54 - Kyle Housley: The Right to Bear Arms and the Wrong Way to Think About Love

Hacking State

Kyle Housley is a writer and co-host of a new podcast, Horizons Review, with longtime friend of the show, Cody Moser, exploring neglected intellectual texts and thinkers. We discuss the pathologization of normal relationship dynamics through misused psychological terminology, and extensively examine Second Amendment jurisprudence, particularly Kyle's disagreement with the Heller case on original meaning grounds.

Kyle critiques how terms like "narcissism" and "transactional relationships" are misapplied to pathologize healthy interpersonal expectations and natural give-and-take in friendships and romantic partnerships. He argues this reflects broader cultural problems with dismissing relational obligations in favor of personal convenience.

The majority of our conversation focuses on Kyle's disagreement with the 2008 Heller case. He argues that the core holding identifying self-defense as the primary protected right is wrong on original meaning grounds. Instead, he contends the amendment's original purpose was to protect citizens' right to bear arms most useful in military service to maintain effective militias, not individual self-defense which was already protected under common law.

Kyle provides extensive historical context on the founders' deep concerns about standing armies versus citizen soldiers, heavily influenced by Roman Republic history and fears that professional armies would lead to the same factional civil wars that destroyed Rome. We explore the distinction between a "right to rebellion" versus organized resistance, the founders' view of standing armies as mercenaries, and how the militia clause connects to republican virtue and citizenship.

We conclude by examining modern challenges to Second Amendment interpretation, including 3D-printed guns and drone warfare, and how technological advances create new questions about effective citizen militia capability in the 21st century.

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