TTAG June 3, 2012
I have a feeling this piece is going to win me very few friends among the Armed Intelligentsia, but as I have said before, I am a completely no-compromise kind of guy when it comes to civil rights. And I fully agrees with L. Neil Smith when he says the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility. This is why it really offends my izzat to see conservatives rejoicing in court rulings that deny people their right to keep and bear arms, and mocking the antis for not joining in the celebration . . .
Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has re-recognized that American citizens have individual rights under the 2nd Amendment, concealed carry legislation is in all States but Illinois, and several States have Constitutional carry, TTAG thinks that gun rights are retrogressing because without illegals voting...ehrr...keeping and bearing arms, the whole structure of rights under the 2nd Amendment are under threat.
It never occurs to TTAG that illegals are outside the Constitutional and legal system. It does not occur to TTAG that even our Founding Fathers supported restrictions on gun rights for felons and the mentally ill. It does not occur that our Founders also opposed homosexual marriage, abortion, and polygamy. It does not occur to TTAG that persons outside the commonweal did not hold rights in the community; slaves and Indians. Even women did not hold the same rights as men, but the 2nd Amendment was stronger then than now. But it is clear from our Founding Fathers that it was certainly acceptable that not all persons could exercise all rights. And consequently Americans exercised more 2nd Amendment rights when those rights were restricted 200 years ago than today. .
The threat to the 2nd Amendment did not come from restricting certain rights to white male citizens but from the time when certain other rights were expanded. At that same time restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights expanded, whether it was restrictions on open carry in Dodge City, the Sullivan Law, or gun bans in Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts, other rights were expanded to groups not previously enjoying 2nd Amendment rights. The 2nd Amendment was a victim of the idea of rights for outside groups, including illegal aliens.
We got welfare for illegal aliens at the same time gun bans were passed in Chicago. And those gun bans lasted for years. But now as barriers to exercising 2nd Amendment rights are falling, some gun nuts claim that 2nd Amendment rights are threatened if illegals don't get those rights.
It is irrational to claim that illegal aliens are the canary in the coal mine when restrictions on said 2nd Amendment rights are falling every day.
But in the end, if illegals can keep and bear arms, what is the rationale for restricting other rights? To serve on juries, to vote, and to hold elected office? If they have the most fundamental right in this country, then they have those lesser rights like voting.
