Part One

Not to insult your intelligence, but the second amendment comes right after the first amendment in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.  The founding fathers believed that the right to bear arms was necessary to protect first amendment freedoms.  They believed citizens possessed a right of protection of those rights from the government. Without the right to bear arms, the government could overstep its constitutional boundaries and threaten freedom of speech, religion, the press, redress of grievances, and assembly.

History

The Framers experienced tyranny firsthand and knew tyrants disarmed militias to eliminate them. They needed an armed citizen militia to resist an oppressive military if constitutional order broke down.  Catholic rulers in England prohibited their Protestant subjects from owning firearms.   In 1689, the English Bill of Rights corrected that injustice.  In Heller v. District of Columbia (2008), the Supreme Court then ruled that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to own guns, rather than the collective right of a state to have a militia.  Yale Constitutional legal scholar, Akhil Reed Amar, wrote in a 2001 Utah Law Review article:

Consider once again the First Amendment. The core idea underlying the Founders’ Freedom of Speech Clause was a right to engage in political expression, especially anti-government speech. Intratextual and historical analysis confirms that this was the core idea: the phrase “freedom of speech” derives from the English Bill of Rights protecting “freedom of speech, and debates … in parliament.  “Parliament,” from the French parler, “to speak,” is a parley place, a speaking spot. But Parliament is not quite a spot for any and all utterances: the core concept here is political expression.

Voting itself is a powerful individual expression.  When citizens believe the government is nullifying their vote, they might protest.  When they begin to think government is taking away their vote, the government might expect a forceful response.

Protection Against Tyranny

The First Amendment is often viewed as fundamental to a democratic society because it ensures that citizens can express their opinions and dissent against government actions without fear of retribution. This principle is essential for fostering a healthy political discourse.  Following this foundational principle, the Second Amendment addressed concerns about self-defense and protection against tyranny. The framers believed that an armed populace could serve as a check against potential government overreach or oppression.

Philosophers like John Locke emphasized natural rights, including life, liberty, and property. These ideas influenced American thought during the founding era; thus, protecting individual rights became paramount in drafting both amendments.  While both amendments protect individual rights, they do so in different realms. The First Amendment ensures that citizens can freely express their thoughts and assemble to advocate for their beliefs. The Second Amendment provides a means for individuals to defend those rights physically if necessary. In this sense, one could argue that the Second Amendment serves as a safeguard for the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Both first and second amendments emerged from a backdrop where individuals had recently fought against British rule. The Founding Fathers were acutely aware that oppressive governments could stifle individual rights through censorship (First Amendment) or disarmament (Second Amendment).  When only one side of a political divide has the firearms, this quells or quenches the free expression on the other.  Other threats can also stifle free speech.  Without the possibility of citizens arising with arms, the police power of the government can enforce its own approved speech to the elimination of its citizens.

Case Study of January 6

I would ask that we consider January 6, 2001 as a case study of first amendment rights.  For the last seventy-five years one political party participated in political speech accompanied with violence in the United States, the Democrat Party.  Hundreds of examples exist and almost every one of them come from the left, including the BLM riots of 2020 with at least 25 killed that Summer.  All of this resulted in thousands of deaths and multiple billions of dollars in damage.  Anyone reading here knows that violent protests and rioting are the unique domain of the Democrats, the left, and their supporters.  Citizens have tolerated these for decades.  Then comes January 6.

January 6 was an outlier for right wing protests.  The primary motivating factor was the perception of interference in the 2020 presidential election.  Conservative authors have written numerous entire books and dozens of published articles outlining and giving evidence for the interference with the 2020 election by advocates of the Democrat Party.  Four Trump supporters alone died that day, one  unarmed Ashli Babbit, who was shot and killed.  The crowd that day saw the election interference as a greater violation than the vitriol and hostility of its demonstration.

The United States government understands the threat of violence against it posed by the existence of the second amendment.  Defense of liberty goes two ways.