As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, gun owners should take a moment to remember how unlikely today’s victories once seemed. In 1976, when the nation marked its bicentennial, many Second Amendment supporters believed the right to keep and bear arms was slowly being written out of American life. The law schools were hostile. The courts were hostile. The media was hostile. Most politicians treated the Second Amendment as a historical inconvenience. The future looked grim.
We chose to keep fighting. Giving up was not an option. The Constitution was clear, and we intended to fight to keep the Republic, even if the chance of success seemed nil.
A strange thing happened. The Second Amendment movement became the seed of the movement to restore the American Republic. This correspondent doubts it would have happened without the clear words of the Second Amendment. They created a rallying point, an anchor of certainty in the righteousness of our cause, a clear guide to who was with us and who was against us. Voting against the Second Amendment showed a politician might say he valued the Constitution, but his actions showed him to do the opposite. We educated ourselves.
The NRA played a critical role. They slowed the advance of the administrative state. It appears they believed the fight was lost, but they were determined to fight long rearguard actions to delay the inevitable. They stopped the registration and licensing of handguns in the National Firearms Act of 1934. They stripped registration of handguns out of the Gun Control Act of 1968. In 1977, Second Amendment supporters took control of the NRA in the Revolt in Cincinnati, where NRA life members voted in Second Amendment supporters and outed the old guard. The NRA would become powerful and rich with its rearguard actions in Washington, DC. Second Amendment supporters wanted more. They wanted to win.
From the perspective of July of 2026, what happened seems miraculous. Second Amendment supporters organized from the ground up. Powerful voices such as Neil Knox educated those on the ground. (Neil was kicked out of the NRA in 1982). Newsletters and telephone trees were fashioned to educate on local politics. The NRA had a significant role in opposing anti-Second Amendment legislation. The Second Amendment became an important item for politicians who wished to be elected. The Second Amendment Foundation was established. Gun Owners of America was established. Academics and intellectuals started writing about the Second Amendment from a historical instead of a Progressive perspective. In 1979, Don B. Kates, Jr. published "Restricting Handguns, The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out. In 1982, with Ronald Reagan in office, the Senate issued a Report on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, confirming it as an individual right. In 1987, the NRA and local Florida groups were able to pass a "shall issue" concealed carry bill.
By 1989, Sanford Levinson felt compelled to write "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" in the Yale Law Journal. The grass roots had made the Second Amendment so prominent in national politics, left wing academics were forced to mention it. In 1996, the Supreme Court struck down the Gun Free School Zone Act as exceeding the power of Congress under the Interstate Commerce Clause (USA v Lopez). Justice Clarence Thomas declared he would like to see a Second Amendment case before the Supreme Court.
The Shall Issue revolt against Second Amendment infringements was well underway. Those who sought to restore the right incrementally were shown to have the more effective tactics. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled the Second Amendment was an individual right which must be respected in the Heller decision. In 2010, the Supreme Court confirmed the Second Amendment applied to the states, not just the federal government, in the McDonald case.
These things did not happen in a vacuum. The organizational ability of grass roots Second Amendment supporters was magnified by talk radio. It found a favorable medium in the early Internet. It became clear the problem was primarily one of an oppositional national Media more than who was elected to Congress, because the Media were the gatekeepers to Congress and the Presidency. In 2016 a loud mouthed New York billionaire upset the apple-cart by supporting the Second Amendment and being elected President. We had entered the Trump era.
The old Media could not control the narrative. President Trump appointed three originalists and textualists to the Supreme Court. For the first time in 80 years, the Supreme Court had a reliable originalist and textualist majority. Last week, the Supreme Court removed more infringements on Second Amendment rights. They agreed to hear cases involving semi-automatic rifles. Those rifles will be ruled to be protected by the Second Amendment. The states which are defying the Supreme Court are having their fingers slapped. The requirements for courts on how to handle Second Amendment cases are being made more stringent and precise, all in favor of the Second Amendment. 29 states have permitless carry.
All of the above appeared to be fantasy unobtainium in 1976. To get where we are today took billions of hours of work by millions of activists and Second Amendment supporters. It took billions of dollars of money. Much was wasted. Much had significant effects.
The Second Amendment can be read by anyone who can read English. It was, and is our lodestar. Along the way, we found we needed the whole Constitution to protect the Bill of Rights, and the Bill of Rights to protect the Constitution. We learned most politicians are more concerned with holding office than with protecting us. We learned to lobby and pressure and persist.
More than half the country has learned with us. The Donald Trump administration is the most pro-Second Amendment administration in the history of the United States since before 1860. To all Second Amendment supporters out there; these victories belong to you. The future belongs to you. We are winning. We are not finished. Keep fighting. Keep lobbying. Keep pushing. The future looks much brighter than it did in 1976.
God bless America. God bless the Constitution. God bless the Second Amendment.
©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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