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Why It Shouldn’t Matter If We Repeal The Second Amendment
Mar 30, 2018 14:25:41   #
slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas
 
In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/d3e36df9-ddbc-3fce-855d-faee2c004659/ss_why-it-shouldn’t-matter-if-we-repeal-the-second-amendment

The Federalist, By Benjamin R. Dierker, March 30, 2018

There is no legal right to own a firearm in the United States. The Constitution does not give citizens the right to own weapons, and no legal or historical arguments support the idea that it does. Instead, a much deeper and more important philosophy provides for gun ownership: natural rights. These rights are not given, but protected. Not to expand citizens’ rights, but to limit government’s power.

Gun ownership is so integral to the United States’ DNA because armed Americans overthrew the world’s most powerful military empire using guns. The freest, most prosperous nation in human history, and a good deal of prosperity around the globe, owes its origin to guns. But the issue is far deeper than guns; it is about rights.

In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless. The right existed already; the Constitution merely secures it. Unfortunately, our society has loosened its grasp on natural rights philosophy and devolved into dependency on government-sanctioned rules. Today, however, even unambiguous text is under scrutiny by Democrats as prominent as former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

The Constitution mentions both natural and legal rights, and the distinction is critical. Within the Bill of Rights, some activities, like speech, are innate human rights protected against government interference. Other rights, like a speedy trial, are legal rights, which are products of the structure the Constitution created.

This distinction is crucial, because natural rights are articulated as endowed by God, while legal rights are endowed by government. The Founding Fathers understood natural rights to exist independent of—or in spite of—government. They simply exist for free people walking the earth. Legal rights are granted by men, and can be altered or destroyed by changes to law or the structure of government. The natural and legal rights in the Constitution are so fundamental that the Bill of Rights was added as an explicit bar to encroachment from the federal government.

The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right. It can be derived and is protected in multiple ways. Inherently, humans have natural grounds for self-preservation and defense. This right is beyond the reach of any person or government. Individuals can protect themselves using any necessary tools or actions.

Individuals also have a natural right to own property. Far be it for the federal government to regulate the personal items a free citizen enjoys in her home. To regulate personal property in private use on the grounds of its danger would be to inspect every knife, lighter, hammer, gardening tool, and gas-powered stove.

Owning a gun is well within the canon of natural rights that any free people should enjoy. Natural rights are so critical because they are innate in us. If the government dissolved or a new one took its place, it should have no effect on the basic entitlements of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. The righteous task of the founding, therefore, was to craft a government impotent to crush these rights.

Many state constitutions included a list of natural rights, not to provide for these rights, but to promise the people that the government would not tread on them. The federal Bill of Rights comes as a series of amendments, not because they were afterthoughts, but because the U.S. Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government such that it would be powerless to act where it was not authorized.

Debate persisted for years over whether the people’s natural rights should be enumerated at all. Some argued natural rights were so obvious that an enumeration was unnecessary, not to mention the government’s limited reach and small scope at the time. In a 1787 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no government should refuse, or rest on inference.”

Jefferson and others believed that leaving natural rights to “inference” put far too much trust in government and future generations in power. Still others believed that enumerating certain rights would create a presumption against other rights. If the government only mentioned a few natural rights, the government could encroach on every other right a free citizen ought to enjoy, citing no bar against its encroachment.
That’s Why We Have the Ninth Amendment

The solution was the Ninth Amendment, which preserves “other rights retained by the people.” Combined with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the federal government is clearly prohibited from trampling on free citizens’ natural or legal rights. According to the Ninth Amendment, a free citizen retains the right to self-protection and property, among a vast reservoir of other rights, and the government cannot interfere.

At its most basic level, a gun is a tool and item of personal property, which any person has a natural right to acquire independent of, and especially in spite of, government. A repeal of the Second Amendment should not truly harm gun ownership. Nevertheless, there is a reason it was explicitly included in the Bill of Rights, and listed so prominently. The reason is that human nature cannot be trusted, and both time and power destroy the protections created for free people.

Today, it is all too clear that if the Second Amendment were not so explicit, the tyranny of the majority would have suppressed the right long ago. The government did not create the right to own a gun, it secured that right, and thank God the Founding Fathers had the foresight to unambiguously prohibit the government from infringing on that right.

The calls to repeal the Second Amendment are voiced by radicals. Despite their high level of education, these radicals have not internalized the philosophy of natural rights or the significance of the Ninth Amendment. Yet the people retain their God-given rights, no matter how tyrannical protestors become.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Benjamin Dierker is a law student at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He holds a master's degree in public administration and a bachelor's degree in economics, both from Texas A&M University. He is a Christian and a Texan and loves to talk about both.

