While our constitutional republic is meant to give the people the ultimate power over our government, the Bill of Rights specifically serves to constrain the will of the majority when it comes to individual rights. The idea was that some things are off-limits, even if 51% of the population would vote to restrict them. Pure, absolute democracy leads to the tyranny of the majority. At different points in our history, things such as slavery, segregation, denying women the vote, speech bans, and more would have garnered majority support among voters. That’s why we added amendments to take these egregious injustices off the table.
In the same way, the right to defend your life is an inherent human right, one that the Second Amendment simply recognizes. And the very point of the Bill of Rights is that such rights aren’t supposed to be up for debate at the federal or local level.
Democrats should realize that it’s not an argument against the court’s ruling to point out that a majority of New Yorkers support restricting this right — it’s a reminder as to why the court’s decision is so desperately needed.
Brad Polumbo
June 24, 2022
What Democrats get wrong about Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decision
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]