How is it that while violence has become our government’s calling card, from the more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by heavily armed, black-garbed commandos and the increasingly rapid militarization of local police forces across the country to the drone killings used to target insurgents, “we the people” are the ones who must be regulated, restricted and banned from owning a weapon?

If we’re truly going to get serious about gun violence, why not start by scaling back the American police state’s weapons of war?

I’ll tell you why: because the government has no intention of scaling back on its weapons.

We’ve allowed ourselves to get so focused on debating who or what is responsible for gun violence—the guns, the gun owners, or our violent culture—and whether the Second Amendment “allows” us to own guns that we’ve overlooked the most important and most consistent theme throughout the Constitution: the fact that it is not merely an enumeration of our rights but was intended to be a clear shackle on the government’s powers.

When considered in the context of prohibitions against the government, the Second Amendment reads as a clear rebuke against any attempt to restrict the citizenry’s gun ownership.

As such, it is as necessary an ingredient for maintaining that tenuous balance between the citizenry and their republic as any of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, especially the right to freedom of speech, assembly, press, petition, security, and due process.

— John W. Whitehead in The Second Amendment’s Right To Bear Arms: What It Means

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

79 COMMENTS

  1. It is very disturbing to see the militarization of the local police. Even when hollywood shows it. It is embarrassing to say the least.

    • The only action – and I stress only – I approved of from Obama’s term was his termination of the infamous “1033 Program” started by former President Bush, Sr., in which the Federal Gov’t supplied surplus military grade gear and vehicles to civilian LE departments.

      Unfortunately, as much as I admire Trump and want him back into office (when the election fraud is proven), I disapproved of his reinstatement of the program.

      If the Founders intended the 2A to provide for the common man to have the same armament as the Government, then the 1033 is the icing on the tyrannical cake.

      • “Unfortunately, as much as I admire Trump and want him back into office (when the election fraud is proven),…”

        Do you have any information on how Trump could possibly be put back into office if election fraud of sufficient magnitude happened?

        • If the expanding election audits result in proof that votes attributed to Biden should have gone to Trump and he gets 270 or more Electoral votes, then the matter would be fast-tracked to SCOTUS who would be tasked to “vacate” Biden’s fraudulent win.

          If enough votes are proven to be fraudulent and removed from Biden, but not awarded to Trump, and neither ends up with the required 270, then it goes to Congress.

          Either way, proof of widespread fraud by the Democrats will stir up the Leftist madness machine like we’ve never seen before. We live in interesting times…

        • Sorry Haz, I’m with you on the corrupt election but there’s just no constitutional mechanism provided to unwind it. If anything we’d be more likely to end up with a President Pelosi after HarrisBiden is disqualified.

      • This dickless dweeb ‘admires Trump’ so much that he failed to answer his call to action on 1/6 Freedom Day. What’s phony and clown this ‘man’ is…

        • Listen to, and take to heart, the righteous chastisement A True Patriot delivers to those who fail to meet his standards. Such bravery!

          All Hail!

      • Because its better to throw away old BDUs and armored vehicles to force departments to buy new BDUs and armored vehicles.

    • RE: “We’ve allowed ourselves to get so focused on debating who or what is responsible for gun violence—the guns, the gun owners, or our violent culture—and whether the Second Amendment “allows” us to own guns that we’ve overlooked the most important and most consistent theme throughout the Constitution.”

      Yada, yada, yada john boy…Talk about overlook. Not one mention of Gun Control and its demonic baggage…Like so many you did a stellar job gluing eyes to the Second Amendment all while a cut and dry deranged agenda rooted in racism and genocide gets zero mention and skates right on by…Pathetic.

      And furthermore…I cannot believe the imbeciles who are the first to cry like snot nosed brats over Bump Stocks, gun bans, magazine restrictions and then want to impose their own brand of “Gun Control” on SWAT. That’s the same kind of “thinking” that goes on following someone shooting up a school and the NRA and every Gun owner in America is responsible by some kind of far fetched imaginary guilt by association.

      As despicable as a school shooting is it does not and cannot equate or be allowed to override slave shacks, nooses, burning crosses, concentration camps, gas chambers and other such baggage that held hands throughout history with Gun Control. As a writer exercising a right john boy you owe it to include those who came before you. Before-you means the millions who paid the price in unimaginable ways. What remains now is a very clear warning and danger about Gun Control. With baggage like that of Gun Control it cannot be taken lightly, ignored or ever be forgotten or left out of any related discussion.

