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A post by Maynard

The other day I was innocently sitting in my local eatery, when a nearby Leftist with a foghorn voice explained to her hapless companion how the next administration would confiscate private firearms. I’ve heard the argument before, and it’s worth going over. There’s enough logic to the plan that we can’t just dismiss it on the assumption that “it can’t happen here”.

First, let’s review 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.

Does this protect you? Not necessarily.

Consider the myriad of rules regulating your acquisition and possession of arms. There are background checks, waiting periods, access restrictions, size limits, etc. So it’s obvious that your right to “keep and bear arms” is already “infringed”. (And by the way, most of us agree with at least some of these infringements as being necessary to keep deadly force out of the hands of maniacs.) Anyway, it’s clear that the Second Amendment is not as strongly protected as the First Amendment. Can you imagine if you had to register your mimeograph machine the way you register your guns? The courts would never allow it.

So right out of the gate, you know the Second Amendment isn’t as secure as we might hope. That’s the raw fact, like it or not.

So the question is, what does the Second Amendment do? In particular, what does it do for you?

According to my foghorn friend, nothing. Here’s her line of reasoning:

First of all (she argues), the Second Amendment only applies to the weapons available in 1776, such as flintlock rifles. Anything newer than that is up for grabs.

So would she allow me to buy a blunderbuss? Not exactly. Here the argument gets legalistic. The lawyers tell us there are two kinds of rights, individual and collective. The individual right is the one you get. The collective right is a group right. It’s not clear exactly what a collective right is, but it doesn’t really say anything about the individual. So just because the “People” can keep and bear arms doesn’t mean you can keep and bear arms. You are not people; you’re just a person.

This may sound Orwellian or even insane, but it’s very substantial to the lawyers. Never forget that the country is run by lawyers.

Then there’s that bit about the “well regulated militia”. Why is that preamble there? It’s a fair question. The foghorn explained that the Second Amendment was merely to enable the individual states to form state militias. Of course, these days we have the National Guard, so the idea of state militias is becoming an anachronism.

In other words, according to the foghorn, the Second Amendment never meant much, and now it means nothing. All she needs to do is get the government to acknowledge this.

As surprising as it may seem, the Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on the essence of these questions. Thus it remains technically a matter of opinion whether the Second Amendment gives you any protection at all. Therefore, says the foghorn, all we need is a “decent” administration to appoint a “decent” Supreme Court, and then submit a critical test case. And, voilà , no more Second Amendment. Won’t that be a glorious day, Comrade?

You may have heard political candidates questioned on whether they believe the Second Amendment to be a collective right or an individual right. Now you know why that question matters. But really, it all rests upon what five judges on the Supreme Court think. That’s a frightening notion. Bill Clinton may go hunting and get photographed with his rifle on his shoulder like a good old bubba, but then he puts ACLU general counsel Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Court.

I’m not a lawyer, but I would argue, in a broad sort of way, that the fundamental rationale of the Bill of Rights is to limit the powers of the government. As the NRA correctly points out, if we can be disarmed, then the rest of the Amendments don’t mean a thing. When push comes to shove, the pen is not mightier than the sword.

It’s also worth noting the irony of how Leftists will interpret the Constitution very loosely when they want to invent a new “right”, but they turn into super-strict constructionists when trying to control people they dislike. For example, where exactly do you find your Constitutional right to unrestricted access to abortions? Even those who favor a woman’s right to choose (as I do) must acknowledge that the Constitutional argument is marginal. It’s said to derive from the right to privacy, which also isn’t enumerated, but is a generous interpretation of protection from unreasonable search and seizure (the Fourth Amendment). I heard Gloria Allred expalin that abortion rights were a product of the “Constitutional penumbra”. I won’t necessarily argue with that, but can’t we have a little consistency here? Someone who finds meaning in the Constitution’s penumbra ought to also respect the actual words.

When all is said and done, I think the greatest reason for optimism is that, when Ms. Foghorn and her lawyers are done prattling, Americans simply won’t go along with her authoritarianism. We’re not going to hand her our guns, and her friends in the legislatures know it. But we must remain ever-vigilant.