The Second Amendment as Demanding Subject: Figuring the Marginalized Subject in Demands for an Unbridled Second Amendment

Abstract

n American politics, we often equate rights, particularly constitutional rights, with freedom. It is as if we can discern how free we are by how well our constitutional rights are preserved. Political theorist Linda Zerilli cautions against such thinking: When rights become institutionalized, we tend to forget their origin in a radical, ungrounded claim to freedom, to non-domination and to equal participation in public affairs. We tend to become invested in securing them as such, rather than in maintaining our investment in the sometimes less stable practices that created them in the first place. 1