      I will never throw my rights under the bus over the actions of criminals. The few bad apples in law enforcement will eventually be shown the door or find themselves behind bars, facing lawsuits, etc. Should I ever need SWAT assistance I want SWAT to show up with more fire power than what I have…NOT LESS.

      • “Should I ever need SWAT assistance I want SWAT to show up with more fire power than what I have…NOT LESS.”

        Will you re-evaluate that statement should SWAT show up because you need to be disarmed….for the children?

      • Swat is not there to assist non LEOs. They are there to put them in jail, using extreme force. SWAT is a military solution for a LE problem. At best, the swat should be specialized units within the “staties” and not part of any local cop shop. Until local police departments were allowed to share in the “proceeds of crime” going after drug dealers, most of the suburban districts in Ca would use The Sheriff’s narc department just as they use the Sheriff’s Homicide Squad for murders.

    • The cops arent “militarized” any more than an AR is a “weapon of war.” Cops have always been uniformed and carried weapons. Millions of American’s own the same AR’s shotguns and pistols that American cops use on the job.

  4. Always interesting to contemplate a constitution that permits the central government to put down armed insurrection, yet explicitly prohibits that central government from interfering with citizens possessing firearms most useful as a means of disciplining a government loosed from its restraints.

    The founders made the very insurrection they committed illegal, yet established that the citizens of the nation retain the right to insurrection against a government that needs to be abolished.

    • In the good old days, the US had virtually no standing army so any insurrection would have been put down by the citizens (a.k.a. the militia). A standing army was seen as too expensive and too much of a temptation to be used against the citizens.

      • Yes, but doesn’t address the conundrum of forbidding armed insurrection, calling for the militia to put down insurrection, but enshrining the ability of the people to mount one.

        • It’s pretty simple really; there is no objective way in legal terms to approve X insurrection because its justified, or approve the suppression of Y insurrection because it is unmerited before the facts. The simple remedy, as it was for many of the ways the branches of government check each other, is to allow the government to suppress violent dissidents who are
          “evil/tyrannical” but allow the general populace to have the means of insurrection because, theoretically, if enough of the population has united to fight and replace the regime then it is conceivably justified by popular consensus.

          Of course consensus doesn’t make right, however it is a good way to keep extreme and polarizing elements in check and a consensus is a decent check on moderating government. There’s a reason why veto’s have overrides and the HOR has control of the purse strings.

        • If there is no standing army and an insurrection occurs, the militia (the people) were to be called up to put it down. If the majority of the militia are the insurrection and/or refuse to put down the insurrection, that would be a pretty good litmus test for whether the Government is legitimate or tyrannical and needing to be replaced. It’s not a conundrum, it’s a check and balance. Any government that pisses off it’s populace to the point where they’re unwilling to defend it and/or are actively overthrowing it does not have legitimacy and should be replaced posthaste.

          Introducing a standing army increases the chances (dramatically) that eventually someone will purge the standing military of those who don’t share their ideology, install their own chosen commanders and use it to create a dictatorship.

          Which is why the founders universally disliked the idea of a standing military.

      • “It’s only an insurrection if it fails.”

        Because the victors write the history.

  5. Yeah.. not a good sign for your country when the police have official snipers and door kickers. Especially since the Police have demonstrably shown that they very much fall into the “just following orders” camp.

  6. 100% agree, SWAT Teams need to be restricted to either the County Sheriff or in little states, the State Police. They should only be deployed with forethought by a court, with a special warrant issued by a judge, with an advocate (BS Detector) appointed to challenge the state’s petition, so we don’t have rubber stamp justice. People selected to be SWAT’d should have a history of violence, suspected terrorist, gang members or an agents of a foreign power. The rest of the time, these SWAT teams can respond to robberies, hostage situations, riots, etc.

    Before the first LAPD SWAT Team was created in the 1970’s we used to have regular police without armored vehicles and machine guns execute warrant, arrest bad guys, etc. We don’t need the SWAT team to raid a poker game, kick in doors because the ex-wife wanted revenge or serve a traffic warrant, etc. Besides the risk of death to all, damage to property, killing the dog, etc. overuse of SWAT makes the people the enemy who need to be controlled and is just one more road on the path to tyranny,

    • But who would they send after such dangerous desperados as Roger Stone, Trump’s lawyers, or people who have been identified by phone and credit card companies as having visited the Capitol on January 6th?

