Speaking to a small crowd that marched from downtown Des Moines to the grounds of the Iowa Capitol building, Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie said of that group’s goal to reform gun laws, “This is not an assault on constitutional rights. This is about the safety of our communities. We deserve a conversation. We deserve a vote.”

But on what, exactly, do “we” deserve a right to vote? Americans are at an immense constitutional impasse as to what rights are protected by Second Amendment, which is often taken as protecting a person’s right to own firearms and to defend himself when attacked. Cownie’s statement, unfortunately, assumes that that impasse does not exist.

It assumes a common ground on which we all agree. That common ground does not exist. Although 58 percent of Americans believe that laws regulating the sale of firearms should be more strict than they currently are, 34 percent believe those laws should be kept as they are. And, even if a much larger majority than 58 percent believed that gun laws should be stricter, that consensus still would not resolve the question of what is, and is not, a constitutional right.

Opponents of Cownie’s position that “we” deserve a vote on a bill or referendum to curb access to guns share something in common with the proponents of same-sex marriage demonstrating outside the U.S. Supreme Court building and changing their Facebook profile pictures to a pink equals sign on a red background. Those two groups, we think, would agree on a key issue of the United States: Rights are not, and should not be, subject to popular vote.

Iowans, in fact, have been having this debate with respect to same-sex marriage for a few years now. After the Iowa Supreme Court struck down a state law that limited marriage to heterosexual couples, conservatives demanded that the Iowa Senate’s majority leader stop blocking an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that would limit marriages to heterosexual couples. “Let us vote,” they said. Naturally, supporters of same-sex couples’ right to vote cried foul — because rights should not be subject to the vote of anything but the most powerful of majorities.

Rights are a very abstract concept, and it is difficult to escape philosophy when discussing them. Suffice it to say, however, that if we have a right to do something, it is right that it be done. It would make no sense for an action to be a “right” if acting upon that right entailed hurting another person.

For this reason, the founders of the United States repudiated the notion of democracy and instead installed a republic. Since all the people who ever could hold governmental office are humans — since every office holder is fallible and liable to make mistakes — government should be limited, unable to cross certain thresholds. Conveniently, some of those rights, or “truths,” are self-evident.

Where a potential right is not self-evident, however, we must find a way of resolving that issue, before we can claim a right to “vote” on it. The same way that the U.S. Supreme Court is only now hearing key cases on same-sex marriage, a sweeping ruling on the right to bear arms has not yet come.