Reply
Mar 30, 2018 14:39:44   #
Manning345 Loc: Richmond, Virginia
 
slatten49 wrote:
In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/d3e36df9-ddbc-3fce-855d-faee2c004659/ss_why-it-shouldn’t-matter-if-we-repeal-the-second-amendment

The Federalist, By Benjamin R. Dierker, March 30, 2018

There is no legal right to own a firearm in the United States. The Constitution does not give citizens the right to own weapons, and no legal or historical arguments support the idea that it does. Instead, a much deeper and more important philosophy provides for gun ownership: natural rights. These rights are not given, but protected. Not to expand citizens’ rights, but to limit government’s power.

Gun ownership is so integral to the United States’ DNA because armed Americans overthrew the world’s most powerful military empire using guns. The freest, most prosperous nation in human history, and a good deal of prosperity around the globe, owes its origin to guns. But the issue is far deeper than guns; it is about rights.

In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless. The right existed already; the Constitution merely secures it. Unfortunately, our society has loosened its grasp on natural rights philosophy and devolved into dependency on government-sanctioned rules. Today, however, even unambiguous text is under scrutiny by Democrats as prominent as former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

The Constitution mentions both natural and legal rights, and the distinction is critical. Within the Bill of Rights, some activities, like speech, are innate human rights protected against government interference. Other rights, like a speedy trial, are legal rights, which are products of the structure the Constitution created.

This distinction is crucial, because natural rights are articulated as endowed by God, while legal rights are endowed by government. The Founding Fathers understood natural rights to exist independent of—or in spite of—government. They simply exist for free people walking the earth. Legal rights are granted by men, and can be altered or destroyed by changes to law or the structure of government. The natural and legal rights in the Constitution are so fundamental that the Bill of Rights was added as an explicit bar to encroachment from the federal government.

The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right. It can be derived and is protected in multiple ways. Inherently, humans have natural grounds for self-preservation and defense. This right is beyond the reach of any person or government. Individuals can protect themselves using any necessary tools or actions.

Individuals also have a natural right to own property. Far be it for the federal government to regulate the personal items a free citizen enjoys in her home. To regulate personal property in private use on the grounds of its danger would be to inspect every knife, lighter, hammer, gardening tool, and gas-powered stove.

Owning a gun is well within the canon of natural rights that any free people should enjoy. Natural rights are so critical because they are innate in us. If the government dissolved or a new one took its place, it should have no effect on the basic entitlements of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. The righteous task of the founding, therefore, was to craft a government impotent to crush these rights.

Many state constitutions included a list of natural rights, not to provide for these rights, but to promise the people that the government would not tread on them. The federal Bill of Rights comes as a series of amendments, not because they were afterthoughts, but because the U.S. Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government such that it would be powerless to act where it was not authorized.

Debate persisted for years over whether the people’s natural rights should be enumerated at all. Some argued natural rights were so obvious that an enumeration was unnecessary, not to mention the government’s limited reach and small scope at the time. In a 1787 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no government should refuse, or rest on inference.”

Jefferson and others believed that leaving natural rights to “inference” put far too much trust in government and future generations in power. Still others believed that enumerating certain rights would create a presumption against other rights. If the government only mentioned a few natural rights, the government could encroach on every other right a free citizen ought to enjoy, citing no bar against its encroachment.
That’s Why We Have the Ninth Amendment

The solution was the Ninth Amendment, which preserves “other rights retained by the people.” Combined with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the federal government is clearly prohibited from trampling on free citizens’ natural or legal rights. According to the Ninth Amendment, a free citizen retains the right to self-protection and property, among a vast reservoir of other rights, and the government cannot interfere.

At its most basic level, a gun is a tool and item of personal property, which any person has a natural right to acquire independent of, and especially in spite of, government. A repeal of the Second Amendment should not truly harm gun ownership. Nevertheless, there is a reason it was explicitly included in the Bill of Rights, and listed so prominently. The reason is that human nature cannot be trusted, and both time and power destroy the protections created for free people.

Today, it is all too clear that if the Second Amendment were not so explicit, the tyranny of the majority would have suppressed the right long ago. The government did not create the right to own a gun, it secured that right, and thank God the Founding Fathers had the foresight to unambiguously prohibit the government from infringing on that right.

