[nathanbedford]

I am coming increasingly to suspect that the opposition to the Article V movement from the right comes from the NRA. The supporters of the Second Amendment have somehow got it into their heads that an Article V convention would somehow run away and undermine their rights to keep and bear arms just at a time when it looks like the courts are beginning to actually recognize those rights. The Article V movement represents no realistic threat to The Second Amendment. Contrary to an optimistic view of our recent court decisions, that threat exists and it is growing every day quite robustly without the help of a constitutional amendment.

The reaction by supporters of the NRA is understandable but it is both myopic and selfish.

The Bill of Rights consists of more than just the Second Amendment. Every single amendment which go to make up the Bill of Rights is imperiled by our current course of government. It is illusory to believe that the Second Amendment alone can save the rest of our precious legacy which came to us as birthright. We cannot fight a 21st-century government armed with drones, computers, lasers, air power, and robots with sidearms and hope to preserve a decent society, we can only contrive to disintegrate into terrorism.

Worse, the opposition to the Article V movement by the supporters of the Second Amendment leads them to a level of irrationality against which there is no argument which makes any headway because their commitment is entirely emotional. I understand the emotional attachment to the right to keep and bear arms, to protect oneself with self-defense, to be able to protect one's family, to exercise the liberty of a free man. But there is more to a civil society then the right to bear arms, the right to bear arms is neither a substitute for nor a solution to a new dark age.

To ignore the loss of all our rights save the right to keep and bear arms out of fear of losing the right to keep and bear arms is worse than selfish, worse than irrational, it is ultimately self-defeating.

[Jacquerie]

Unlike almost all of the rest of the Bill of Rights, the 2A survives because the people are attentive to it. At 1.1 guns per American, the recognition of guns as essential, is well known to even rat politicians, who wisely prefer to not mess with gun control.

IIRC, CN called for widespread gun registration. There has been little compliance, and local law enforcement is reluctant to press the law.

It is a shame that some oppose Article V over irrational fear of losing the 2A.