In an ad released last year, Blake Masters, a leading candidate in Arizona¡¯s Republican Senate primary, cradles a semiautomatic weapon. ¡°This is a short-barreled rifle,¡± he said, ominous music playing in the background. ¡°It wasn¡¯t designed for hunting. This is designed to kill people.¡±

For Masters, this isn¡¯t an argument against allowing such guns to proliferate. Rather, it¡¯s an acknowledgment of why access to these weapons is, for the right, a matter of existential importance. ¡°The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting,¡± Masters said. ¡°It¡¯s about protecting your family and your country. What¡¯s the first thing the Taliban did when Joe Biden handed them Afghanistan? They took away people¡¯s guns.¡± Guns, in this worldview, are a guarantor against government overreach. And government overreach includes attempts to regulate guns.

These days, it¡¯s barely remarkable when Republicans issue what sound like threats against those who¡¯d dare curtail their private arsenals. ¡°I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our president ¡ª try to take our guns and you¡¯ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place,¡± Randy Fine, a state representative in Florida, tweeted on Wednesday.