Gun Rights as a Defense against Tyranny

Austin Raynor

11/30/2009

Our naive trust in the state often causes us to overlook the primary need for gun rights: defense against an oppressive government

As Justice Antonin Scalia asserted on behalf of the majority in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the D.C. ban on handguns was declared unconstitutional, the right to bear arms, enshrined in the Second Amendment, preserves specifically the common-law right to self defense. What is often overlooked, however, by both those who oppose and support gun rights, is that the aggressors which an armed citizen is suited to resist may include one’s own government. An armed citizenry is the last resort against oppression; the right to bear arms is the freedom from which all other freedoms flow.

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