This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. For the nation's elites, the Second Amendment has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Bill of Rights, constantly attacked by editorial writers, police chiefs seeking scapegoats, professional talking heads, politicians, and most recently even by Rosie O'Donnell, no less. It is constantly threatened by opportunistic legislative efforts, even when it is acknowledged that the proposed legislation would have little impact on problems of crime and violence. The public debate has been marked by the pronounced unwillingness of professional champions of civil rights and civil liberties to defend the underlying principle of the right to arms.
Few liberals dare treat the right seriously.
Even the conservative defense has been timid and often inept, tied less, one suspects, to abiding principle and more to the dynamics of contemporary Republican politics. And although the NRA deserves considerably better than the demonized reputation it has acquired in recent years, it should not be the sole or even principal voice in defense of a major constitutional provision. This anemic defense is all the more ironic because it occurs at a time of mounting evidence severely undermining the intellectual foundations of the anti-gun movement. Although these propositions have often attained the status of conventional wisdom in the mass media, they simply do not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. No Second Amendment Barrier.