The calls to repeal the Second Amendment are voiced by radicals. Despite their high level of education, these radicals have not internalized the philosophy of natural rights or the significance of the Ninth Amendment. Yet the people retain their God-given rights, no matter how tyrannical protestors become.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Benjamin Dierker is a law student at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He holds a master's degree in public administration and a bachelor's degree in economics, both from Texas A&M University. He is a Christian and a Texan and loves to talk about both.
In a properly functioning America like the Founder... (show quote)


The intent of the erase the 2nd Amendment movement is to remove guns from the populace, and does not give credit to the other ways the right to own guns is protected. Hence, law enforcement would be mobilized to grab all guns, merely based on the 2nd Amendment nullification. We best keep the 2nd Amendment, and honor our membership in the militia! Let's start a join the militia movement!

Reply
Mar 30, 2018 15:19:57   #
slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas
 
Manning345 wrote:
The intent of the erase the 2nd Amendment movement is to remove guns from the populace, and does not give credit to the other ways the right to own guns is protected. Hence, law enforcement would be mobilized to grab all guns, merely based on the 2nd Amendment nullification. We best keep the 2nd Amendment, and honor our membership in the militia! Let's start a join the militia movement!

I would not bother arguing with your point, Manning345. What is surprising is that this article came from The Federalist.

From: Media Bias/ Fact Check...

The Federalist - Right BiasRIGHT BIAS

These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Right Bias sources.

Reply
 
 
Mar 30, 2018 15:59:28   #
lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas
 
slatten49 wrote:
In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/d3e36df9-ddbc-3fce-855d-faee2c004659/ss_why-it-shouldn’t-matter-if-we-repeal-the-second-amendment

The Federalist, By Benjamin R. Dierker, March 30, 2018

There is no legal right to own a firearm in the United States. The Constitution does not give citizens the right to own weapons, and no legal or historical arguments support the idea that it does. Instead, a much deeper and more important philosophy provides for gun ownership: natural rights. These rights are not given, but protected. Not to expand citizens’ rights, but to limit government’s power.

Gun ownership is so integral to the United States’ DNA because armed Americans overthrew the world’s most powerful military empire using guns. The freest, most prosperous nation in human history, and a good deal of prosperity around the globe, owes its origin to guns. But the issue is far deeper than guns; it is about rights.

In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless. The right existed already; the Constitution merely secures it. Unfortunately, our society has loosened its grasp on natural rights philosophy and devolved into dependency on government-sanctioned rules. Today, however, even unambiguous text is under scrutiny by Democrats as prominent as former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

The Constitution mentions both natural and legal rights, and the distinction is critical. Within the Bill of Rights, some activities, like speech, are innate human rights protected against government interference. Other rights, like a speedy trial, are legal rights, which are products of the structure the Constitution created.

This distinction is crucial, because natural rights are articulated as endowed by God, while legal rights are endowed by government. The Founding Fathers understood natural rights to exist independent of—or in spite of—government. They simply exist for free people walking the earth. Legal rights are granted by men, and can be altered or destroyed by changes to law or the structure of government. The natural and legal rights in the Constitution are so fundamental that the Bill of Rights was added as an explicit bar to encroachment from the federal government.

The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right. It can be derived and is protected in multiple ways. Inherently, humans have natural grounds for self-preservation and defense. This right is beyond the reach of any person or government. Individuals can protect themselves using any necessary tools or actions.

Individuals also have a natural right to own property. Far be it for the federal government to regulate the personal items a free citizen enjoys in her home. To regulate personal property in private use on the grounds of its danger would be to inspect every knife, lighter, hammer, gardening tool, and gas-powered stove.

Owning a gun is well within the canon of natural rights that any free people should enjoy. Natural rights are so critical because they are innate in us. If the government dissolved or a new one took its place, it should have no effect on the basic entitlements of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. The righteous task of the founding, therefore, was to craft a government impotent to crush these rights.

Many state constitutions included a list of natural rights, not to provide for these rights, but to promise the people that the government would not tread on them. The federal Bill of Rights comes as a series of amendments, not because they were afterthoughts, but because the U.S. Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government such that it would be powerless to act where it was not authorized.

Debate persisted for years over whether the people’s natural rights should be enumerated at all. Some argued natural rights were so obvious that an enumeration was unnecessary, not to mention the government’s limited reach and small scope at the time. In a 1787 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no government should refuse, or rest on inference.”

