Our Natural Rights Are Dying An Unnatural Death
By James T. Moore (12/08/07)
If there is any question about what the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, or means, permit me to remove any doubt. Essentially, the 2nd Amendment protects our right to own guns. It's debated whether this is a right that protects the State, or a right that protects individuals. Let's end that debate right now.
The 2nd Amendment states: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
Only two words need any clarification: Militia and infringed. Webster tells us that a militia is “the armed citizenry as distinct from the regular army.” The same book also says that infringement means: “A violation, as of a law or agreement; an encroachment, as of on a right or privilege.”
I submit then, that the 2nd Amendment was created to protect armed people against any violation of their rights or privileges.
Ironically, America’s legal tradition of gun ownership was rooted in England in 1689 in the English Bill of Rights. America’s founders adopted it as the 2nd Amendment to our own Bill of Rights a century later.
What is now happening in Great Britain since they banned the sale of handgun ownership, and what this portends for America, is the theme of a gripping article by Timothy Wheeler, M.D., Director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership. This is what Dr. Wheeler is telling us:
“When Great Britain banned the sale and ownership of handguns in 1997, few people expected it to end all crime, but neither did they expect the surge of violent crime that followed the ban. Britain’s rates of assault, robbery and burglary now exceed those in the United States, with murder and rape creeping closer.”
Then Dr. Wheeler asks this question: If a gun ban did nothing to stop crime in England, or even slow it down, why have American news media all but ignored this amazing change, and even more disconcerting, why are American politicians ignoring the Constitution and pushing for more stringent, British-style gun-control schemes here at home?
In a Hamlin Law Review article, legal scholars Joseph Olson and David Kopel describe how gun ownership in England was hounded to extinction, one “sensible” law at a time. And then they warn us: the stages of its death mirror the stages advocated by today’s American anti-gun activists.
It was in 1920 that England’s Parliament passed the Fire Arms Act. This Act required a British citizen to have “good reason” for owning a gun. This, in fact, meant that gun ownership, from then on, was no longer viewed as a right, but as a privilege. In addition, it meant that the British gave up their right of self-defense.
Dr. Wheeler maintains that Britain now finds itself “at the bottom of the slope, bereft of the primal and decent notion that a human life is worth defending. British subjects are now forced to submit to enslavement by common thugs. So much for Britain’s legacy of liberty.”
This disturbing vignette of English life is facing America if we don’t put the brakes on our insidious slide into gun confiscation. If we allow Government to take away the means to protect ourselves, we will soon be defenseless against the criminals who are, and always have been, a sick and dangerous part of society.
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