As the United States continues to celebrate 250 years of the American experiment and welcomes glowing praise from visitors from around the world for the FIFA World Cup, Americans have good reason to reflect on what makes our nation exceptionalism.
The U.S. Constitution recognizes that individual rights don’t come from government. Government exists to protect rights endowed by our Creator. Among them is the right to keep and bear arms for self defense, and other lawful purposes.
That distinction isn’t merely academic. Across the world, citizens live under control of governments that deny them the means to defend themselves, their families and their freedom. Iran offers a chilling reminder of what happens when tyrannical governments disarm citizens and wield firepower on their own people.
Speaking with reporters last week during a meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Mark Rutte at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, President Donald Trump addressed the situation and interactions with the Iranian regime.
“I deal with these guys and I say, ‘This is from a different school. They’re liars. They’re cheats. They’re sick people. They’ve hurt their people. They killed 54,000 people as of now that were protesting,’” President Trump said, according to a report in The Hill. “You know, when people say, ‘How come they haven’t taken over,’ they can’t take over because they’re dead. They killed them. Nobody’s going to take over. They [Iranian citizens] have no guns and the other side has machine guns and they’re killing them. The press doesn’t report it. But they’re bad people. They’re bad people and uh, frankly I don’t want to waste my time with them.”
The numbers of Iranian citizens murdered by Iran’s rulers are still being counted, but President Trump identified the central truth that courage alone cannot overcome a government willing to use overwhelming force against a defenseless population.
An Armed Citizenry Secured America’s Freedom
America’s founders understood that danger firsthand. British troops marched toward Lexington and Concord in April 1775 to seize arms, ammunition and military supplies held by American colonists. Armed militia members stood in their path. The resulting confrontation ignited the American Revolution.
The colonists ultimately recognized they could not preserve their liberties while remaining subjects of King George III. They united, declared independence and fought to establish a nation in which government answered to the people.
That understanding was later secured in and protected by the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Founders did not grant that pre-existing common law right. They expressly protected it from future government interference.
When Only the Government Has Arms
Iran is hardly the only nation where the balance of power rests almost entirely with the state.
Iranian citizens generally require government permission to possess firearms while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other security forces brutally enforce the regime’s will. In Venezuela, the socialist government banned commercial firearm and ammunition sales to civilians in 2012, restricted public carry and imposed severe penalties for unauthorized possession. Cuba reserves lawful firearm access largely for those approved by the communist government while political dissidents face surveillance, detention and punishment — including murder. The Nazi regime disarmed Jews and others before implementing their genocidal “final solution.”
The histories of these countries differ, but the lesson is consistent. Once government decides who may possess the means of self-defense, and who may not, political favor replaces individual rights. Those trusted by the controlling regime remain armed. Those who resist are disarmed, or worse.
That does not mean every government disagreement should become an armed confrontation. It means the balance of power matters. The ability to throw off the yoke of a despotic and tyrannical government matters. Our Declaration of Independence says, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Elections, courts and constitutional institutions remain essential safeguards. The Second Amendment ensures those protections are backed by an independent citizenry that is never entirely dependent on government for personal security or liberty.
Restoring the Second Amendment at Home
President Trump has recognized that America should not drift toward the same dangerous imbalance.
His February 2025 executive order declared the Second Amendment an “indispensable safeguard of security and liberty” and directed the federal government to review actions that infringed on the rights of law-abiding Americans. As Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the U.S. Supreme Court in Bruen said, “The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’ McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion).”
The U.S. Department of Justice followed by establishing a Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force and, later, a dedicated Second Amendment Section within its Civil Rights Division. That section is now pursuing affirmative litigation, investigating alleged patterns of infringement and intervening in cases affecting the constitutional rights of lawful firearm owners.
Those efforts are already producing results. The DOJ has challenged firearm bans in the District of Columbia, California, Virginia and Colorado and has investigated allegedly unconstitutional permit practices.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has also begun reversing the previous administration’s punitive posture. ATF ended the so-called “zero-tolerance” inspection policy, adopted a new policy that de-emphasizes immaterial paperwork errors and announced 34 proposed and final regulatory actions intended to reduce unnecessary burdens on lawful firearm owners and businesses.
The DOJ is also developing a process through which deserving individuals may seek restoration of federal firearm rights under existing law.
These are important steps toward restoring the proper relationship between citizens and their government.
The Iranian people are living with the nightmare consequences of a system in which the murderous regime possesses all the arms and citizens possess only courage. America’s founders chose another path.
At 250 years, the United States must remain vigilant and committed to protecting our God-given, constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms that is indispensable to preserving every other freedom Americans hold dear.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.