    • The old saying, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

      When local cops have a SWAT team they will try to find a reason to use it.

  8. This article is narrow minded.. the entire reason why police have the tools they need is because of instances like the LA bank robbery where the murdering coward thieves had body armor and automatic weapons. You don’t take a 6shot revolver to an automatic gun fight. Give the police every tool they need to get the job done. Most police are pro 2nd amendment just as civilians are. Quit blaming police for doing their damn job because some criminal gets his skull cracked, refuses to show his hands or draws a weapon. Guess what if you don’t break the law the chance of a police interaction is zero. Act stupid and get their attention then it’s on you, quit blaming police for being a piece of shit.

    • “…Guess what if you don’t break the law the chance of a police interaction is zero…”

      That is a false statement. Too many instances to even begin listing of people getting jacked up for no reason. Heck, innocent people have been put to death under our system.

    • TexasJack,

      I am confident that 95% (or more) of our population fully and enthusiastically supports police actions to arrest murderers, rapists, brutal thugs who maim, serious thieves, and arsonists.

      What so many people oppose is police thuggery, which rears its ugly head in various forms:

      On the mild end of the spectrum it is police harassing and “detaining” innocent people without warrants or probable cause.

      On the obscene end of the spectrum, it is police maiming/killing innocent people.

      And somewhere in the middle of the spectrum is police using totally unnecessary heavy-handed tactics to arrest petty criminals and non-violent offenders–along with police arresting people for victimless “crimes”.

      There is no legitimate defense of such practices.

    • Just look at what is happening in Venice. The sheriff wants Venice open again and is patrolling in Venice(which is covered by LAPD). The Sheriff’s department are getting tough. I am fine with them getting tough on the homeless, but stopping every Black man on a bicycle and claiming the bicycle is stolen, running them in, so they can bail out and go home to their apartment is just wrong. If they really wanted to get tough, they would arrest aggressive panhandlers, those who are under the influence in public, those begging with a false story and shoplifters. This goes on all the time and is mostly crimes the homeless do.

      • Black man on a bicycle in Venice does not mean drug runner like it does in other hoods in LA. Living at the beach means flat land and easy riding on streets that are too crowded to drive a car.

    • if just one cop had access to a scope-sighted rifle that LA bank robbery would have been short-lived…instead they had to run to a local gun shop to get what they lacked….

    • Zero eh? People don’t SWAT other people, nor do SWAT teams go to the wrong address with shocking regularity nor are there times where informants lie about a person doing stuff?

    • “Guess what if you don’t break the law the chance of a police interaction is zero.“

      Duncan Lemp would like to have a word with you. Oh wait, he can’t because he’s dead. Your confident assertion is so blatantly wrong that it rivals anything AOC has ever said. It’s also worth pointing out that breaking the law does not automatically make one a “piece of shit”. Since “the law” by definition, is whatever the politicians decide it is, but that doesn’t make it just or legitimate. Is an honest citizen who owns hollow points in New Jersey a piece of shit who deserves to have his skull crushed? What about a single mother in Chicago who can’t afford a FOID certificate but still sources a handgun for home defense? Or a retired Marine veteran in California who “forgot” to register his AR-15?

      Your trust in, and fetishization of, government authority is, frankly, both disgusting and disturbing. I’m quite glad the founders didn’t think like you

    • And it didn’t mean squat last year when my local burb allowed BlackLootersMurder space to destroy and steal. As a kajillian other cities did. I guess it’s a slam dunk to flashbang a baby…

      • BLM is fine with flashbanging babies. I have never seen them protest 1 single instance of a decent person being mistreated. It’s the arrest of scumbags they find offensive. I guess it’s hard for one scumbag to see another scumbag answer for their scumbaggery. You know…there but for the grace of God…and all that.

  10. I’m generally supportive of the police, certainly critical of some aspects of modern policing (civil asset forfeiture to name one of many examples)…

    …But let me tell you anti-police types here, you people that use “boot licker” unironically…You sound like 16 year old Reddit atheists that read their first Richard Dawkins book. You sound shrilly hysterical, and nobody really gives a shit what you’re saying because you sound so ridiculously childish.

