House member says Second Amendment extremism and lax gun policy fueled Jan. 6

In a reflection published by Time, a member of the House who was inside the chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, said violent insurrectionists attacked the Capitol intent on interrupting Congress and doing serious harm to Vice President Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and members of Congress. The piece identifies “Second Amendment extremism” — an insurrectionist reading that citizens have a right or obligation to take up arms against the government — as an underlying force that helped fuel the violence, calling that view baseless and pointing to George Washington’s response to the Whiskey Rebellion and Abraham Lincoln’s defeat of the Confederacy as counterexamples.

The author says the theory is increasingly embraced by many Americans, including some of the Jan. 6 foot soldiers and, possibly, some Supreme Court justices and President Donald Trump himself. The author also blames the gun industry and current federal policy, arguing the industry has promoted rhetoric encouraging violence and profited from armed vigilantism, and that the Trump Administration’s actions in its second term have loosened gun regulations.

Cited measures include pardons restoring gun rights to politically violent individuals, a directive by the U.S.

Key Topics

Politics, Gun Industry, Donald Trump, Atf, Assault Weapons