Sen. Tim Sheehy’s blunt assessment that Iran will never honor a long-term nuclear deal is a reminder that the Islamic Republic’s promises are written in disappearing ink. The Montana Republican’s warning that the U.S. will ultimately have to confront the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not just foreign-policy talk—it’s a forecast of the next arms race in the Middle East. When the IRGC’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are already flush with precision-guided munitions and drones, any American retrenchment only accelerates the flow of advanced weapons to America’s adversaries.

For the Second Amendment community, the lesson is straightforward: regimes that cheat on nuclear deals also cheat on arms embargoes, and the only reliable backstop is a well-armed citizenry at home and a robust domestic defense industrial base. Every time Washington signals hesitation, Iran’s network of militias doubles down on smuggling, 3-D-printed components, and gray-market small arms that eventually find their way to cartels on America’s southern border. The same constitutional principles that protect an individual’s right to keep and bear arms also underwrite the private-sector innovation that keeps U.S. forces—and our allies—equipped with next-generation optics, suppressors, and precision rifles.

Sheehy’s candor should stiffen the spine of lawmakers who still believe paper agreements can substitute for hard power. If the IRGC must eventually be dealt with, the surest deterrent is a United States that remains the arsenal of democracy rather than its supplicant. That means preserving the constitutional firewall against gun-control measures that would hollow out the very industry that supplies both law-abiding citizens and the warfighter.