I see a lot of comments left under my latest article and on social media prompted by the Giffords graphic asserting if you need a license to drive a car you should need one to own a gun.
Many of them miss the point and claim the difference is the BoR mentions nothing about driving.
It says nothing about breathing, either. And yeah, we get you don't "need" a license to OWN a car, only to use public roads. That's not the point, either.
The misconception that if a right is not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights it doesn't exist is misinformation those who would rule us want us to believe. In a real sense, this abets the state in its control over people's lives and freedom.
The Constitution was never intended to enumerate all rights, but to define the limits under which the national government can legitimately exercise power. This was one of the concerns the Federalists had against adding a "Bill of Rights" to the Constitution--that people would construe it to mean only the rights mentioned must be recognized. That would have been alien to the Framers, who, in order to preclude people from wrongly thinking the government could assume powers not specifically delegated to one of its branches, added:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Government has no authority "to deny or disparage" other rights.
I've actually taken heat for this in the past. My "offense" was telling GUNS Magazine readers that "There is no section in the Constitution where the power to grant rights is delegated to any branch of government" and that "the Second Amendment didn’t create a right to keep and bear arms — it acknowledged a right that was already assumed and accepted."
Those assertions prompted angry responses from some readers who called me an "idiot" and a Trojan horse" who "sounds like an anti-gunner."
I suppose some will not take kindly to this post, but I will persist despite my many flaws.
6 comments:
David, I think the Framers made their view clear.
"Rights" are shorthand for 'Natural Rights' - this means Rights come from God.
"Privileges" come from Man.
Thus, only God has the prerogative to revoke a Right.
Man can revoke a Privilege, not a Right.
See?
Point them to US v Cruikshank with a kindly recommendation to "pound salt" and move on.
On several occasions Mark Twain gave good reasons why one should never argue with a fool. Just state the facts of the matter and walk away.
Or adopt Mike's approach: "If you try to take our guns we will kill you."
"...asserting if you need a license to drive a car you should need one to own a gun."
It's also worth noting that one does not need a license to own a car; only to operate it on public streets.
Even when I'm carrying on public ways, I'm not operating that firearm unless defensively.
You are absolutely correct on the rights issue. Anyone who thinks that the Second Amendment granted anything is ignorant at best. Another issue is the notion that there is some sort of limiting language in the Second Amendment, yet they can find any such limiting language when questioned on that.
The idea that Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos owning their own personal nuclear weapon is a thing I don’t like, forbidding them that ownership is unconstitutional.
To the "nuke" argument, I simply comment that if the arguer believes that any person who desires a nuke, and has money enough to procure a nuke, doesn't already own a nuke, he's a naive idiot.
You are absolutely right. The rights enumerated were reminders that said rights exist prior to the Constitution and are enumerated to prevent the government from stepping on certain rights they felt were important enough to enshrine in the BOR. They knew a government would want to take them make them a privilege at some point because of the trouble it would give to overreaching government.
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