Just to Be Clear

I plan to make this short today. There’s something I want to spell out, as clearly as I can manage. I’ll say it slowly and carefully, so it doesn’t go over the heads of—someone like California Governor Newsom, who proposed a 28^th Amendment to the US Constitution yesterday, to nullify the 2^nd Amendment.

Governor Gavin Newsom, image found here

His announcement says they’re not really touching actual gun rights; they’re just—well, here’s what it says: 

While leaving the 2nd Amendment unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition, the Governor’s proposal guarantees common sense constitutional protections and gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, independent voters, and gun owners overwhelmingly support – including universal background checks, raising the firearm purchase age to 21, instituting a firearm purchase waiting period, and barring the civilian purchase of assault weapons.

The federal government is limited; they cannot do any federal gun laws. To refresh your memory on the 2^nd Amendment, it says, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Shall is a legal term. It is absolute. Infringing on the right to keep and bear arms is something the federal government cannot do.

There’s this other little clue, near the end of Newsom’s paragraph, telling us they’re not serious about protecting our rights: “barring the civilian purchase of assault weapons.” How are they defining that? Because we know from long experience that “assault weapon” is not an actual category; it is a catchall for “any gun we think is scary looking enough that we can convince people to think it’s an automatic military-grade weapon,” even when it’s just a simple rifle, such as an AR-15, which is a brand name, meaning Armalite Rifle. It is not an automatic rifle, which has been illegal for decades; it is a fairly basic semi-automatic rifle. It was not developed for the military, although some versions have been adopted by the military, because of its light weight and ease of use.

an AR-15 rifle
image from here

If a threatening bad guy has a gun, the threat can best be stopped by a good guy with a gun—and most efficiently by the person being threatened, because it’s immediate, instead of after damage is done. Government doesn’t get to set the terms, or decide on the tools, or determine the safe and lawful use of those tools.

There is plenty more we could say about weapons, and the anti-gun crowd’s harangues against all guns held by law-abiding citizens. But we’re keeping this simple, for their sakes, and in slightly larger print.

The right to self-defense isn’t granted by government; the right belonged to the people before any US government was formed. The right to defend oneself is inherent in all human beings.

We have the right to self-defense, as human beings, because we got that right from God. Even if you don’t believe in God, you don’t stop having the right to self-defense. It’s inalienable.

We don’t get the right to self-defense from the Constitution; the Constitution declares the right, to make sure no tyrannical government oversteps its lawful limits and attempts to infringe on that right. That’s true of all the rights in the Bill of Rights—the first 10 Amendments. And it’s true of other rights not stated (as summarized in the 9^th and 10th Amendments). These other rights include, for example, the right to the care and upbringing of our children, or the right to choose how we attempt to make a living, or the right to make medical decisions for our own bodies. Government doesn’t get to dictate our choices, unless our choices directly prevent another person from experiencing their God-given rights.

There. Just three paragraphs. If read slowly enough, that should be clear now.

We need a reminder, then, as John Adams put it:

“Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

There’s a paragraph on the Spherical Model website, where I say why we need a belief in God:

Why Every Civilized Society Must Be a Religious Society

If rights are God-given to every human being, then there must be a God from whom they come. Without God granting the rights, then “rights” would be totally dependent on whoever or whatever entity currently wields power over human beings. So, freedom from tyranny is only possible if we acknowledge God as the right-giver, and then we set up governmental systems for the specific purpose of protecting those rights—limiting governmental power to protecting rights rather than taking or granting them.

I was reminded of this in a recent interview with Robert P. George, in which he says, 

Robert P. George
image from here

But we are a country founded on the principle of ethical monotheism, the idea that there is a more-than-merely-human source of meaning and value—a Creator, a God who cares about us, who endows us with rights, and to whom we are ultimately answerable for how we conduct ourselves. So it’s not a merely human source of rights and obligations. It’s a divine source. And since our basic rights did not come from presidents or kings or parliaments or congresses, or any merely human power, those rights can’t be taken away legitimately by any merely human power.

So faith in God plays a very important role in the American constitutional order, a very important role, historically, in our self-understanding as Americans. And when faith in God, trust in God, and fidelity to God begin to wane, there are real social and political consequences. Our sense of our responsibilities begins to weaken, including our responsibility to honor and protect and never violate the rights of others.

Our “rights can’t be taken away legitimately by any merely human power.” That does not prevent tyrants and would-be dictators from attempting to take them away. Such despots lie, cheat, and steal—and sometimes harass and prosecute—to override any protections we have from what they see as that pesky piece of parchment people keep bringing out, that old Constitution we revere for some reason. They’ve been attempting this override with impunity. And they only get stopped when enough of us, referred to as We the People, take a stand and say, “No! You can’t do that.”

So, to be crystal clear—No, you can’t create a 28^th Amendment that allows you to take away a God-given right, one that is spelled out in bright letters in the Constitution by prescient writers who foresaw people like you who would try to do this very thing. No. You can’t tyrannize us without our consent. And, like our forefathers, we do not consent to tyranny.