This was going to be one post, but as I wrote more and more I decided to post in two parts. This first part will have to do with the legal and philosophical issue of guns rights. The next part will have to do with the more practical aspects of firearms and violence.
It seems to me the first issue one must examine in dealing with firearms is rights. The standard line of reasoning for gun advocates is to appeal to the U.S. Constitution, and specifically the second amendment. However, to do so shows an incredible lack of understanding on what the constitution is and the philosophy of the founding fathers.
Our country was founded on the philosophy of Liberalism. We are not a country spawned from nationality, but rather one born from a philosophy. That philosophy was that all men are created equally and with the same natural rights. Rights that can neither be given, nor taken by a governing State. They are indeed unalienable; they cannot be taken away, they can only be infringed upon. They are dependant on no other person to obtain, as the only requisite for having them is human DNA.
Understand that any time something is needed to obtain a so-called “right”, such as a permit, license, or the express written consent of Major League Baseball it is no longer a right at all, it is a privilege.
After the country gained independence from Britain the Founders were so frightful of government they formed an extremely limited, loosely bound confederation of States rather than an overarching strong Federal government. The problem came when the States began to print too much money to pay off debts to France after the Revolution and in order to curb inflation some proposed instating a new Federal government that would have the power to coin money over the States. Thus, the U.S. Constitution was written and sent out to all the States for approval.
Immediately objections were raised, the Anti-Federalist claiming that the new government would have too much power. To answer these objections the Federalist Papers were written as a series of essays that are basically a comprehensive commentary on the entire constitution. One of the biggest objections to the constitution was that, while it did limit the powers of the government, it did not offer any written protection for the rights of the People.
Ultimately, the answer to this criticism was the Bill of Rights.
Alexander Hamilton, whom I am not much of a fan of, was astonishingly correct in his assessment of the faulty nature of such a listing of rights in the Federalist No. 84.:
“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.”
So to put that bolded piece in modern terms it might say, “Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of individuals to own whatever firearm they choose shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions on owning inanimate objects may be imposed.” And yet we’re currently living in an age where the constitution has been completely circumvented and those very restrictions HAVE been imposed.
Hamilton was afraid that the government could use the limited amount of rights listed in the Bill of Rights to make the claim that rights are, in fact, limited. That they were dependent on the government itself to be granted. To make sure this would never happen, the framers included the ninth and tenth amendments in the Bill of Rights to give any rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution to the People or the States, NOT the Federal government. Ironically, these amendments have been discredited by modern day statist for being too ambiguous and giving too many rights to the people, the very thing they were designed to do.
Without question, the myth that has been most debilitating to liberty in American history, is the myth that our Bill of Rights gives us our rights. This myth is why we have people dissecting the language of the second amendment trying to figure out it's true intent, whether it is meant to provide rights to individuals or to a collective mass. However, this is totally irrelevant, because the power to restrict gun ownership is not given to the Federal government in the Constitution.
Please limit comments on this post to the issue of gun rights. The next post will delve into the practical issues of guns and society; there we can talk all we want about violence and such.
Part two now posted here.