    • When you inadvertently run across a veteran LEO who will use you as bait to train a rookie, or you run across a LEO that has to fill his quota, or perhaps a bad day (or night) with his wife, or a female LEO that squirts testosterone – you are likely to come to a different opinion. The fact is that in most civilized countries, LEOs are seen as people that citizens turn to for help. This is the way it used to be in the US. For the past several decades, unfortunately, when most law abiding citizens see a cop, whether behind their car or walking past, they automatically cringe. Right or wrong, this should tell you something.

    • So I suppose that if the government declares you a criminal (for example, if they declare that certain firearms you own are now illegal and your ONLY choice is to turn them in without compensation), you will agree that you deserve to have your door kicked in by SWAT, your dog shot, and your wife flash banged? And you’ll support all of that because at that point you’d be a criminal?

  11. Very refreshing to see this posted on this site. The police state affects everyone and freedom loving people should always look at state-sanctioned violence with skepticism. Any totalitarian system has to be enforced by the police: if fascism comes to this country, it won’t be green-haired feminists, antifa or BLM throwing you into a black van. And while some police likely wouldn’t comply, the actions of various local police forces, SWAT teams, the FBI, and the ATF should make you very leery of just trusting law enforcement to not abuse your rights.

    The Right/Left, Dem/Republican binary is just nonsense and I’m glad to see people starting to wake up to that.

  12. There’s two things the Second Amendment does, and EVERYONE forgets the second one. It protects the people from the government. BUT, it also protects the government from the military… Why do you think so may world leaders have been named “General”? If only the military has the guns, why should they take orders from the civilian government?

    • Our government is closely following the example of the USSR, where only the military and the KGB had guns, but were tightly controlled by the government. The military and the KGB, in turn, tightly controlled the citizens. Change the “KGB” to “FBI” plus a few other 3-letter agencies, and the transformation is complete.

  13. So, are the “Thin Blue Line” types still thinking the cops are on their side??

    No need to answer. We already know.

  14. Blaming the guns for violence is ridiculous no matter who is doing the blaming. The problem with bad policing isn’t the guns, it’s the bad cops and bad leadership.

    If police departments hired better people, trained them properly, and led them effectively, I wouldn’t care what weapons they had available. But given the current low quality of so many cops and their superiors, I wouldn’t trust them with a slingshot.

    There are lots — LOTS — of good cops, but we can’t separate them from the bad ones just by looking. Unfortunately, that means we have to suspect all of them.

  15. well,..last summer we had a pretty good look at what’s on the other side of that “thin blue line”…and it ain’t pretty…

    • Ironically, without police those riots would have been put down VERY quickly. The only reason they got as bad as they did was because the police refused to enforce the law against the rioters, but absolutely enforced the law, and then some, against anyone who defended themselves against said rioters.

      In other words, they benefited from direct police protection

  16. This dude hit the nail on the head.

    We should be as well armed as those who seek to oppress us.

    Joe Sheriff gets a full-auto MP5? So do I.

    • I’ll take some Mraps for the price of a new Subaru…

      With everything operational as the military has it. All I’d need to supply is the weaponry.

    • “….Joe Sheriff gets a full-auto MP5? So do I….”

      Agreed and if have to pay for a Tax Stamp and wait 9 months, so do they!

  17. It’s not so much the cops causing the problem, as those giving the orders. Coos typically only decide on their own to use SWAT when it’s an obvious emergency. It’s when bureaucrats make those decisions that things go wrong or appear heavy handed. Ex., MOVE in Philly (bombed), Waco, Ruby Ridge, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, January 6th arrests of innocents, etc…

  19. I think that ALL police and security carve outs need to end. If your state thinks it’s adequate for you to have a fixed mag or a featureless rifle for personal defense it should be no issue for a police officer to do the same. Bet you’d see endorsement of gun control by urban PDs drop rapidly.

    • Also how does a handgun not on the “safe” roster magically become safe for a police officer? If a person is shot by a PO accidentally in California I think this would be a great point to make in court. They’ve obviously deemed the handgun unsafe. Let the PDs pick from safe roster handguns.

      • I laugh at California and it’s residents. You all picked this and continually do so at each election time. Quit crying cause I can have the newest {pick your gun make} and you can’t. I know my state isn’t perfect but it’s a lot better than Cali.

