It's deer season in Missouri, and I'm not going to beat around the bush.
Every November, when rifles come out of safes and hunters head to their stands, the same tired defense of the Second Amendment comes out to play. "We need our guns for hunting," as if our constitutional rights depend on bagging a ten-point buck. As if our founders fought through the winter of Valley Forge so we could fill our freezers with venison.
Listen, I treasure these cold mornings in a quiet wood as much as any Missourian. The traditions we pass down matter. But when we justify our right to bear arms by pointing to a deer stand, we've lost the plot.
American citizens owe no one an explanation for why we’re armed. That right and freedom was carved into our founding documents nearly 250 years ago, and it has absolutely nothing to do with hunting season.
As America approaches its 250th birthday in 2026, we need to remember how we got here. In 1776, ordinary men made an extraordinary claim: that governments exist to serve the people, not the other way around. That our rights come from our Creator, not from kings or high born men in power. And most importantly - that when any government becomes destructive of those rights, the people have the authority to alter or abolish it.
These weren't philosophers writing theories in comfortable libraries. These were men who'd lived under tyranny's boot. They knew what happens when citizens can't defend themselves against their own government.
After winning independence through force of arms - ordinary citizens with their own weapons - the new nation first tried governing under the Articles of Confederation. As with many worthwhile endeavors, they didn’t quite get it on the first try. Next, they drafted the United States Constitution in 1787. Here's what matters: Americans refused to ratify it without ironclad guarantees. They'd just overthrown one tyrannical government. They weren't about to create another.
The Bill of Rights wasn't some generous afterthought. It was the non-negotiable price of ratification. And look where they placed the right to bear arms - second. Not buried in the fine print. Not forgotten at the end.
Second.
Right after the freedoms we have as fully free citizens - speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition. Right before protections against quartering soldiers and unreasonable searches. The founders understood that without the means to defend the First Amendment, all other rights become mere suggestions.
Let's talk about those twenty-seven words: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Today's gun control advocates love to focus on "well regulated Militia," as if this means only the National Guard should have firearms. But when those words were written, the militia was the people. Not a standing army. Not a government force. The militia was every able-bodied citizen who could shoulder a rifle.
These were farmers who left their fields, merchants who shuttered their shops, blacksmiths who set down their hammers - all grabbing their own personal firearms to face the world's most powerful military. The founders who penned the Second Amendment weren't debating magazine capacity or barrel length. They were men who'd just used privately owned weapons and grit to overthrow a government.
They knew, in their bones, that an armed citizenry represents the final check on tyranny. Not the only check - we have elections, courts, and federalism - but the final check. The one that ensures all others remain meaningful.
I believe, without apology, that every mentally sound, law-abiding American should own a firearm and know how to use it safely. This isn't extremism. This is exactly what the founders intended.
Look at where mass violence occurs in America. Shooters don't attack police stations or gun shows. They target schools where teachers huddle defenseless with their students. Churches where the faithful gather unarmed. Shopping centers and movie theaters that advertise themselves as "gun-free zones" - which might as well be invitations to predators.
The pattern is undeniable: evil seeks out the defenseless.
If those bent on harm knew they'd face immediate armed resistance - that their twisted fantasy would end in seconds, not minutes - many would never attempt it. This isn't speculation. It's human nature. Predators seek easy prey.
Our teachers deserve more than lockdown drills and prayers that a classroom door will hold. They deserve the option - with proper training and by their own choice - to be their students' last line of defense. Our communities deserve to know that law-abiding citizens understand both their right and their responsibility to protect innocent life.
This isn't paranoia. It's preparedness. It's the stance of free people who refuse to outsource their safety entirely to others.
When we defend the Second Amendment by talking about hunting, we've already surrendered the high ground. We're accepting the premise that constitutional rights must be justified by recreational activities or practical utility.
Imagine defending free speech by saying, "Well, I need it for my book club." Or justifying freedom of religion because "Church potlucks build community." We'd recognize immediately how this diminishes these fundamental rights.
Yet that's exactly what we do when we point to hunting as the reason for gun ownership.
The Second Amendment exists for one primary reason: to ensure that power remains with the people. It guarantees that citizens retain the ultimate means to resist tyranny, whether from foreign invaders or - God forbid - their own government gone astray.
Yes, firearms protect our homes and families. Yes, they put food on our tables. Yes, they connect us to traditions stretching back generations. These are good things, important things. But they're not the thing.
In the centuries since the Bill of Rights, we've amended our Constitution seventeen more times. We've extended voting rights, corrected grievous injustices, and refined how our government operates. This is healthy evolution.
But evolution doesn't mean amnesia.
The Second Amendment remains what it has always been: the practical guarantee that Americans remain citizens, not subjects. It ensures that "government by consent" isn't just a pretty phrase but an ongoing reality backed by the ultimate political currency - force.
Our system's genius lies in its foundation upon written principles - the Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. These aren't museum pieces. They're living commitments that each generation must understand and defend, or watch them die.
As we approach America's 250th year, we face a choice. We can continue apologizing for our rights, justifying them with increasingly weak arguments about sporting purposes. Or we can stand up and speak plainly about why the founders placed the right to bear arms immediately after our most fundamental freedoms.
So yes, enjoy deer season. Teach your kids to track and shoot. Pass down your grandfather's rifle and the stories that go with it. These traditions matter.
But never – never - let anyone convince you that hunting is why you have the right to own that rifle. Never accept the premise that you must justify your constitutional rights by their secondary benefits.
We have the right to bear arms because we are free people in a free nation. Because our founders understood - from brutal experience - what happens when citizens cannot resist their own government. Because they knew that all the constitutional checks and balances in the world mean nothing if the people lack the means to enforce them.
This truth might make some people uncomfortable. Good. Freedom should make us a little uncomfortable. It carries weight. It demands responsibility. It requires citizens who understand that liberty isn't granted by governments but secured by people willing to defend it.
As I write this from Missouri, where constitutional carry is the law and our citizens understand their rights, I think about the legacy we're leaving our children. Will they inherit a nation where free people exercise their God-given rights without apology? Or will they inherit one where those rights have been negotiated away, one reasonable restriction at a time?
The answer depends on whether we have the courage to speak plainly about why the Second Amendment exists. Not for sport. Not for subsistence. But as the ultimate guarantee that in America, the people remain sovereign.
That's the truth we need to tell. That's the conversation we must have. And that's the principle we must pass on, intact and uncompromised, to the next generation of Americans.
Because America at 250 endures only as long as we remember this: Power belongs to the people. The Second Amendment shall not be infringed. Not in Missouri, and not on my watch.
Hannah Kelly l Missouri Senate