| Proof of 2nd Amendment as Individual Right |
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| Written by George Szwagulak | |
| Thursday, 18 January 2007 | |
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense. ….. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms…”The American Revolutionary War officially began when British soldiers came to the peaceful hamlets of Lexington and Concord to disarm our founding fathers. Little did they know, that action would spark an arduous war that they (the most powerful army on Earth) could not win. On that day, our founding fathers chose to fight instead of live under tyranny. They were joined by multitudes of their fellow countrymen who laid down their lives in order to secure the precious freedoms we hold so dear. When the battle for personal liberty was finished, our new nation’s leaders did their very best to write a historically renowned Constitution. However, “We the People” refused to sign it. The fear was that the new Constitution would replace one British oppressor with a collective oppressive government of their own making. Our Constitutional framers asked the people what was needed to ratify the new document. The answer they received was a set of iron clad and unmovable guarantees written directly into the Constitution! Some framers felt that it would be dangerous to enumerate some of these provisions and exclude others. This is proven by Alexander Hamilton's writings in Essay 84 of The Federalist Papers. Our Founders believed our rights were inalienable, obvious, or "self-evident” and said so in the Declaration of Independence. They also believed that governments do not have rights. Instead, they have delegated powers that are granted to them by the people being governed. This position is supported by the framers philosophy of rights that can be found in the writings of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Madison, Hamilton, and others, which discussed "natural rights" in some detail. In speaking of this philosophy, Alexander Hamilton wrote: The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchment, or musty records. They are written with a sun beam in whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.A reaffirmation of this principle can be seen in reflecting upon the very words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The U.S. State Department officially recognizes this by saying: In these memorable words of the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson set forth a fundamental principle upon which democratic government is founded. Governments in a democracy do not grant the fundamental freedoms enumerated by Jefferson; governments are created to protect those freedoms that every individual possesses by virtue of his or her existence.Now that it has been sufficiently shown that the intention for the Bill of Rights was to ensure that government could not infringe upon these innate rights, we will take a closer look at the Second Amendment specifically. In recounting how the Second Amendment was drafted, David T. Hardy recreates this scene: His [Madison’s] first step was to obtain a pamphlet which conveniently listed all state proposals. The problem became one of editing; out of hundreds of proposals. Madison's decision to include a right to arms in his federal bill of rights is hardly surprising. Such a right had been demanded in virtually every call for a bill of rights; indeed, it had received twice the number of demands accorded freedom of speech. Language praising the militia had received much less support, essentially having been appended to the right to arms clause in Virginia and the two following conventions. But an adaptation of the Virginia/New York/North Carolina wording combining the two held unusual promise. One of Madison's major objectives was to "bring in" North Carolina. He hoped to convince it to ratify the Constitution by offering an acceptable bill of rights. North Carolina could hardly object to a nearly verbatim acceptance of its demand. . And so the awkward wording of the 2nd was born along with a new nation. All of the above is the philosophy of our Framers, and part of the body of work known as the Standard Model of the 2nd Amendment.Historians have long discussed these issues with Constitutional law professors. MIT Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm says, “The evidence has convinced our leading constitutional scholars, among them Lawrence Tribe, Akhil Amar, and Leonard Levy, that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.” Harvard's Laurence Tribe says, "The Fourteenth Amendment, which makes parts of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, reflected a broad agreement that bearing arms was a 'privilege' of each citizen." Fellow Harvard liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz agrees and scolds fellow liberals for twisting the words of the Second Amendment in a way that could come back to haunt them. "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming that it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture." He adds, "They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like." Additionally, we can look to UCLA’s Eugene Volokh’s testimony on the Second Amendment: The Text of the Amendment Refers to an Individual Right. The Second Amendment, like the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, refers to a "right of the people," not a right of the states or a right of the National Guard. The First Amendment guarantees the people's right to assemble; the Fourth Amendment protects the people's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; the Ninth Amendment refers to the people's unenumerated rights. These rights are clearly individual -- they protect "the right of the people" by protecting the right of each person. This strongly suggests that the similarly-worded Second Amendment likewise secures an individual right.Faced with the obvious truth of our Framers’ intent, I believe that the Supreme Court will have no choice but to ignore any Presidents, treaties, Stari Decides, or any other legal guiding principle contrary to these views. The Court simply has no legal authority to do otherwise. No act, no law, nor any court ruling may change our Constitution. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is an individual right and must be respected! That is the law of the land. For additional info, please see: A CRITICAL GUIDE TO THE SECOND AMENDMENT by Glenn Harlan Reynolds. |