We cannot compromise or negotiate the Second Amendment

In the more than two decades I’ve been involved in the Second Amendment community one thing has been constant. The public conversation around guns has always focused on the unkindest stereotypes of gun owners and the left’s self-serving caricature of those of us who defend the basic human right to security.

Because of the overall trajectory of the culture war, the debate surrounding guns and gun rights is now at a critical impasse and it’s no longer productive or genuine to approach the issue as if in a vacuum with no larger context.

Many people seem to struggle with objective facts and absolute reality. Postmodern thinking prevents some from accepting the fact that reality is something independent of the individual, and instead choose to believe reality is mercurial and optional. This fundamental fallacy is largely responsible for the widespread belief that there is actually a debate on the validity and scope of gun rights.

Regardless of our personal feelings or historical contempt for the law by elected officials, in the United States an individual’s right to be armed as they see fit is not actually in question. The issue was settled when the constitution was ratified, all subsequent federal restrictions are illegal and well outside the scope of legitimate political authority.

What we’re actually debating when discussing the gun issue is whether or not we should follow the constitution, ignore it, or manipulate it to meet the political needs of a given moment. The reason the founders included the Bill of Rights in the constitution was so that we wouldn’t be controlled by the beliefs and opinions of other people. They understood human nature and its flaws, and they knew basic human rights would suffer at the hands of neurotic people with a warped view of their own enlightenment and judgment.

Ignorant or sociopaths

The necessary pivot point in the public discourse on guns and gun rights is a sober recognition of the people involved. Gun control advocates vary from well-meaning people who are simply ignorant, to sociopaths with an unhealthy drive to make choices for other people and control the behavior of those around them.

The well-meaning but ignorant person may be swayed by well-crafted arguments, but sociopaths only incorporate outside information at their convenience and facts don’t intrude on their personal desires.

Individuals from any walk of life who led the proverbial charge on gun control are very problematic. They take the form of legislators introducing gun control bills, advocates who apply social pressure to manipulate government officials, or media and entertainment personalities who use their public influence to promote the restriction of personal freedom. In recent years we’ve seen these phenomena spread beyond controlling other’s guns to controlling speech, associations and even their personal health preferences.

An often-overlooked fact about social-control sociopaths is how progressively unsatisfied they are with compromise. People have falsely believed working and compromising with them would create peace, but feeding their negative impulses only strengthens their drive for more control.

The pro-gun culture needs to evolve to recognize supporters and authors of gun control for who they really are, the unstable element of humanity our society was constructed to contain and protect us from.

Collective controls

The belief that basic rights inherent to your humanity should be subject to collective or authoritarian controls is the nucleus all human evil is built around. The unabridged freedom to justly acquire sustenance, shelter and security is the primary criteria of a civilized society.

Controlling guns is not the path to peace and civility, a commitment to freedom and refusing to entertain the darkest impulses of human nature is. There is a direct relationship between the amount of contempt someone has for you and their perceived need to control you.

All gun control is always wrong under all circumstances, and the people working to implement it don’t simply represent different opinions. They’re bad faith actors with the objective of grooming our society for even greater levels of authoritarianism.

The people who advocate for your disarmament are your enemies, not your negotiating partners.