From colonial times through the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, regardless of the court decisions, regardless of the changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: The second a Black person exercises that right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or not), their life—as surely as Philando Castile’s, as surely as Alton Sterling’s, as surely as twelve-year-old Tamir Rice’s—could be snatched away in that same fatal second.
