It’s not just about the 2nd Amendment!

Over the past year, or so, much press has been written about gun ownership since the Supreme Court’s Heller decision and now with the McDonald v. City of Chicago being argued in the Supreme Court, it seems that this obsession over the 2nd Amendment has taken over the opinion pages of most newspapers (at least in my “neck of the woods”) and especially in the “blogosphere”. Now I’m going to add my blog to that ever growing cascade of views and punditry.



Let me address the 2nd Amendment initially (as that’s what all the hoopla is all about). For one thing I guess I just don’t get all the confusion about this one sentence. Our Founders were intelligent men and could read and write perfectly good English. In a time when we tend to look “between the lines” when someone, and particularly politicians, says or writes something I guess it’s understandable that there could be some confusion about what this is saying.

A well regulated militia being necessary for a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

That was the way the amendment was originally written, not sure when the extra commas were put in there but the original only had the one comma. It is very specific and, while terse, very easy to understand. A well regulated (the common term at that time for a properly equipped and trained) militia is an absolute necessity for a free state and the only way you can have a well regulated militia is for the government to not infringe upon the people’s right to keep and bear arms. How hard is that? Everyone, on the gun control side of the issue, wants to say that this really doesn’t mean an individual, but rather “the people” the amendment is referring to is “the militia”. They also think that “the militia” is either the National Guard or just “the military”. Let’s look at it another way.

A good education being necessary for a Supreme Court justice, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.

Would they contend that this would mean that ONLY Supreme Court Justices should be able to keep and read books? I will leave you to decide on your own.

The thing is this, while the two Supreme Court cases I’ve mentioned are about the 2nd Amendment and whether it is an individual right (Heller) and now if it should be “incorporated” under the 14th Amendment (McDonald v. City of Chicago), they really transcend this one sentence in the Bill of Rights. In both cases, the Supreme Court has said (or is saying) that government retains the right to restrict, or control, certain aspects of this right.

If this was a case involving the 1st Amendment the wailing and gnashing of teeth would be loud and from every corner of this country. I know the old saying, “You have the right to free speech, but you don’t have the right to holler FIRE in a crowded building”. Well while you may actually have the right to do so, common decency and good sense dictate that one shouldn’t do so, but it isn’t codified, ie – it ain’t against the law, per se.

Really, though, this is a much bigger issue that goes beyond the Bill of Rights and even the Constitution itself. The Bill of Rights, other than in it’s title, has nothing to do with our individual rights as free men in a free society. Yep, you read that right and if you don’t get anything else out of what I’m trying to say I hope those who read this will, at least, try to understand. The Bill of Rights isn’t about our rights. It’s a specific, but not all inclusive, list of things that the government CAN’T do in reference to those rights. Yes, it does list certain rights, but not in the declarative. Rather each one of the amendments in the Bill of Rights is restrictive, in that they continually tell the government “thou shall not” over and over again. The Founders, in the Bill of Rights, weren’t declaring these rights to exist, they were declaring that the government couldn’t do one damn thing about them! The rights listed, again it isn’t an all inclusive list, predate the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. In the Declaration of Independence these rights are called “unalienable rights” and that men are “endowed by their Creator” with these rights. These rights are not legal or “civil rights”, even though most people tend to think of them in that context. These “unalienable rights” are natural or “moral rights” and as such are not contingent upon any laws, any customs, any beliefs, any constitution or (most importantly) any political body. It doesn’t matter what nationality you are, what religion you profess or what color your skin. Natural rights transcend all that and are the individuals as soon as they are born. It’s up to the individual as to how they exercise these rights, but they exist nonetheless.

Just my thoughts.