Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

by Elie Mystal

We live in the most violent industrialized nation on earth because too many dudes can’t admit they still need a night-light. When you ask these people why they think the Constitution protects gun rights, it won’t take long for them to make the “self-defense” argument. Oh, they might take a detour through hunting. They might try to convince you that their constitutional right to sit in a tree, covered in deer piss, for five hours until a defenseless animal wanders in range of their military-grade sniper rifle shall not be infringed! Or they may make the “violent overthrow of the government” argument. Yeah, there are people who will argue with a straight face that their private arsenal is necessary to protect them from the most formidable military force in the history of the earth. A single Tomahawk missile has an operational range of one thousand five hundred miles and carries a thousand-pound payload of high explosives, but sure, your AR15 will totally protect you from the tyranny of the government. Buy two! The crew of the USS Ticonderoga is super concerned now. In fact, the events of January 6, 2021, showed definitively how useless guns are, even to violent insurrectionists trying to overthrow the government. Some of the people who stormed the Capitol that day were armed, but you’ll remember that those people didn’t actually use their firearms. If they had, they likely would have been met with a hail of gunfire from Capitol police. (If the mob had been predominately Blac...