Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
The right to keep and bear arms has long been under attack but now, as violent crime, international terrorism, and grave abuses of government power abound, Americans need the Second Amendment more than ever.
A majority of Americans say they already own or want to own guns in the future. Nearly three-fourths of gun owners polled cited protection as a major reason for retaining their firearms.
For anyone paying attention to the rapid erosion of Americans’ civil liberties over the last few years, pro-Second Amendment sentiments like this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
In 2020, during the height of government-mandated lockdowns, Americans were sentenced to their homes with court-ordered ankle monitors, dragged off of public buses for refusing to wear a mask, and fired from their jobs over a shot that didn’t even do what the government said it would.
Around that same time, crime spiked and race rioters in cities all across the nation dealt billions of dollars worth of damage to civilian and government buildings alike.
Americans were confronted by violent crowds on their streets, at their businesses, and even on their front lawns. The chaos quickly turned deadly but that didn’t stop leftists from pushing a national campaign to defund the armed law enforcement sworn to protect civilians.
The crime problem was only exacerbated when Democrat mayors and district attorneys committed to releasing violent criminals back into the streets in the name of “equity.” Their soft-on-crime policies are almost exclusively responsible for the murder rates in the nation’s top 10 most homicidal states.
Those numbers aren’t helped by the millions of people, including convicted criminals and potential terrorists, who began pouring freely across our open Southern border the moment President Joe Biden took office.
In the last few weeks alone, Americans learned that the FBI targets Trump voters as domestic extremists, judges will gladly overstep their bounds to dictate Americans’ right to free speech, and a former first lady and failed presidential candidate can make public calls for re-education programs for conservatives without scrutiny from her party or the press.
They also learned in the wake of the massacre in Israel that strict gun laws make people vulnerable to surprise attacks that not even trained military can quell quickly enough.
It’s a tough pill to swallow but one that everyone should be thinking about as pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American sentiments brood at home and abroad.
If you voted for former President Donald Trump, believe life in the womb should be protected, want a say in your child’s education, think traditional Catholicism is a good thing, or even discuss FBI and Department of Justice corruption, you are probably considered a threat to the people responsible for Washington’s worsening authoritarian bent.
The two-tiered system of justice will eventually come for you and your firearms.
Gunning for Guns
The chaos of the last few years hasn’t stopped the government from infringing on its constituents’ Second Amendment rights. In fact, Americans’ decision to buy some 60 million guns since 2020 has fueled the campaign to make those purchases more difficult.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly questioned why Americans need to protect themselves, especially from the government, and suggested taking away Americans’ access to mainstream, popular guns like the AR-15 and 9mm pistols.
Under Biden, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms shut down 500 percent more federally licensed firearm dealers than in previous years. Some of these gun retailers lost their jobs over simple paperwork flukes that, in years past, the ATF helped them rectify.
Biden and the ATF also colluded to turn the up to 40 million Americans who legally obtained pistol brace-equipped firearms into felons overnight and attempted to ban gun-building kits.
In Congress, establishment Republicans teamed up with Democrats to pass a bill that gave law enforcement permission to temporarily confiscate guns from anyone the government deems a danger, a provision that partisan bureaucrats could easily exploit.
The Second Amendment was created by the founders so Americans could protect themselves and their property, and provide common defense. The last thing that stands between tyrants taking over our country and us are firearms.
Owning a gun is primarily a deterrent. It shows the government and anyone else threatening you and your family that you won’t allow your right to life, liberty, and property to become easily curtailed.
If the time comes, proper use of that firearm can be used to save your life and your livelihood. But only if your right to own that gun hasn’t already been taken from you.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.