In an article for The New York Times and a follow-up appearance this weekend on MSNBC, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who serves on the House committee investigating January 6, demolished the idea there is any kind of legal foundation under U.S. law for the kinds of actions that overtook the Capitol early last year.
Republican politicians like Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.) — with the list extending well on from there — have characterized gun rights under the Constitution as essentially allowing citizens the opportunity to fight back against hypothetical tyranny from the U.S. government. The Second Amendment “has nothing to do with hunting, unless you’re talking about hunting tyrants, maybe,” Boebert has asserted. Participants in the Capitol riot often tied their violence to similarly existential themes of supposed patriotism. “This is our house!” was among the assertions that rang out that day from riot participants, who were presumably tying any such statement to imagined support in the history of the Revolutionary War era and the Constitution. In reality, the Constitution clearly outlines a path for putting down insurrections. It doesn’t allow for them, as Raskin noted.
“Statements such as these were irresponsible enough before Jan. 6,” Raskin wrote, discussing Republican assertions. “Today, such talk courts disaster. It valorizes the brutality of the worst insurrectionary domestic attack at the Capitol in U.S. history, freezes our ability to pass reasonable gun safety legislation and justifies even more deadly political violence. It is essential to reject the myth that frustrated citizens have a Second Amendment right to raise arms against the government — an outrageous betrayal of our Constitution.”
Raskin pointedly noted that not a single charge against any of the Capitol rioters has been dismissed on the grounds that engaging in violent insurrection against the U.S. government is actually allowed: “Let’s start with this basic reality check. Of the more than 900 people charged with crimes tied to Jan. 6 — including smashing windows, assaulting Capitol officers and conspiring to overthrow or interfere with the government — not a single charge has been dismissed by any federal (or state) court on the grounds that the Second Amendment or any other part of the Constitution gives them the right to engage in violent insurrection against the government. This is for excellent reason. The Constitution treats insurrection and rebellion as political dangers, not protected rights.” Raskin subsequently quoted multiple portions of the Constitution outlining protections against “insurrection” and “domestic violence.”
“Despite all this abundant repudiation of insurrection and rebellion in the body of the Constitution, some House Republicans still parrot National Rifle Association talking points and insist that the Second Amendment — in invisible ink — protects the right of private citizens to overthrow the government by force,” Raskin added in the Times. “But nowhere did the framers of the Second Amendment profess that idea, much less embody it in the constitutional text, something that might give pause to self-proclaimed originalists and textualists spouting the theory.” The U.S. Supreme Court has also supported the Constitutional position that insurrection is something under U.S. law that is to be quelled — not sometimes allowed.
Raskin noted there would, of course, be moral opportunities for citizens to engage in rebellion if the U.S. government were to engage in something like “slaughtering and oppressing the population” — but these perceptible rights under “natural law” aren’t provided by the Constitution or U.S. law. Imaginary election fraud that credible authorities of both major parties consistently showed didn’t exist obviously isn’t anywhere near the level of real-world tyranny supporting that kind of action. Backing the idea such fraud exists through violent rioting supposedly against it is just criminal, and that’s it.
“But the way we pursue real grievances about electoral disputes in America is through the law and the courts,” Raskin observed. “Mr. Trump and his followers brought more than 50 lawsuits that were rejected by federal and state judges all across the land. Their team should have taken these losses as America’s debunking of their big lie and gone home.”
