The Second Amendment’s Safe Space, or the Constitutionalization of Fragility

Contempt for vulnerability is the defining characteristic of contemporary American conservatism. Conservatives ridicule diversity initiatives, government assistance, antidiscrimination policies, the #MeToo movement, worker protections, universal health care, family leave, forgiveness of student debt, and other progressive concepts as obsessions of the fragile and the dependent. The contempt for vulnerability has been on vivid display in the campus free speech crisis narrative, which bemoans the rise of “snowflake” students demanding safe spaces from conflict and discomfort. According to proponents of this narrative, snowflakes are dangerous as well as ridiculous, and their pernicious influence extends beyond college campuses. Conservative critics warn that “Antifa” and other extreme elements of the left seek to silence and disarm dissent everywhere, by force if necessary. There is truth in the dangerous snowflake narrative, but not the truth that its promoters think. It is true that impressionable individuals who are taught to fear ideas that they do not understand or people who disagree with them pose a threat to society. The danger is particularly acute when these individuals come together and develop a group identity based on their fears. When such a group decides that it is imperative to protect its identity at all costs, it becomes, in effect, a cult. But college students protesting controversial speakers or requesting content warnings are not that cult. Neither are progressives demanding accountability for sexual abuse, racist policies, or economic injustice. If there is a group truly determined to make the entire world into their personal safe space, no matter the cost, it is the self-identified Second Amendment activists too frightened to