political sphere, basically:"People in government need to worry we'll pump their bodies full of lead if they cross us"
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 3, 2022
Hayes went on to discuss a “deranged” interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution:
In fact, under a certain (once fringe, now common) reading , that's the whole *point* of the second amendment. People should be sufficiently armed to be able to murder agents of the state en masse if it comes to that.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 3, 2022
This an *obviously* deranged reading of it all, totally incompatible with basic principles of civic life and liberal democracy, but it casts a very long and ominous shadow over our politics right now. One that's getting longer by the day.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 3, 2022
Here's just one example basically at random, subtly dropped in towards the end of the ad. The second amendment is so people can protect themselves from "intruders or an overly intrusive government." https://t.co/dOGYy748Rz
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 3, 2022
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Just play out what that means. You have the right to shoot an intruder to your home. And you have to right to…put a bullet in the head of someone from the government who is doing things that are "overly intrusive"
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 3, 2022
That's why, of course, as Stevens' dissent in Heller so persuasively shows, the "well-regulated militia" stuff in the text of the amendment isn't just throat clearing. The Founders were smart enough not have their new government cede its monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 3, 2022
MSNBC hosts have nothing but the hottest of takes on the issues of the day.
Are you saying citizens shouldn't be able to defend themselves against an oppressive government?
— Dan 🇺🇸 (@danieltobin) June 3, 2022
That's EXACTLY what he's saying.
— WeirdRalph (@weirdralph) June 4, 2022
They really think the 2nd Amendment is all about deer hunting.
So, is an armed populace a limit on state power or nah?
(I think you know the answer.) https://t.co/TjcWFP9BDe
— Come & Take It Sock (@politicalsock) June 4, 2022
We’d wait for a straight answer to that question but it would take forever.
The original intent of the 2nd Amendment is exactly what you are saying is a problem.
You're so tone-deaf too, Chris, entirely ignorant to the current events playing out in Eastern Europe. Right now.
Are you pro-government oppressing and killing its people? https://t.co/Opan8yytJn
— Exposing Gun Control (@XposeGunControl) June 4, 2022
The Left applauds as other countries send weapons to Ukraine, including guns for civilian use while calling for tight gun control in the U.S.
wait’ll you hear how we became a country. https://t.co/7iJYobh32E
— Probably Mulder’s Intern’l House of Pandemicakes (@banishedprotein) June 4, 2022
No kidding!
"Govt should be armed to force citizens to do things it wants, but not the other way around" https://t.co/mPeNP7W20T
— Curtis Loew (@Boo_urns357) June 4, 2022
And “progressives” who believe that are baffled by how we’ve ended up with tyrannical governments in world history.
Tell me you haven’t read the Federalist Papers without telling me you haven’t read the Federalist Papers. https://t.co/NlqGQ2Qx5P
— Paul Snively (@paul_snively) June 4, 2022
— I do a good impression of myself (@tspencer48) June 4, 2022
— Alex Get Your Bitcoin Off The Exchanges ∞/21m (@alexstanczyk) June 4, 2022
The first person to popularize this fringe theory was unhinged conspiracy theorist James Madison. https://t.co/4LXEWg08Dg pic.twitter.com/rozrvHNzfI
— V|K (@VitruvianKulak) June 4, 2022
"By its nature, the militia will not be easy for the federal government to abuse, and will instead act as a check on tyranny." Hamilton FP29 https://t.co/deQJUH3qiQ
— Scott Coleman (@bandphan) June 4, 2022
By Hayes’ definition the Founders and others sound “deranged.”
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