      • I was looking at the shiny new pew pews at my LGS, and vocally exclaimed, “Oh, you have a Hellcat here!”

        The employee shook his head and said, “Sorry, not on the safe gun roster, so no soup for you. Unless, of course, a cop buys it and later sells it to you, because magic will then make it safe.”

        We exchanged a quick, knowing nod of unspoken frustration over our State’s laws. Because our Prius driving, French Laundry dining, slick haired overlords in Sacramento know what’s good for us…

  21. The tanks, tear gas and eventual burning of The Branch Davidians would never had happened had the BATFE been able to call in an artillery barrage or Arc Light strike. Law enforcement need not put the lives of its officers at risk when there are other means of preserving the law available.
    With President Joseph Biden( I bow and face the East when ever I say his name) and Mister David Chipman these deficiencies in tactics may be resolved.
    Let Freedom Ring

  22. We have been heading into a civil war for at least a decade, nonchalantly thinking that the moral majority will easily take care of the snowflakes, the weirdos, the gender-confused, and other mythical creatures. And we have committed the age-old blunder of underestimating the enemy. Meanwhile, the enemy plunged into the civil war, but by means that we never anticipated, by taking over the government, media, education, courts – basically, the entire administrative lifeblood of the nation, and recruited the police and the military. As always, slavery is the price to be paid for underestimating the enemy.

    • I’m fully in the “fuckit, let’s just shoot ’em” camp, I just strongly prefer to come out the other side and don’t want to be a martyr. At least not the first one. If I have to die for something, I’d like to know that something will continue on after me. If my death squelched it, I don’t think I could live with myself.

  23. This is why I laugh everytime I see some thin blue line crap and the bootlickers wondering why nobody supports police. They are tyrants. If you know your rights, and you don’t play their games, they will find a way to oppress you. Worse is the best course of action is to suck it up and hope you make it to court to fight them… Now they have ways around body cams and surveillance that is supposed to “keep them honest”. The longer olive, the more I understand ACAB. No decent human being is a cop. Because they are anti freedom, plain and simple. They might be someone you could easily get a long with and have a lot in common with, but they are TYRANTS above all else and that defines their life choices.

    • The only time I’ve ever gotten poison ivy is when I went fishing with a sheriff.
      He used most of the bait, he’d cast where I caught my last fish, and my fishing pole was broken when he tripped over it trying to get his unsnagged.
      That’s what I get for trying to be nice to a cop.

  24. Love when you use the anit gun leftists semantic garbage wording, “the American police state’s weapons of war.”

    Oh no! the cops have uniforms and guns! You know who else had uniforms and guns? NAZI’S!!! OMG! the cops are all militarized NAZIS!

    You all sound like Dianne Feinstein.

    • “Weapons of war” is an accurate description of firearms. The founders intended the public to possess weapons of war suitable to defeat a standing army (and impressed militias). The insane notion that firearms can somehow be split into categories so as to isolate “weapons of war” (as the anti-gun mob intends the term) from weapons not suitable for war reinforces that American english is a sloppy language, and lends itself quite aptly to deranged thinking.

      Why run away from the truth that the Second Amendment is about war?

      • Using the term “weapon of war” is just inflammatory rhetoric just like “militarized police” You arent militarized because you have an AR rifle a Mossberg 590 and a glock and neither are the police.

        The article uses the exact same language lefties use to undermine our 2nd amendment rights.

  25. “The article uses the exact same language lefties use to undermine our 2nd amendment rights.”

    Orwell spoke of what happens when lefties control the language.

  26. The “gun Community” needs to face the truth. But I don’t expect that to ever happen. Because the “gun Community” is comfortable with only the police and military having “weapons of war”. They will tell you on TTAG that “you’re just wasting ammunition, if you have a machine gun”. “You are just wasting ammunition, if you have a bump stock”. And now they are saying that “you are just wasting ammunition, if you have a binary trigger on your AR-15”.

    Texas may have legalized gun mufflers. But no one was even interested in talking about machine guns. Or SBR’s??? Grenades? How about not supporting the feds when it comes to enforcing the entire National Firearms Act???

    Did Texas just nullify the NFA or not?

    fyi
    Check out the YT channel “Ordance Lab”.

  27. When I served in the army in the 1980’s, the pump shot gun and the five shot .38 revolver were both “weapons of war”.

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