Colorado Paper Uses Trump to Pitch Democrats on Rethinking Support for Gun Control

The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, not just the right of conservatives or Republicans. Sadly, while gun control has been a fixture on the left since at least the 1960s, the anti-gun animosity displayed by Democrats has ramped up over the past couple of decades. As recently as 2010 about 25% of Democrats in Congress were “A” rated by the NRA, compared to zero percent today. 

The election of Donald Trump has at least some on the left rethinking their position on the right to keep and bear arms, however, and the editors at the Grand Junction Sentinel in Colorado have penned an intriguing editorial designed to prod others on the left in the same direction. 

The argument has always been there — that an armed populace is a hedge against an oppressive regime that ignores due process and confines perceived enemies of the state.

But that’s largely been dismissed as a fringe view — a hypothetical advanced by “gun nuts” and paranoid sovereign-citizen types to give cover to the loosest gun restrictions possible.

Suddenly, the shoe may be on the other foot. The Second Amendment’s origin story has taken on new relevance with the Trump administration “actively looking” at suspending habeas corpus.

Habeas corpus is a legal principle giving a person the ability to challenge a detention in court.

It’s known as the “Great Writ of Liberty,” dating back centuries to English law. It’s seen as a protection against arbitrary detentions by governments. It translates from the Latin as “you shall have the body” and is used to bring a detainee before a court to determine if their detention is legal.

As the Sentinel editors note, some Trump administration officials like Stephen Miller have pointed out that the Constitution calls habeas corpus a privilege, not a right, and suggested that its one that can be suspended by the president. Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, however, vests that authority with Congress, and only “when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” 

The fear among civil libertarians is that Trump could declare he has the the right to put both illegal immigrants and American citizens behind bars, while depriving them of the ability to use the legal system to regain their freedom. And as the editors point out, this is where the left should rethink their opposition to the right to keep and bear arms. 

The Second Amendment exists not only to protect oneself and one’s property rights, but to resist any government that might attempt to infringe on one’s rights.

Take away all process to contest one’s confinement and we may see folks pick up arms to avoid being detained (disappeared?) in the first place. Through this lens, state legislatures may want to rethink how restrictive gun ownership should be. Especially in a state like Colorado that considers itself an obstacle to authoritarian creep.

Even gun-rights skeptics have to agree that it’s harder to round people up or make them disappear if the populace is armed. More so if the populace has access to the same firepower as would-be government thugs bent on shattering any resistance.

Puts mandatory gun registration laws in a whole new light, doesn’t it?

The Colorado Legislature just passed into law some further restriction on gun rights in this state. We think those restrictions may be unconstitutional, but perhaps more importantly, they may be misguided in a future with no right of habeas corpus.

It’s fairly unusual for a media outlet to acknowledge the role the Second Amendment was designed to play in terms of preventing the establishment of a tyrannical regime, but the editors are absolutely right. While individual self-defense may be at the core of the Second Amendment’s protections, none other than James Madison made it clear that widespread gun ownership among we the people would be a deterrent to tyranny. 

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.

If Colorado Democrats believe that Donald Trump represents an existential threat to the Republic, the editors argue, then it’s not only foolish to continue to back gun bans and other restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. It’s fundamentally un-American. If, on the other hand, Democrats in control of the statehouse continue their efforts to obliterate our Second Amendment rights, then perhaps they don’t really see Trump as a threat even if they’re happy to use him as a political bogeyman. 

I doubt that a single editorial is going to create a sea change in opinion among Colorado progressives, but the Sentinel makes a valid point about the value of an armed citizenry in warding off the evils of authoritarianism. Unfortunately, the Democrats in control of the Colorado legislature seem less concerned with authoritarianism itself than they are with being in a position where they get to be the authoritarians, and unless or until that changes I doubt we’ll see any softening when it comes to their hostility towards our shared Second Amendment rights.