{"id":4660,"date":"2018-03-25T06:08:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T06:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/03\/25\/is-gun-ownership-a-constitutionally-protected-right\/"},"modified":"2018-03-25T06:08:29","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T06:08:29","slug":"is-gun-ownership-a-constitutionally-protected-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/03\/25\/is-gun-ownership-a-constitutionally-protected-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Gun Ownership a Constitutionally Protected Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is important to distinguish between rights and constitutionally protected rights. The right to life, for example, is a natural right. Its existence does not depend on anything of a conventional nature such as a constitution.  We have the right whether or not it is constitutionally protected. Our great constitution protects our rights; it does not confer them. You can say that our rights come from God, if you like, or you can say they come from Nature. But the main thing for practical purposes is to realize that our rights are logically antecedent to human decisions, compacts, legislation, and the like. <\/span><\/p>\n

The right to life generates the right to defend one's life and in consequence the right to the means of self defense. The right to the means of self-defense is protected, not conferred, by the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. As I said, that right is logically antecedent<\/em> to constitutions and such. It follows that the question whether or not said amendment protects an individual citizen's<\/em> right to keep and bear arms is a question of constitutional interpretation that is strictly secondary<\/em> to the question of whether the individual citizen has a right to the means of self defense. Of course he does, as I have argued<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Strictly secondary, but still important. Eugene Volokh  argues<\/a> in a short (4:16) Prager U video that the individual citizen's<\/em> right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally protected. <\/span><\/p>\n

If destructive leftists were to repeal the Second Amendment then, strictly speaking, a Second Amendment<\/em> remedy for this outrage would not be available, but a remedy would be available nonetheless, namely, the overthrow of the leftist tyrants. That would of course require guns. Curiously, then, we need guns not only to protect our rightful gun ownership, but also to protect the constitutional protection of this ownership!<\/span><\/p>\n

We need guns to: protect our property including our guns; protect our lives and liberties from criminals, terrorists, and rogue elements in the government; fruitfully intimidate destructive leftists so as to insure that they behave properly; protect the Constitution including its 2A protection of our gun rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under the rubric 'protect lives and liberties' comes the right to free speech and the right to protect free speech. For that too guns are needed. Leftists are liberty-denying scum and you must never underestimate their capacity for vicious and totalitarian behavior. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/span><\/legend>\n
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<\/a>Maverick Philosopher: The Left's Misplaced Moral Enthusiasm<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a>Progressives as the New Confederates<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is important to distinguish between rights and constitutionally protected rights. The right to life, for example, is a natural right. Its existence does not depend on anything of a conventional nature such as a constitution.  We have the right whether or not it is constitutionally protected. Our great constitution protects our rights; it does … Continue reading “Is Gun Ownership a Constitutionally Protected Right?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol-tobacco-and-firearms","category-u-s-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}