NYC DSA Co-Chair: ‘No One Has a Right’ to Double-Digit Returns on Investment

July 18, 2026
10:02 am

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The notion that investors have no constitutional claim to double-digit returns is hardly a novel socialist talking point, but when it comes from the co-chair of New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America, it signals a deeper hostility toward private capital that inevitably bleeds into every other enumerated right—including the Second Amendment. Gordillo’s dismissal of investment returns as “not in the Constitution” ignores the fact that the document was never meant to be an exhaustive catalog of economic liberties; the Framers understood that property rights and the ability to profit from one’s labor and capital were foundational to ordered liberty. Once government begins deciding what level of return is “acceptable,” the same logic can be—and historically has been—turned against the right to keep and bear arms: if the state can ration your money, it can ration your means of self-defense. For the 2A community, this rhetoric is a warning shot. DSA chapters across the country already push “public-safety” gun bans, mandatory insurance schemes, and “assault-weapon” excise taxes that function as de-facto confiscation. When activists claim the moral authority to cap your IRA or 401(k), they are simultaneously laying the groundwork to cap magazine capacity, ammunition purchases, and the very existence of the firearms industry. The same people who sneer at “double-digit returns” are the ones who cheered New York’s seven-round magazine limit and cheered again when the SAFE Act’s architects floated a tax on every registered rifle. Economic control and gun control are two sides of the same coin: both rest on the premise that individual rights are privileges granted—and revocable—by the state. The practical takeaway is that 2A advocates cannot afford to treat these statements as mere academic debate. Every restriction on capital formation makes it harder for small manufacturers to tool up, for gun shops to stock inventory, and for ordinary citizens to afford quality defensive firearms. When the political class decides your savings are fair game, your rifles are next; the only durable defense is an unapologetic defense of both economic liberty and the right to keep and bear arms as non-negotiable pillars of American freedom.

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For the 2A community, this rhetoric is a warning shot. DSA chapters across the country already push “public-safety” gun bans, mandatory insurance schemes, and “assault-weapon” excise taxes that function as de-facto confiscation. When activists claim the moral authority to cap your IRA or 401(k), they are simultaneously laying the groundwork to cap magazine capacity, ammunition purchases, and the very existence of the firearms industry. The same people who sneer at “double-digit returns” are the ones who cheered New York’s seven-round magazine limit and cheered again when the SAFE Act’s architects floated a tax on every registered rifle. Economic control and gun control are two sides of the same coin: both rest on the premise that individual rights are privileges granted—and revocable—by the state.

The practical takeaway is that 2A advocates cannot afford to treat these statements as mere academic debate. Every restriction on capital formation makes it harder for small manufacturers to tool up, for gun shops to stock inventory, and for ordinary citizens to afford quality defensive firearms. When the political class decides your savings are fair game, your rifles are next; the only durable defense is an unapologetic defense of both economic liberty and the right to keep and bear arms as non-negotiable pillars of American freedom.

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