This is what political operatives on the right have done so well for decades: They work the refs and move the goalposts until any objections to their aims are no longer recognized as legitimate. That “well regulated Militia being necessary” becomes (courtesy of the NRA and Scalia) no militia need apply becomes a tradition with deep roots in our culture becomes a God-given right.
It would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic, and if guns weren’t now the leading cause of death of younger Americans.
Young people recoil at the Second Amendment argument even more than they cringe at that out-of-fashion furniture their parents have piled up in the basement and are now offering them. Thanks, but no thanks.
We parents would like our children (and grandchildren) to be safe when they are at the movies, in a mall, in church, at school. All of us would like to feel safe in public spaces. We don’t need to hear a single damn thing from a criminal organization like the NRA or from politicians in the pockets of that criminal organization.
The Second Amendment is an antique curiosity — laughably outmoded for our times. It’s time for it to go.
We must say it precisely because we have been so bullied for so long into believing that we must not or cannot say it. One day, if we can keep our democracy intact against the frantic efforts of the self-proclaimed American “patriots,” younger Americans will band together to do what they did with laws against marijuana and will do in short order with restrictions on reproductive rights: They’ll put the Second Amendment right where it belongs, in the dustbin of history, already piled way too high with spent shells and needless deaths.
— Kirk Swearingen in The Second Amendment Is a Ludicrous Historical Antique: Time for It to Go