Jefferson and others believed that leaving natural rights to “inference” put far too much trust in government and future generations in power. Still others believed that enumerating certain rights would create a presumption against other rights. If the government only mentioned a few natural rights, the government could encroach on every other right a free citizen ought to enjoy, citing no bar against its encroachment.
That’s Why We Have the Ninth Amendment

The solution was the Ninth Amendment, which preserves “other rights retained by the people.” Combined with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the federal government is clearly prohibited from trampling on free citizens’ natural or legal rights. According to the Ninth Amendment, a free citizen retains the right to self-protection and property, among a vast reservoir of other rights, and the government cannot interfere.

At its most basic level, a gun is a tool and item of personal property, which any person has a natural right to acquire independent of, and especially in spite of, government. A repeal of the Second Amendment should not truly harm gun ownership. Nevertheless, there is a reason it was explicitly included in the Bill of Rights, and listed so prominently. The reason is that human nature cannot be trusted, and both time and power destroy the protections created for free people.

Today, it is all too clear that if the Second Amendment were not so explicit, the tyranny of the majority would have suppressed the right long ago. The government did not create the right to own a gun, it secured that right, and thank God the Founding Fathers had the foresight to unambiguously prohibit the government from infringing on that right.

The calls to repeal the Second Amendment are voiced by radicals. Despite their high level of education, these radicals have not internalized the philosophy of natural rights or the significance of the Ninth Amendment. Yet the people retain their God-given rights, no matter how tyrannical protestors become.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Benjamin Dierker is a law student at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He holds a master's degree in public administration and a bachelor's degree in economics, both from Texas A&M University. He is a Christian and a Texan and loves to talk about both.
In a properly functioning America like the Founder... (show quote)


I'm wondering how much the NRA paid Stephens for his opinion.

Reply
Mar 30, 2018 16:52:02   #
maryjane
 
A great explanation of natural rights, including gun ownership. Thank you. But, our government and a large portion of the citizenry today, simply cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of America or Americans. So, I agree with Manning, best keep the amendment and never give them an inch.

Reply
Mar 30, 2018 17:18:36   #
Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI
 
lpnmajor wrote:
I'm wondering how much the NRA paid Stephens for his opinion.


If under God we have free rights. Then under God we have obligations.

If we have individual rights would it not be fitting to say as individuals we can exorcise them as a group?

As the population has grown things have become much more complicated.
Are we to allow every one to exorcise any & all of what they feel are free rights.

Is it not man kinds obligation to create their self in Gods image.
There may come a time when people will always do the right thing by human nature.
Until that time we need to seek ways to redress the sins of free rights.

That concludes my sermon for today.

MAY GOD BE WITH YOU.

We face a force that is tearing a part the very fabric of most peoples life & well being.
I am speaking the uncontrolled greed for wealth & power by a few.
That is Capitalism working at it's best.
Individuals exorcising their individual rights.

This attitude will not stop until there is noting left for them to have.
But what each other has.

I say it is the obligation of every one to keep at it until we have the very best system for the most of us we can get.
The task can never come to fruition if we stay so politically divided.
Our leader ship is not divided. They are as one in keeping the masses powerless.
There are many among us who provide aid to this willingly.

Reply
Mar 30, 2018 18:24:38   #
Ricktloml
 
slatten49 wrote:
I would not bother arguing with your point, Manning345. What is surprising is that this article came from The Federalist.

From: Media Bias/ Fact Check...

The Federalist - Right BiasRIGHT BIAS

These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Right Bias sources.
I would not bother arguing with your point, Mannin... (show quote)


Why do you find it surprising that this article came from the Federalist. They did indeed use strong loaded words on the headline, (just like left-wing authors frequently do.) Maybe they realized that anti-Second Amendment proponents wouldn't bother to read it unless they thought it somehow was about damaging the Second Amendment. Gun control advocates are rarely interested in ANY facts that don't fit their narrative. And this article lays out some obvious reasons the founders thought enumerating, rather than just assuming natural rights would be protected was important. And all you have to do is look around to see how right they were.

Reply
 
 
Mar 30, 2018 18:33:48   #
slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas
 
Ricktloml wrote:
Why do you find it surprising that this article came from the Federalist. They did indeed use strong loaded words on the headline, (just like left-wing authors frequently do.) Maybe they realized that anti-Second Amendment proponents wouldn't bother to read it unless they thought it somehow was about damaging the Second Amendment. Gun control advocates are rarely interested in ANY facts that don't fit their narrative. And this article lays out some obvious reasons the founders thought enumerating, rather than just assuming natural rights would be protected was important. And all you have to do is look around to see how right they were.
Why do you find it surprising that this article ca... (show quote)

Although still surprising to me, your comments make perfectly good sense. Personally, I found the 2008 D.C. Vs. Heller Decision a good one...

