To strict constitutionalists or anyone with a vague semblance of reality, the purpose of the 2nd amendment is clear and concise. In just 27 words, it imbues the citizenry with the immutable right to bear arms. That right being codified as penultimate to only the right to freely exercise speech, religious observance, assembly, and to petition the government represents the crucial importance it served to form the Founding Father’s vision for the future upon the birth of their new nation. Just years removed from the throes of tyranny, the members Constitutional Convention knew how important it was for citizens to protect themselves from the inherent potential that governance may ultimately lead to oppression.
Now, at a moment in that same nation’s history when the narrative surrounding the 2nd Amendment has arguably shifted the large shouts from the echo chamber of popular opinion as being vociferously against it, reminders to why it exists in the first place are even more pronounced. Though mass shootings indiscriminately occur routinely, representing the need for adherence to the right to bear arms as a means of protection, those catastrophes only serve to deter attention away from the government’s rapid expansion which poses an even greater looming threat. After all, the text of the 2nd Amendment contextualizes the vitality of the right to bears arms as being inextricably tied to the security of a free state and tyranny is antithetical to that security.
In the centuries since the passage of the Bill of Rights, perhaps no government agency represents the tyrannical tendencies of government better than the Internal Revenue Service. Upon closer examination of the agency, perhaps no other federal body illustrates the need to preserve the right to bear arms now more than ever as well. Case in point: while the federal government under the Biden Administration has done its best to keep law abiding citizens from being able to own firearms, it’s done more than ever to attempt to expand the armory of the IRS.
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