I’ve long argued that the Second Amendment is the insurance policy the Founding Fathers took out to protect the rest of the Bill of Rights. You can’t take away someone’s right to free speech, to freely assemble, and your freedom of religion without first taking away their ability to resist. Otherwise, someone’s going to fight you.

But in the wake of a mass shooting, we start to get a glimpse of who some people are.

As Ben Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

For one USA Today writer, he’s clearly and firmly in that camp.

Three children and three adults are dead, gunned down in a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., by a human being who had no business possessing an AR-style rifle, an AR-style pistol and another handgun.

“But, but, but … the Second Amendment,” some will scream, like a myopic, zombified Greek chorus.

Hang your Second Amendment. It’s Monday in America, there has been yet another school shooting. Children are dead. The students who weren’t shot are forever changed by the trauma, and plenty more people across the country will be killed by gunfire in the days to come because, as I wrote a few words earlier, it’s Monday in America, and we have a whole damn week to go.

And at this point, it really doesn’t matter what else the writer has to say. He’s already made it clear that your Second Amendment rights are completely and totally irrelevant to him.

He’s also made it clear he’s not open for discussion about literally anything else that could potentially reduce mass shootings. Why? Because your rights don’t matter.

This is troubling in the Land of the Free.

See, one of the hallmarks of the United States is that we are a free land, that we value freedom. That freedom is protected in part by the fact that we have an armed populace that can react to any and all acts of tyranny.

We haven’t exactly used it, but mostly because the vast majority of us figure we can fight back without needed to expend ammunition.

Thankfully.

But we can’t “hang” our Second Amendment rights just because something bad happens. If we do that, we can then start hanging the rest of our rights when someone decides they need to go away.

Frankly, when you’re starting position is that my rights are completely and totally irrelevant, there is no discourse. There’s absolutely no reason to engage with you because there’s absolutely no chance of you being the least bit rational.

Do you want my rights? It’s not surprising. We’ve long known that gun control advocates ultimately want to gut the Second Amendment to the point that it’s little more than a trophy hanging on the wall.

The problem, however, is that it’s easy to say “hang your Second Amendment.” It’s a lot harder to do anything about it. Why? Because there’s an insurance policy in the Bill of Rights, and there are millions of Americans ready to act because of it.