D.C. Vs. Heller, June of 2008

SUMMARY: 'In Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court answered a long-standing constitutional question about whether the right to “keep and bear arms” is an individual right unconnected to service in the militia or a collective right that applies only to state-regulated militias.

By a five to four margin, the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for lawful use, such as self-defense, in the home (emphasis ours). Accordingly, it struck down as unconstitutional provisions of a D.C. law that (1) effectively banned possession of handguns by non law enforcement officials and (2) required lawfully owned firearms to be kept unloaded, disassembled, or locked when not located at a business place or being used for lawful recreational activities.

According to the Court, the ban on handgun possession in the home amounted to a prohibition on an entire class of 'arms' that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Similarly, the requirement that any firearm in a home be disassembled or locked made “it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.” These laws were unconstitutional “under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights.” But the Court did not cite a specific standard in making its determination, and it rejected the interest-balancing standard; proposed by Justice Breyer, and a “rational basis” standard.

The Second Amendment right is not absolute and a wide range of gun control laws remain “presumptively lawful,” according to the Court. These include laws that (1) prohibit carrying concealed weapons, (2) prohibit gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, (3) prohibit carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, (4) impose “conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” (5) prohibit “dangerous and unusual weapons,” and (6) regulate firearm storage to prevent accidents. Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by Justices Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, and Thomas.'

Reply
Mar 31, 2018 06:01:05   #
silvereagle
 
You keep saying a properly functioning country.It hasn't been in decades Do you remember Waco,texas.Janet Reno sent in the murder squads and killed how many including women and many children.The all caring gubment didn't have to do that.Should have left them the hell alone.

Reply
Mar 31, 2018 06:03:38   #
silvereagle
 
Oh another one,Ruby Ridge when an AtF agent blew an unarmed women's head off while she was holding her baby.Our all caring gubment at work again.People don't ever give up your guns,never!

Reply
Mar 31, 2018 09:28:08   #
slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas
 
silvereagle wrote:
You keep saying a properly functioning country.It hasn't been in decades Do you remember Waco,texas.Janet Reno sent in the murder squads and killed how many including women and many children.The all caring gubment didn't have to do that.Should have left them the hell alone.

I'm not sure who you're blaming in writing "you keep saying 'a properly functioning' country." The phrase "a properly functioning America" is used only once. Since the lead line is taken from the text of Mr. Dierker's article, your accusation of 'keep saying' is hyperbolic.

As far as Waco, Texas is concerned, David Koresh was ultimately to blame for that entire fiasco. I equate his guilt to that of Jim Jones in the 1978 Jonestown tragedy in Guyana. Of course, the blind followers of each certainly also warranted some of the blame. Otherwise, where were the parents' personal responsibilities for keeping their children in untenable situations? It appeared that the motivation behind the siege became an attempt by Koresh at martyrdom. As such, it brought to mind the age-old saying, "Be careful what you ask for." Sadly, he took with him many of his followers...as they acquiesced to the fate of Koresh's decisions.

Reply
 
 
Mar 31, 2018 09:58:38   #
Snoopy
 
slatten49 wrote:
In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/d3e36df9-ddbc-3fce-855d-faee2c004659/ss_why-it-shouldn’t-matter-if-we-repeal-the-second-amendment

The Federalist, By Benjamin R. Dierker, March 30, 2018

There is no legal right to own a firearm in the United States. The Constitution does not give citizens the right to own weapons, and no legal or historical arguments support the idea that it does. Instead, a much deeper and more important philosophy provides for gun ownership: natural rights. These rights are not given, but protected. Not to expand citizens’ rights, but to limit government’s power.

Gun ownership is so integral to the United States’ DNA because armed Americans overthrew the world’s most powerful military empire using guns. The freest, most prosperous nation in human history, and a good deal of prosperity around the globe, owes its origin to guns. But the issue is far deeper than guns; it is about rights.

In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless. The right existed already; the Constitution merely secures it. Unfortunately, our society has loosened its grasp on natural rights philosophy and devolved into dependency on government-sanctioned rules. Today, however, even unambiguous text is under scrutiny by Democrats as prominent as former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

The Constitution mentions both natural and legal rights, and the distinction is critical. Within the Bill of Rights, some activities, like speech, are innate human rights protected against government interference. Other rights, like a speedy trial, are legal rights, which are products of the structure the Constitution created.

