Gun Rights Absolutists are showing us why, in a Democracy, no one is entitled to an Absolute Right to anything

If it’s not-negotiable, then it can’t be a right

The latest massacre, in Texas, has demonstrated once again that a Democracy like ours cannot accept or accede to any absolute claim to one or more rights. Such claims are inherently undemocratic and dangerous and cannot be rewarded with either deference or cowed obeisance. Once “rights” are absolutized, they become the province of authoritarian leaders and forces who will use them to assert dominion over other basic rights. Uvalde, TX is just the latest example of how horrible are the consequences of allowing completely non-negotiable and unfettered rights in a democracy.

Second Amendment absolutists, whether on the right or on the left (yes there are liberal gun clubs and associations), are exactly what they say they are. They are absolutists. And what this means is that the vast majority of them unequivocally assert that there can be no negotiation or compromise about the absolute right to own a gun, an absolute right supposedly engraved in the Constitution.

But, here’s the thing, absolutism like this, the absolute refusal to negotiate any sort of parameters or strictures around an asserted right, is fundamentally undemocratic at is core. There are and can be no such rights in a democracy and by ceding this ground, which we seem to have done as a society and in so many of our communities, we surrender our capacity to build a democratic society. We have essentially been cowed. We are being engaged not by the force of argument, but, instead intimidated literally, by the force of arms and authoritarian ideology.

Second Amendment absolutism is at the foundation of the rise and now consolidation of authoritarianism throughout so much of our body politic. As the Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last quoted his preacher this morning,¹ we have “sacralized” the ownership of guns. We have ceded the “safe” space of democratic and civic engagement to the very people happily intimidating the rest of us into fear and despair.

We have enabled a small minority of gun fanatics to essentially imprison and execute us and our children at will.

The assertion and deployment (as in January 6) of such absolutism is undemocratic at its core, and un-American. Nothing in Democracy is non-negotiable, unless we cede that ground. And, for good reason, there is no other such ground that we have ceded.

But, for the sake of our children’s lives, not to mention the future of our democracy and our capacity to have a civil society, we MUST stand our ground and not be intimidated by these boys with their horrifying toys. We (our state power and our civic power) have to confront them. We have to rush in and stop them both literally and figuratively.

Isn’t it time to connect the issue of gun and second amendment absolutism to the galvanization of the Republican Party’s transformation into a thuggish, authoritarian Party with its own militias spread throughout the country?

We have to regain the high ground from these deranged and corrupt fanatics, including not just the dudes on the ground with their performative military pretensions, but also the Republican and allied leaders and in every part of this nation, who are empowering them and profiting from them.

This whole movement needs to be confronted from top to bottom and forced to back down and to negotiate, just as all of the rest of us do all the time in our daily lives.

If we fail to have the courage to confront this absolutism, imagined absolutely non-negotiable gun rights will continue terrorize our communities and undermine our Democracy.

1. We Got Here By Sacralizing Guns