The ACLU Has Basically Quit Defending The Constitution

The American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that once so rigidly adhered to the neutral principles in the Constitution that it famously defended the right of a neo-Nazi group to march through the Jewish-laden Chicago suburb of Skokie, has been increasingly rejiggering its positions to correspond with the Left’s hard lurchtowards cafeteria constitutionalism.

This week, for example, one of its senior policy analysts came up with an imaginative rationalization for limiting gun rights. “The wide availability of guns and their misuse is leading to restrictions on Americans’ freedom,” the organization tweeted this week, “and that needs to be part of the firearms debate.” The piece the tweet links to makes a, “A Pro-Liberty Case for Gun Restrictions,” which, though it’s become a tediously misused cliché over the years, can only be described as Orwellian.

It’s one thing to offer a “collective rights argument” regarding the Second Amendment — the wrong thing, according to the Supreme Court, but still an argument tethered to a legal concept — and another to nakedly rationalize the limiting the rights of law-abiding citizens because bad actors are creating anxiety among voters and politicians who, in turn, abuse their power.