Does Second Amendment's Fate Hinge On This Election? :: 09/09/2020

Gun control has been a significant issue this election cycle. From the earliest rumblings of the Democratic primaries, anti-gun candidates jockeyed for position as the person toughest on guns.

Despite it not working out for folks like Rep. Eric Swalwell and Beto O’Rourke, it was still a major factor for the rest of the candidates.

Eventual nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, also has his anti-gun bonafides in place, as does his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris. It’s clear that should they win, our guns are in jeopardy.

But is the fate of the Second Amendment at stake? Obviously, not everyone thinks it is.

However, others disagree.

Democrats will “confiscate your guns and appoint justices who will wipe away your Second Amendment,” President Trump warned in his recent acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination.

He’s right. Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has promised to use executive orders to ban guns, and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has promised to make former Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) his gun czar.

O’Rourke made a name for himself when he yelled, “Hell yeah, we’re going to take your AR-15.” He called them,”weapons of war, designed to kill people efficiently on a battlefield.”

If Democrats win control of both the Senate and the presidency, the legislation they will pass and the judges that they will appoint will eventually lead to guns being banned in the United States.

Gun control advocates will dismiss this as scaremongering, but things are different this time.

The author, John Lott, is right. Things are different. He’s also right that the Second Amendment is at stake.

See, Biden and Harris are pushing for an “assault weapon ban.” They have decided that these weapons are just too dangerous for you or me to own. They want to take them away, as has been clear from their own words and the declaration that Beto would be Biden’s point man on guns should he win.

As noted, Beto has made it clear he wants to come for our guns, so it seems reasonable to assume that Biden agrees with this assessment.

Yet in trying to do so, they’d have to essentially nullify the Heller decision.

One of the tests for a gun under Heller is whether or not a firearm is in common use. If it is, then it’s not constitutional to ban a firearm. Yet despite this test, anti-gun zealots have continued to push for assault weapon bans. In their minds, the AR-15 and similar rifles are still fair game.

However, the AR-15 is the most popular long gun type sold in this country. It’s more popular that bolt-action rifles and pump-action shotguns. If the most popular rifle in this country doesn’t pass the “in common use” test, then what firearm does?

Should Biden win and pass his assault weapon ban, it would fall to the Supreme Court to lower the boom. Yet despite two appointments by the Trump Administration, the Court has been pretty reticent about taking on a Second Amendment case. There’s no guarantee they’d even bother to look at a federal assault weapon ban.

That means that while so-called assault weapons are on the table right now, there’s no reason to believe a more emboldened Congress wouldn’t go after things like handguns as well. After all, handguns are the weapon of choice for criminals of all stripes. How long do you think it would take before they would try to go down that rabbit hole?

No, I don’t see the Second Amendment being formally repealed, but why bother with doing that when you can nullify it so that it’s nothing but words on a piece of paper? That’s what the anti-gunners want from this election, and why this one matters so very much.

Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/

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