Some will say that what I’m referring to would be better described as “Second Amendment Rights.” Those folks would be right if they mean that it’s more popular to refer to firearm ownership as a second amendment right. But the right to keep and bear arms is not something that we do merely because we were “told we could” by the government.
I’m proud of the fact that long ago, some straight-thinking and rational individuals wrote the second amendment into the concrete of a newly-formed foundation. But there’s something more to this. You and I don’t protect ourselves because the government allows us to. This type of self-preservation has much more to do with the right to life. No, I don’t mean abortion as opposed to anti-abortion. I mean your right to live and to keep living.
Who gives you that right? Can a government give or take away the right to keep yourself safe, or to keep your family from harm? I would venture to say that any rational human would think that it is beyond the scope of any good government to take away that right. The fact that it is not something that the government can take away indicates that the government has no power to give it, either.
An example, you ask? Let’s say you have a really nice car. I don’t have any right to it. I can’t take it away, because you own it free and clear. It’s your own property. What if I came to you and said that I was going to give you your car, out of the kindness of my magnanimous heart? You’d say I was an idiot. I can’t give to you what you already own. Because you own it, I can’t take it away, and I can’t give it to you either.
What the 2nd Amendment does, however, is to put out in the open that our government will not try to take away the basic right to bear arms (to preserve and protect ourselves and our families – or our country). To take my analogy further, this would be like me sending you a letter saying, “I’ll never try to take your car because I realize that it’s yours, and not mine.”
The second amendment is just an acknowledgment of a fundamental and basic principle that humans can and must protect themselves from each other.
My point is this: When people say “our constitution gives us the right to bear arms,” they are either speaking loosely, or incorrectly. The constitution does not give us that right. It affirms the pre-existing, fundamental human right to self-preservation.
In the same way, the Declaration of Independence says, ” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Folks, the government can’t give you the right to keep and bear arms because it’s yours already. It’s all tied up in the rights involved with “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
I love the second amendment. No question here. But it’s a right that is mine already, not because of the second amendment. The words of the second amendment are great to hear, and something to go back to when despots try to take control of things they don’t have a right to (“Hey! You said you’d leave my car alone, remember?”). But it’s not the way that I lay claim to my car. The reason that you can’t take my car is not that you said you wouldn’t, but because it’s mine.
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