The historic events unfolding in Venezuela are not just significant in their own right, but are providing, as major events do, opportunities to see in practice and draw conclusions about ideas that are often separated from our experience by the breadth of history or the distance of hypothesis. So the world debates the meaning of coup and the import of revolution and the weight of international pressure.

And even the question of owning guns, which came up during MSNBC’s reporting on the story and how Nicolás Maduro is resisting overthrow.

It was not an intentional commentary on the value of private gun ownership, of course, but as conservative outlets HotAir and the Washington Free Beacon noted, a point was made nevertheless.

In the clip above, NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders was explaining to anchor Andrea Mitchell and the MSNBC audience the situation on the ground, as it stood at around noon on Tuesday (ET).

“I think it has been surprising to a lot of people in Washington, in the administration at least, that this is taking longer than they thought,” said Mitchell. “Despite the sanctions, despite the pressure, with the help of Russia and other outside forces, Maduro is hanging on.”

“Not only hanging on but he appears to still control the military,” Sanders replied. “You have to understand, in Venezuela gun ownership is not something that’s open to everybody. So if the military have the guns, they have the power.”

That is a fairly stark and surprising point on an MSNBC broadcast. “As long as Nicolás Maduro controls the military, he controls the country,” Sanders continued.

Private gun ownership was outlawed under previous dictator (and Hollywood darling) Hugo Chavez.

In the immediate sense, it’s a distant concern for Americans to ponder being powerless before a renegade dictatorial force (although you wouldn’t know it reading #Resistance Twitter). However, in the philosophical sense, on the moral question and in view of fundamental rights of human beings, what Sanders said and Mitchell did not challenge was that the ownership of power is critical to resistance of power, and that specifically the personal ownership of guns is power to the people.

Power, or not, for the people of Venezuela today. But tomorrow…?

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