Re: A Liberal's View of the Right to Bear Arms

["Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

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> The British may have been responsible for the 2nd Amendment in the first
> place, but you can hardly blame them for it's perpetuation beyond it's
> historical sell-by date. It is a 'right' that sat very comfortably with

That's assuming that natural rights have a historical sell-by date.  Let's 
say that, fifty years from now, "everybody knows" that you don't have the 
right to worship freely--that you must worship in an Anglican church, 
period.  Anyone who says otherwise is living in the past, clinging to an 
outmoded notion of a "right" that's past its historical sell-by date.

It's absurd, isn't it?  The natural right, common to all men, of 
worshipping or not worshipping the Divine in their own way, is not 
something which can be legislated by government.

Keep in mind that the Bill of Rights is a statement of political 
philosophy: it is an enumeration of basic natural rights of man upon which 
the government cannot lawfully infringe.  Most Europeans think that the 
Bill of Rights grants Americans rights, and that opinion is a load of 
balderdash.

The Bill of Rights enumerates certain rights as existing *independently 
of* any law or any government.  The Bill of Rights is a promise that the 
government will not tread on these natural rights--it is *not* a grant of 
rights from the government.

As you can imagine, that makes the Bill of Rights spectacularly hard to 
revoke--because even if it were to be revoked, the courts would still 
consider it to be a natural human right.

And hey--if you don't like it, you don't have to live here.  :)

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