PART I — The Long Con: How “Reasonable” Became Permanent
The Second Amendment was not written in poetic ambiguity. It was written with brutal clarity by men who had just finished shooting their way out of tyranny. They did not debate whether arms were dangerous. Of course they were. That was the point. Power only respects counter-power, and the Founders understood that governments do not remain benevolent by default.
The erosion began in earnest in 1934, not because America suddenly became more violent, but because politicians discovered something far more useful than criminals: fear. The National Firearms Act was marketed as a narrow response to gangsters, yet it didn’t target gangs. It targeted ownership. Taxes, registrations, arbitrary definitions—tools not meant to stop crime, but to normalize permission.
Once the precedent was set, the logic never changed. Each generation was told the same lie: this is reasonable, this is limited, this won’t affect you. But rights don’t erode in leaps; they erode in paperwork. One regulation becomes the justification for the next. A right burdened is a right weakened. A right weakened is a right waiting to be revoked.
The Founders warned explicitly against this. They understood that a population trained to ask permission would eventually stop asking questions. Modern Americans scoff at this as paranoia, mostly because they’ve never experienced life without a safety net or lived under a government that didn’t pretend to care.
Gun control advocates insist the Second Amendment must be “updated,” as if liberty were software and human nature had improved. It hasn’t. Violence didn’t disappear with modernity; it became more efficient. What changed is that citizens were taught to believe the state could manage danger better than they could manage responsibility.
The uncomfortable truth is this: the Second Amendment isn’t about crime. It’s about power. That’s why it’s always targeted. No one campaigns to repeal the Third Amendment. No one calls the Fifth Amendment outdated. Only the one that restrains force draws constant fire.
A right that exists only until it frightens politicians is not a right—it’s a favor. And favors can be revoked.
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This is Part 1 of a 3 part series. Links below become active as each segment is published and on the dates indicated:
December 19-PART I — The Long Con: How “Reasonable” Became Permanent
December 20-PART II — The Great Lie of Protection
December 21-PART III — Evil, Responsibility, and the Right Scripture Never Denied
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