5 Years Since the Jan. 6 Insurrection |
On Jan. 6, 2021, I was in the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives as violent insurrectionists attacked our nation’s Capitol, bent on interrupting Congress in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities and doing serious harm to Vice President Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and members of Congress.
As I reflect on this dark day for our precious—and often fragile—American democracy, I keep returning to one of the underlying forces helping to fuel the violence: Second Amendment extremism.
Second Amendment extremism comes from what legal scholars describe as the “insurrectionist” interpretation of the Second Amendment. This seriously flawed reading believes that Americans have a right under the Constitution, and even an obligation, to take up arms against the government when they disagree with its direction. At the core of this extremism is the dangerous view that the founders viewed aggrieved citizens who attack the government through armed violence as righteous patriots, rather than the enemies of the state.
This perspective that America’s founders supported insurrectionism is baseless. Take, for instance, President George Washington in 1794, who used the army and state militias to crush the Whiskey Rebellion. Or President Abraham Lincoln, who in 1865 led victory against the Confederacy and its attempt to destroy our nation through an armed rebellion designed to preserve the institution of human slavery.
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Yet shockingly, this theory is increasingly embraced by many Americans today, including many of the foot soldiers in the Jan. 6 insurrection, along with possibly some Supreme Court Justices and