Following on from earlier posts . . .

Assuming that the video below is legitimately from the real (loosely affiliated) hacktivist group known as Anonymous, this would be an example of two things:

1) Politics make strange bedfellows.

The list of things that the prototypical American supporter of legal gun ownership and the prototypical Anonymous-type hacktivist disagree is probably rather extensive. And yet, here we appear to be, which brings us to point 2 . . .

2) The appeal of gun ownership is broad.

In a state of nature, do you have a right to life? To survive? If you catch a fish from the ocean to feed yourself and your family, is that your fish? Do you have a right to think your own thoughts? To treat your own wounds? To find a mate and raise a family? To defend yourself from harm?

Of course.

People have an innate understanding of these things; they treat them as brute facts. That’s why Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . ” Because they’re self-evident.

We revere the Second Amendment, but the reason why its appeal is so broad and so deep goes beyond the Constitution. It goes straight to a visceral understanding of natural rights. You have a right to own and carry weapons every bit as much as you have a right to life, to thought, to speech. This right is not granted by any government; it is a right you have just because you exist. That is why people feel so strongly about it.