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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Does the 2nd Amendment "give citizens the right to bear arms?" Obama White House says so Perusing the White House website, the Obama Adminstration has a page on The Constitution which contains a strikingly warped view of the 10 Amendments. It lists the Bill of Rights but oddly, doesn't list the actual text of the Amendments but rather a creative 'description' of each of them. It starts out good, saying that the Constitution "is the source of all government powers, and also provides important limitations on the government that protect the fundamental rights of United States citizens." However, by the time it gets to the 2nd Amendment the text at whitehouse.gov states "The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms." In reality, the Constitution doesn't "give us our rights" at all. Our rights are inherent, and the Constitution was intended to restrain government. Thankfully there are a number of well-known writers and pundits who promote a proper view and understanding of the Bill of Rights, to counter the government and establishment media propaganda. As Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation aptly explains, The Constitution Doesn't Give Rights to Anyone, including Americans: 2004 Libertarian presidential candidate and Constitutional scholar Michael Badnarik, in his book Good to be King, states "I define a right as something you can do without asking for permission. The opposite of a right, therefore, is something you cannot do without asking for permission." Badnarik provides a free download of his chapter 'Rights vs. Privileges', in which he states "The most important concept in this book is the difference between rights and privileges. For that reason, this chapter can be downloaded from my web site at no charge, and may be reproduced and distributed without written permission, as long as it is copied intact and without modification.1 A right is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as "a power, privilege, (sic) faculty, or demand, inherent in one person and incident upon another - the powers of free action." Please note that rights are "inherent" in a person. This means that it is physically impossible for rights to be extracted from a person by any means." Ron Paul, in his farewell speech to Congress, stated "Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed." The Appendix to Paul's book Liberty Defined lists THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF A FREE SOCIETY, beginning with number one: "Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government." Judge Andrew Napolitano, in his article No More Asking for permission to speak, explains "Our right to exercise the freedom of speech comes from our humanity, not from the government." In Guns and Freedom, Napolitano writes "As we have been created in the image and likeness of God the Father, we are perfectly free just as He is. Thus, the natural law teaches that our freedoms are pre-political and come from our humanity and not from the government, and as our humanity is ultimately divine in origin, the government, even by majority vote, cannot morally take natural rights away from us... The historical reality of the Second Amendment's protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, thus, with the same instruments they would use upon us." Napolitano also poins out that Obama Doesn't Believe in the 2nd Amendment and that the Second Amendment Was Written To Protect Right To Shoot Tyrants Not Skeet Shooting James Bovard, in his book Freedom In Chains explains "The notion of the citizen's inviolable right to liberty - the underlying principle of the Declaration of Independence - has practically vanished from the American political landscape. Attorney General Janet Reno, in a 1995 speech vindicating federal action at Waco, informed a group of federal law enforcement officers: "You are part of a government that has given its people more freedom... than any other government in the history of the world." Reno's portrayal of freedom as a gift from the government epitomizes the shift in American political thinking away from the individual and towards the State as the fount of all good and all rights. If freedom is a gift from the government to the people, then government can take freedom away at its pleasure." You can also check out this interesting DailyPaul thread, What is a Right? Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: Artisan (#0)
One might also quibble about whether the Second Amendment applies only to citizens.
#2. To: Shoonra (#1)
No one may not. The right to pick up a weapon to defend yourself and yours is inherent to all of us. Not some of us based on what a transient government says , but rather a right granted to all human beings by God on high by virtue of our intellect.
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