Yet defenders of the Second Amendment insist this carnage is the unavoidable price of liberty. The Second Amendment was never colorblind; it was a tool to maintain white supremacy. The Second Amendment was never meant to enable insurrection; it was meant to ensure public order under civilian authority. For most of U.S. history, courts understood the Second Amendment as tied to militia service. The Second Amendment, once intended as a guardrail against tyranny, is now a suicide pact.