Giffords’ Strange Definition of the Second Amendment

Several gun control organizations have shifted their messaging over the past couple of years in an attempt to prove they’re not out to eradicate the Second Amendment .Everytown for Gun Safety, for instance, is now offering gun training of a sort, though so far its more about teaching the basics of gun safety alongside a heaping portion of anti-gun rhetoric. 

Giffords, whose founder told Time magazine that her goal was “no more guns,”, has GIFFORDS Gun Owners for Safety to serve as useful idiots for the group’s larger mission. And in the wake of the Alex Pretti shooting in Minneapolis, the organization is putting them front and center. 

GIFFORDS Gun Owners for Safety believe the Second Amendment is a fundamental right — but that right is meaningless if the government can violate it without consequences.

We’re calling on Congress for a full, transparent investigation and accountability. pic.twitter.com/AQL7UehIyy

— GIFFORDS (@GIFFORDS_org) January 28, 2026

I actually agree with that statement. It’s too bad the actual comments from those gun owners for gun control don’t match up with the text of the post. 

Notice the wording here: The First Amendment is “the ability to peacefully assemble,” but the Second Amendment is “the right to legally posses a firearm in accordance with state law”

What does that even mean? It’s a right to have the guns the state allows you to have? https://t.co/rDBk0MlsIR

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) January 28, 2026

How does Giffords go from “Shall not be infringed” to “the right to legally possess a firearm in accordance with state law”? 

It’s simple, really. By framing our right that way, they’re able to completely negate it. Carrying a gun in a state park when the state considers it a “sensitive place”? Well, then, you’re not a law-abiding gun owner. Have a 17-round magazine when the state says you can only have 10-round magazines? You’re not exercising your Second Amendment rights, according to Giffords. You’re simply breaking the law. 

Carrying at a protest or public demonstration? Well, in Minnesota that’s legal. But if Pretti had been carrying his pistol in Peoria, Illinois, for example, he’d be violating state law. Would Giffords’ still have come to his defense in that case? 

Just like before, notice the 2A right-limiting wording: Giffords isn’t saying he had a right “to peacefully assemble while legally carrying his firearm,” they’re saying he had a right “to peacefully assemble,” and also he was “legally carrying his firearm.” pic.twitter.com/PEXbuy2tu4

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) January 28, 2026

Giffords doesn’t just want the state to decide what the right to keep and bear arms means. It needs lawmakers (and anti-gun lobbyists) to have the final word, not the Constitution. 

I’m sure that some of the members of GIFFORDS Gun Owners for Safety really do believe they’re standing up for the Second Amendment, but in reality they’re helping to shred its protections of our right to keep and bear arms. The right to “legally posses a firearm in accordance with state law” is no right at all, since there’s no limit to the laws that the state can put in place. Thousand dollar concealed carry fees, prohibitions on commonly-owned arms, so many “gun-free zones” that it’s impossible to legally carry in most public places; Giffords backs every one of those restrictions, and the group’s gun owners for safety are really standing up for statism, not the Second Amendment. 

Editor’s Note: Second Amendment groups are hard at work across the country doing everything they can to protect our right to keep and bear arms from the likes of Giffords and Everytown.

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