This distinction is crucial, because natural rights are articulated as endowed by God, while legal rights are endowed by government. The Founding Fathers understood natural rights to exist independent of—or in spite of—government. They simply exist for free people walking the earth. Legal rights are granted by men, and can be altered or destroyed by changes to law or the structure of government. The natural and legal rights in the Constitution are so fundamental that the Bill of Rights was added as an explicit bar to encroachment from the federal government.

The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right. It can be derived and is protected in multiple ways. Inherently, humans have natural grounds for self-preservation and defense. This right is beyond the reach of any person or government. Individuals can protect themselves using any necessary tools or actions.

Individuals also have a natural right to own property. Far be it for the federal government to regulate the personal items a free citizen enjoys in her home. To regulate personal property in private use on the grounds of its danger would be to inspect every knife, lighter, hammer, gardening tool, and gas-powered stove.

Owning a gun is well within the canon of natural rights that any free people should enjoy. Natural rights are so critical because they are innate in us. If the government dissolved or a new one took its place, it should have no effect on the basic entitlements of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. The righteous task of the founding, therefore, was to craft a government impotent to crush these rights.

Many state constitutions included a list of natural rights, not to provide for these rights, but to promise the people that the government would not tread on them. The federal Bill of Rights comes as a series of amendments, not because they were afterthoughts, but because the U.S. Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government such that it would be powerless to act where it was not authorized.

Debate persisted for years over whether the people’s natural rights should be enumerated at all. Some argued natural rights were so obvious that an enumeration was unnecessary, not to mention the government’s limited reach and small scope at the time. In a 1787 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no government should refuse, or rest on inference.”

Jefferson and others believed that leaving natural rights to “inference” put far too much trust in government and future generations in power. Still others believed that enumerating certain rights would create a presumption against other rights. If the government only mentioned a few natural rights, the government could encroach on every other right a free citizen ought to enjoy, citing no bar against its encroachment.
That’s Why We Have the Ninth Amendment

The solution was the Ninth Amendment, which preserves “other rights retained by the people.” Combined with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the federal government is clearly prohibited from trampling on free citizens’ natural or legal rights. According to the Ninth Amendment, a free citizen retains the right to self-protection and property, among a vast reservoir of other rights, and the government cannot interfere.

At its most basic level, a gun is a tool and item of personal property, which any person has a natural right to acquire independent of, and especially in spite of, government. A repeal of the Second Amendment should not truly harm gun ownership. Nevertheless, there is a reason it was explicitly included in the Bill of Rights, and listed so prominently. The reason is that human nature cannot be trusted, and both time and power destroy the protections created for free people.

Today, it is all too clear that if the Second Amendment were not so explicit, the tyranny of the majority would have suppressed the right long ago. The government did not create the right to own a gun, it secured that right, and thank God the Founding Fathers had the foresight to unambiguously prohibit the government from infringing on that right.

The calls to repeal the Second Amendment are voiced by radicals. Despite their high level of education, these radicals have not internalized the philosophy of natural rights or the significance of the Ninth Amendment. Yet the people retain their God-given rights, no matter how tyrannical protestors become.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Benjamin Dierker is a law student at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He holds a master's degree in public administration and a bachelor's degree in economics, both from Texas A&M University. He is a Christian and a Texan and loves to talk about both.
In a properly functioning America like the Founder... (show quote)


Slatten:

A great article showing the REAL reason for the Second Amendment by Benjsmin Dierker.

Too many Americans, on both sides of the aisle, accept these facts.

Snoopy

Reply
Mar 31, 2018 10:03:54   #
bahmer
 
Manning345 wrote:
The intent of the erase the 2nd Amendment movement is to remove guns from the populace, and does not give credit to the other ways the right to own guns is protected. Hence, law enforcement would be mobilized to grab all guns, merely based on the 2nd Amendment nullification. We best keep the 2nd Amendment, and honor our membership in the militia! Let's start a join the militia movement!


Amen and Amen

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Mar 31, 2018 13:30:58   #
Ricktloml
 
silvereagle wrote:
You keep saying a properly functioning country.It hasn't been in decades Do you remember Waco,texas.Janet Reno sent in the murder squads and killed how many including women and many children.The all caring gubment didn't have to do that.Should have left them the hell alone.


What was absolutely sickening is the Clinton administration used the ever popular Democrat stand-by of "we did it for the children" to go in and kill children

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