There are two competing theories being debated today about American individuals’ “right” to gun ownership.
The
original theory is that Americans enjoy a fundamental right to
self-defense, in order to preserve one’s person and property against any
neighbors or government agents who might act against one’s individual
liberty. This is a natural right that predates our
government’s formation, and was therefore enshrined in the Constitution
by some very forward-thinking liberals of their time. In the words of the Second Amendment:
A
well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be
infringed.
It
should not be difficult for anyone with a passing grasp of the English
language to understand that it is the “right of the People” that is
protected in that sentence, and it is clearly not the
expression of a peculiar power owned by the newly-founded centralized
government created by our Constitution. Such straightforward, simple
language in our Bill of Rights was actually suggested
by Samuel Adams and John Hancock to accommodate the antifederalists at
the Massachusetts Convention of 1788 and to avoid confusion about the
new government’s limited powers, meant to guarantee
that “the Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people
of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own
arms.”
Adams
thought far too much of future generations, clearly, because a second,
competing theory has emerged within the last 100 years which suggests
that gun ownership is not a right, but a privilege granted by
the government, and the kinds of firearms allowed to peaceable citizens
depends on what neighbors and government agents would deem allowable at
any particular point in time.
The
latter is entirely incoherent when contextualized with the words the
Second Amendment, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s the position
that is broadly recognized as truth for most Americans. Today, it’s
just natural to assume that the federal government has the right to
curtail gun ownership of this gun or that one among “peaceable citizens”
if the federal government feels that some guns are too dangerous for
law-abiding citizens to own.
This
is the progressives’ magic trick, and some Americans fall for it due to
a simple deficiency in human nature. For example, Chris Cuomo of CNN
recently tweeted
that “[t]here was no individual right” in the Second Amendment even
“contemplated” until Antonin Scalia inferred the “individual right” in
the Heller v. District of Columbia decision.
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