Truth crushed to the earth is truth still . . .: The Constitution Grants No Rights

This week I wrote a Letter to the Editor of our local propaganda outlet (The Gainesville Sun) in response to a letter from someone who demonstrated no understanding of freedom or of human rights.

I share it below:

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The Gainesville Sun recently published a letter to the editor that was terribly flawed and ignorant, if not deliberately deceptive. The letter was an argument against gun rights.

First, the author presents “freedom” as a zero-sum game, stating: “Trouble is one freedom always cancels some other freedom.” That is a ludicrous statement and manifests a total misunderstanding of what constitutes freedom. My exercise of freedom does not diminish anyone else’s exercise of freedom, unless one completely distorts the meaning of “freedom”. But I’ll not dwell upon that obvious fallacy here.

The author of the letter goes on to say: “Our Constitution grants the right to own guns but not the right to not be shot.” I have to wonder, has the author read the Constitution? Has he read the Second Amendment? Does he perhaps have some problem with basic language comprehension?

The Second Amendment grants no right! It recognizes a preexisting right – a God-given right – or if you will, a natural right. The Second Amendment simply seeks to protect a right that mankind already possesses from encroachment by a tyrannical government.

“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.”

Show me anywhere in the Constitution, or in the Second Amendment, the claim to be granting the right to keep and bear arms. No, we already possess that right. Indeed, true rights are not and cannot be granted by government. They already exist apart from government.

Consider the recognition of this truth in 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 unalienable 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.”

Government does not grant rights; it is instituted with the purpose of securing those rights already granted by the Creator. What part of that is so difficult to understand?

Eliminating the Second Amendment or passing some law against the possession of firearms will not and cannot abrogate a right that already exists.

Truth is: “I don’t need no stinkin’ Second Amendment.” I already possess the right to keep and to bear arms.

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UPDATE: The Gainesville Sun actually published my letter -- well at least a greatly edited version of it. If you like, you can read it here:

http://www.gainesville.com/opinion/20171013/letters-to-editor-for-oct-13-2017

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Free Florida First advocates for a Free, Independent, Godly, Prosperous, and Traditionally Southern Florida.