America, constitutionally and historically, emphatically supports the right of citizens to defend themselves against aggressors, whether those aggressors are private actors or government agents. The Second Amendment, guaranteeing “the right to bear arms,” is proof of this.

While many, including the most vocal and visible of gun rights enthusiasts, are too squeamish about saying as much, logically speaking, both the right to bear arms as well as the more fundamental principle of the right to self-protection to which the Second Amendment gives expression, amount to the right to, if need be, kill those who threaten oneself and/or other innocents whose lives are imminently imperiled.

The Second Amendment affirms, then, the individual’s right to use deadly force, whether by way of a gun or by whatever other legitimate means, if such force is necessary, or reasonably deemed necessary, to stop a violent attack on innocent life.

Unfortunately, far too often, supporters of the Second Amendment make the same error made by those who tirelessly seek to undermine it by personifying the gun. The latter, it is crucial to remember, is just a tool. Certainly, it is the most effective means for those at great physical disadvantage to equalize the odds against their attackers. However, ultimately, the gun is not a magic wand. It is not the gun, but the person, the agent who wields it, that will be decisive or not in protecting his or her well-being against bipedal predators.

That political partisans from across the spectrum tend to think of the Second Amendment in terms, first and foremost, of an inanimate object, and, specifically, the gun, is not a coincidence. Although there are opportunistic political reasons for this convergence of thought, there is also a philosophical one that is scarcely, if ever, touched upon.

The modern world, due to its compartmentalization and fragmentation of life, defaults to an implicit dualism in how it........

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